Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » PayPal

PayPal Mobile VP David Marcus Promoted To President

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:29:14 +0000

Former PayPal president Scott Thompson has left the company to become the CEO of Yahoo! This left an empty spot for eBay to fill at PayPal. That spot has been filled by David Marcus, the former CEO of Zong and the former PayPal Mobile VP. PayPal acquired Zong for $240 million.

“He’s going to lead PayPal with that “founder’s perspective,” to bring start-up energy to PayPal’s unmatched global reach and digital payment capabilities. With David at the helm, we will have an even deeper commitment at PayPal, and across eBay Inc., to be a leading technology-driven and customer-focused product innovation company. We’ll continue to focus on accelerating product innovation, driving consumer engagement and creating a world where paying anytime, anywhere and any way is synonymous with PayPal,” wrote PayPal acting president John Donahoe.

Marcus’ first company was a telecommunications company called GTN in 1996, which was acquired by World Access in 2000. That same year he launched Echovox, a mobile media monetization company that allowed large media companies to connect with their mobile audiences. Zong spun out of Echovox and offered a mobile payments platform. After PayPal acquired Zong last year, Marcus became VP of Mobile Payments at PayPal.

PayPal processed $4 billion in mobile payment transactions last year and they expected $7 billion in mobile payment volume in 2012. Marcus has been hard at work to create a Square-like mobile payments hardware and software platform.

PayPal Announces Square Competitor “PayPal Here”

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:11:59 +0000

PayPal has announced a service that acts as a digital wallet system for consumers. PayPal president and CEO John Donahoe announced the dongle that can be used for accepting credit cards. This service competes directly against Square. The service is called “PayPal Here.” The credit card reader appears to be a blue triangle that snaps on top of the iPhone through a headphone jack. The device has a wing on a hinge to remain stable on top of the phone.

The device uses an app called “PayPal Here” for the merchant to punch in an amount. The merchant would then hand the phone to the customer for them to tip and sign. The customer could have the receipt e-mailed to them.

The app has a “Scan Card” where the iPhone uses the camera to read the credit card number if the dongle is not available. The merchant would still need the CVV and zip code for this feature to use. The app accepts any credit card or debit card. It can also be used for tracking cash payments.

The card reader and app is encrypted. PayPal is offering both for free, but they will charge a flat rate of 2.7%. PayPal says that the free debit card it offers will give 1% cash back, which makes the effective rate 1.7% if you use that card. PayPal Here will be available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Hong Kong started today.

PayPal Has The Buyer Destroy A Violin To Get A Refund

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 03:46:17 +0000

Regretsy reader Erica reported a complaint about how she recently sold an old French violin to a Canadian buyer. The buyer disputed the authenticity of the label so PayPal required him to destroy the violin and send over photographic evidence of it. This is part of PayPal’s dispute resolution statement. Even though the label may not have been correct, the actual violin was pre-dated from World War II and it was authenticated by an experienced luthier that was valued at $2,500. Erica said that PayPal “100% defended their action and gave me the party line.” [Regretsy via Laughing Squid]

Yahoo! Hires Scott Thompson As CEO

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:18:51 +0000

Yahoo! Inc. has hired Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer, effective on January 9, 2012. Tim Morse will return to his duties as Chief Financial Officer, who was serving as the interim CEO when Carol Bartz was fired. Thompson has also joined Yahoo!’s board of directors. Thompson served most recently as the President of eBay subsidiary PayPal.

While Thompson was PayPal president, the user base grew from 50 million to 104 million active users in 190 countries. He also served at a time when the number of merchant partners grew to over 8 million. Revenues grew from $1.8 billion to $4 billion in 2011.

“Yahoo! is an industry icon and I am very excited about the prospect of working with one of the great teams in the online world to deliver Yahoo!’s next era of success,” stated Thompson said. “Yahoo! has a rich history and a solid foundation to build on, and its continued user engagement is one of the many reasons for my enthusiasm. With the ultimate goal of delivering the value our shareholders expect, my immediate focus will be on getting to know the entire team and hearing more from all Yahoo!s, working closely with the engineers and product teams, and diving deeply into our products and services to learn more about what our more than 700 million users find most engaging and useful. I will also be working directly with our region leaders and sales teams globally to get a clearer understanding of the needs of our advertisers and publishers. Clearly, speed is important but we will attack both the opportunity ahead and the competitive challenges with an appropriate balance of urgency and thoughtfulness. I cannot wait to get started.”

