Any startup that wants to depend on Paypal in any shape or form is only setting up itself for a disaster and world of hurt
Paypal are the scum of the scum, with the most clueless customer support, they act like a bank but are not a bank (well here in europe anyways) and hence not subject to same regulations and scrutiny (what little of those there are) so if something happens to your money with them (and its guaranteed they will screw you sooner or later) then you are f%&cked
"In 2007, PayPal Europe was granted a Luxembourg banking license, which, under European Union law, allows it to conduct banking business throughout the EU.[54] It is therefore regulated as a bank by Luxembourg's banking supervisory authority, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF)."
Normally I'd completely agree, however, to get accepted into the program you must be 'nominated by a Startup Blueprint partner (accelerator, incubator or VC) or are directly on-boarded by PayPal.' This makes me thinks program members might enjoy special treatment, hopefully perhaps less of the type that got PayPal its terrible reputation.
considering PayPal's ethically void approach to business there are few things I'd recommend to a startup less than having any sort of involvement w/ them
I think this is great scheme by Paypal, I've a few companies that use PayPal as our main Payment gateway although I've always found there phone support great (a lot of people don't realise you can phone PayPal), sometimes with API errors and integration stuff the forum can be a bit lacking.
So you get $50k in waived fees and dedicated support for no equity? Sounds like a great deal to me, especially if you are wary of working with PayPal. It's a guaranteed whitelist of your account.
I am curious if this has any relation to their recent acquisition of Braintree Payments. If they are instead using Braintree as the payment gateway, it could work out very well for the participants.
[+] [-] dcc1|12 years ago|reply
Paypal are the scum of the scum, with the most clueless customer support, they act like a bank but are not a bank (well here in europe anyways) and hence not subject to same regulations and scrutiny (what little of those there are) so if something happens to your money with them (and its guaranteed they will screw you sooner or later) then you are f%&cked
so beware!
[+] [-] aroch|12 years ago|reply
"We've determined that your startup has violated, uh, our integrity clause so we're holding your IP while we decide what to do about your violation"
[+] [-] zt|12 years ago|reply
"In 2007, PayPal Europe was granted a Luxembourg banking license, which, under European Union law, allows it to conduct banking business throughout the EU.[54] It is therefore regulated as a bank by Luxembourg's banking supervisory authority, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Regulatory_status
[+] [-] pallandt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zengr|12 years ago|reply
They are literally giving away free money. Why this hate?
[+] [-] batemanesque|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pbreit|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dannowatts|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thehodge|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minouye|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdost|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yuhong|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netpenthe|12 years ago|reply
i've previously had $50k locked for over a year (and thought i'd NEVER get it back). I then vowed never to use them again...
but buying stuff with paypal is just SOO easy.. its 3 clicks... so much easier than getting a credit card out.
i hate/love dem
regardless, this offer is pretty attractive