pcooney10

Yea I'd agree with that. Was bummed this couldn't be set up with a credit card, and didn't bother asking after realizing it'd break their business model.

All online transactions are processed as credit - even if the card used is debit/prepaid debit - and the card issuer earns 1-3% for each transaction. Some of this fee is rebated back to people through cashback/travel rewards cards, but I am assuming Privacy & Customer's Bank will be using it to fund their business.

Pretty cool idea! And even cooler website!! Would be interesting to see some sort of loyalty/rewards program implemented, although that doesn't really jive with your anti-marketing pitch.

I'll be sticking with my credit cards for now. They're worth a lot more than their rewards, and it's a shame so many people choose to stick with debit...

Yea +1 to that. Transaction fees are where card issuers profit the most, the rewards are just a share of their take.

Do you think they're running loads of security tests all the while or something? I'd imagine a majority (if not all) of the checks are done up front- especially given it's 2015.

Pretty sure they get a nice bump on their balance sheet for cash "in-transit" - and keeping the timeframe to 3-5 business days only magnifies that effect.

Which banks are offering throwaway credit card numbers? And where do you see wide scale deployment 3Dsecure for online checkouts? Certainly not in the US.

And what online payments processors are offering less than PayPal's 2.9% + $0.30? Seems pretty standard across the industry.

This deal is huge, but I hope Amazon starts doing a little better diligence on their sellers. I was initially drawn to Amazon for their amazing customer reviews - they were usually current and decently, well-written - but most importantly they offered a resassurance that websites without product reviews didn't have.

Over the past year, I've noticed a HUGE uptick in the quantity of fake 5-star reviews. They are so blatant it's frightening, and they usually go unnoticed in Amazon's default "Most Helpful" sorting.

In particular, the Home Office Desk Chairs landscape is pretty insane: http://www.amazon.com/Home-Office-Desk-Chairs-Furniture/b?ie.... I was trying to find a chair back in September, and I was appalled by some of the reviews I was seeing. Top selling products, with several hundred reviews that averaged out to 4/4.5/5 stars.

This is a screenshot from back in September: http://imgur.com/qbCz0yE, and it only contains a small sample of the "Awesome, highly recommend" reviews spattered around. You'll notice this pattern on virtually every chair on Amazon, except the Aamazon basics chairs which wer launched sometime in late September / early October. Their reviews seem pretty good so far (i.e. real), but unfortunately for me I had purchased a chair from eBay before these launched.

These patterns are pretty frighteneing (especially considering a lot of people are actually buying these things), especially considering I've experienced the same issues when shopping for others things.

Has anyone else had an experience like this? Or am I losing it?