

Paypal resumes local bank transfers to India - SingAlong
https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2010/02/resuming-local-bank-withdrawals-to-india/

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shabda
I have posted this in the last thread but I will repeat it here. This should
be a classic case study in how to loose all your reputation in a large and
growing market.

1\. Possibly the regulators were at fault here, however Paypal acted in a very
intransparent and user-hostile way. I issue with Paypal in not (at least the
largest issue) the outage.

2\. The whole drama lasted for a month, during this time all the communication
from Paypal was two blog posts, and no personal mails to the merchants.

3\. Paypal tried very hard to sweep this whole issue under the carpet, the
first communication from them(on their blog, not a personal mail) DAYS AFTER
the problem was there, and already known.

4\. In themselves they are not big, but there some outright factual
inaccuracies/lies on that Blog. (Eg it says a check transfer takes 4-5, days,
which is wrong, it is sent by Paypal in 4-5 days, and can take upto 45 days
for delivery)

5\. Nobody at Paypal was willing to take responsibility, and provide a
timeline for resolution.

Paypal was an extremely preferred provider in India, but they have lost all
credibility now. I have talked to more than a few people who are not going to
use it anymore.

I was a huge fan of Paypal, and used it as my preferred payment processor.
Last year I would have made > 5000USD for Paypal. I will still use because its
convenient for a number of people, but it wont be my preferred processor, and
I hope to convince more people to use other alternatives.

And the biggest kicker is that in spite of the outages, Paypal could have been
seen as a consumer friendly company if only they.

1\. Were more honest about the problems.

2\. Provided more communication to the merchants.

3\. (Hopefully) provided a timeline for resolutions.

~~~
patio11
Hypothetically assume Paypal had written this on a blog post or email to
merchants: "We would totally like to offer you this service but bureaucrats in
your government have ordered us to stop offering it while they conduct a
'thorough investigation' as to our legality. They have offered to expedite
this investigation if we can 'demonstrate our continued commitment to
following the laws and customary practices of India.'"

How effective do _you_ think that would have been at achieving expeditious
resolution for Paypal's customers? I have suspicions which I cannot share with
you because, hey, my day job _also_ will need a (another) rubber stamp in the
near future and I don't want to make difficulty for them.

~~~
shabda
1\. Why would sending me a mail saying that "Hey we can not make transfers to
your account" instead of/in addition to a public blog post AFTER I knew the
issue have made it more difficult for them?

2\. Its easy to blame the regulators, however, a) Paypal has never claimed
what the exact problems were. b) If it was recent change which put them in
this position, or were they in violations of existing laws. c) Were they
informed of the problem earlier that this, and given an option to tell the
merchants.

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chaosprophet
Summary: Merchants are required to fill out their export code, and personal
payments are still suspended.

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patrickgzill
Given India's comfort level with gold dealing, I wonder if this means that an
alternate payment system such as goldmoney.com will be able to get a lot of
traction.

You have to think that some other online payment company would be planning to
buy ads online and run a billboard campaign in some of the larger cities in an
attempt to gain share.

~~~
vamsee
That's a pretty good idea, actually. Almost everybody above 25 is continually
looking to buy gold in India. Personally, I don't mind getting paid (at least
partly) in gold ;).

As for competitors, there are very few PP competitors that you can really
count on. There's XOOM, I but never used it, as none of my professional
acquaintances can vouch for it. When it comes to transferring money, people
get really careful, and PP has a lot of credibility (so far, at least).

Now that PayPal is actually clearing the regulatory hurdles, I expect a lot
more players in the fray who will take advantage of the emerging clarity how
to deal with cross-border transfers.