Louis CK Makes About $1 Million In 12 Days From Torrent Video

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:07:37 +0000

Earlier this month comedian Louis C.K. released a torrent video of his “Live at the Beacon Theater” for the $5 DRM-free download. Either you can visit his website and pay $5 or you can pirate it yourself. Louis C.K. fans are showing their support by paying for it as there is now $1 million in his PayPal account. It only took about 12 days to hit that number. C.K. is paying $250,000 in costs for the website, $250,000 to his staff as a bonus, and $280,000 will be given to charities such as Kiva, Charity:Water, Green Chimneys, The Pablove Foundation, and The Fistula Foundation. [TechDirt]

PayPal To Launch Daily Deals Service Next Year

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:59:44 +0000

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) subsidiary PayPal is going to start competing head-on with Groupon and LivingSocial by offering daily deals starting next year. The coupons will be based on the buying habits and mobile locations of their users. PayPal has partnered with 200 U.S. merchants on this initiative said PayPal President Scott Thompson.

Thompson said that PayPal can use customer preferences better than LivingSocial and Groupon because of all the data they have. By moving into the daily deals market, PayPal will be able to take more money from their already existing 103 million members. Some of the daily deals may include groceries, salon visits, yoga classes, etc.

As of right now, Groupon and LivingSocial have a 73% market share in the daily deals market. Groupon is expected to make revenues of about $2.35 billion next year, which is a sevenfold increase from 2010. These daily deal coupons are supposed to keep customers using eBay beyond just the payment process. eBay bought PayPal in October 2002 for $1.5 billion.

[BusinessWeek]

PayPal Backtracks On Regretsy’s Donation Actions

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:54:02 +0000

Regretsy is a blog that makes fun of products and sellers on e-commerce website Etsy.com. However Regretsy recently decided to start collecting donations to give to poor children for the holidays. It turns out that PayPal forced them to refund donations because they used a button widget that was supposed to be used for nonprofits. Now PayPal is backtracking on this request in the midst of all the bad publicity.

PayPal director of communications Anuj Nayar said “Just like anyone else, we believe strongly in helping those in need, especially around the holiday season. We are making a donation to Regretsy to help their cause, and we’re truly sorry this occurred.” Nayar also said that the funds have been released.

[Silicon Valley]

PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel Invests $1.25 Million To Create Floating Micro-Countries

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:32:31 +0000

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel is putting some of his wealth into an interesting cause. He has put $1.25 million in to create and promote floating micro-countries. Thiel made the investment through The Seasteading Institute.

The Seasteading Institute was founded by Patri Friedman and Wayne Gramlich. The idea for the micro-countries is with the hopes of “experimenting with new ideas for government.” Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent in the sea, outside territory and jurisdiction of any government or standing nation.

The islands would operate in international waters and would allow a Libertarian style of government that does not have welfare, minimum wage requirements, or weapons restrictions.

Thiel was to launch a floating office park off of the coast of San Francisco, California next year. He expects a full settlement of the island in 2019. Thiel and Seasteading aims to have 10 million floating residents by 2050.

[Digital Trends]

Kabbage Raises $17 Million

Riley Kennysmith — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:27:06 +0000

Kabbage, an online merchant lending startup, has raised $17 million in new funding. The investors include Mohr Davidow Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, David Bonderman, Warren Stephens, the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, Jim McKelvey and others. Kabbage lends money to online merchants using PayPal’s Adaptive Payments API. [TechCrunch]

Apple Accidentally Charges Customer 122 Times For Lion OS

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 20:32:10 +0000

John Christman went to upgrade to the Lion operating system on July 23. He thought he only had to pay $31.79 after the sales tax, but PayPal ended up charging him 121 extra times for a total cost of $3,878.40. D’oh!

John reached out to PayPal and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to see what went wrong, but the two companies played the blame game with each other. “Apple Blames PayPal, PayPal blames Apple. They both are claiming to investigate, but I am stuck broke for three days now.” John believes it had something to do with the iCloud feature that allows iTunes to automatically download the previous purchases.

I fresh installed Lion, because the upgrade caused a lot of problems. My system needed as fresh start anyway.

I logged into our developer account and got the latest iTunes Beta, and installed it. iTunes has a cool new feature to download all your purchased apps for you.
I clicked download all.

As each download started it charged me $31.79. Some apps came fast, some took longer, but the timing was directly related to when a new app started to download.

John had downloaded 116 applications total and he said that that several apps had failed to download and needed a restart. He believes that 121 extra charges and the 116 applications seem too close to be a coincidence. The purchases say refunded, but John has not received his money back. “My mortgage is due in 2 days, and thanks to them, I don’t have the money,” said John.

[MacRumors]