[Rules p.1] Things that annoy you guys. 100 percent. Not gonna lie

KK wrote:I don't think there's anything on this planet that can put me in more of a bad mood than technology - it routinely strawberry floats me over!

Today's ongoing irritation: the scanner in the printer suddenly doesn't work. Out of the blue hit with a "Failed to open a connection to the device (-21345)" error message on my Mac. Go through the whole rigmarole of turning the computer off, printer off, router off...usual bullshit that wastes half hour of your life. Finally connects but it's only recognising the printer aspect of the Canon. The option to scan has now vanished.

Torture.

I feel your pain, it always seems that much worse too when things like that just happen for absolutely no reason.

Tomous wrote:Business motivational speakers.

I don't know why but I'm getting loads of these pop up on my feed at the moment and they speak absolute bollocks a lot of the time. Like this one:



I mean, I doubt Bob exists but this is a ridiculous story anyway. Bloke giving him $20m and he has a hissy fit over a 5 hour visit?

I keep getting BTL investor adverts on my FB feed trying to sell me courses on how to start a property empire. If you ever read the text of these it is so vague.

I was trapped working 9-5
I had no plan
I was just existing
I didn't believe (that always gets me)

These courses seem to be scams to me and they seem to make more money from these over there rents.

You get so much of that crap on LinkedIn. It's like Facebook - useful for staying in touch with people (and it can be good for finding jobs) but otherwise filled with utter gooseberry fool.

Imrahil wrote:Yeah, I try to sell off ebay and through Paypal directly as much as possible. Ebay really don't like it when sellers do that though.

It's so dispiriting sometimes with their fees, basically just kneeling with my hands behind my back receiving ebay's schlong down my throat every time I make a sale.

I'll suggest what's more annoying.

Being charged 1.8% by PayPal but then because someone wants to use their PayPal Account rather than just sending their card details to the same company, the privilege of them logging in with their username and password (which by itself is laughably insecure by today's standards) costs me the standard rate of 2.9% plus the fixed amount.

I knock PayPal payments off as an option because 99% of the time if it's there, even if someone knows I'm going to lose money which can equate to a significant part of their order, or effectively my wage, even if someone is perfectly comfortable to send a bank payment (or even if they've agreed to do that first), they will use it. I put it back on if someone explicitly insists on using PayPal because it drove me up the wall paying the same company two different rates because of people's habits relying on an unregulated bank to transact all of their gooseberry fool, half the time for no bloody reason.

Other times, the agreement is to send a Bacs payment, the terms state a bacs payment... Someone sends me the money to my e-mail address without any notice that's what they're going to do, so I'm left with someone's money in an account I didn't ask for, charged for that, and the only option to get the money back is to refund it and then ask them to pay me again.

Green Gecko wrote:

Imrahil wrote:Yeah, I try to sell off ebay and through Paypal directly as much as possible. Ebay really don't like it when sellers do that though.

It's so dispiriting sometimes with their fees, basically just kneeling with my hands behind my back receiving ebay's schlong down my throat every time I make a sale.

I'll suggest what's more annoying.

Being charged 1.8% by PayPal but then because someone wants to use their PayPal Account rather than just sending their card details to the same company, the privilege of them logging in with their username and password (which by itself is laughably insecure by today's standards) costs me the standard rate of 2.9%.

I knock PayPal payments off as an option because 99% of the time if it's there, even if someone knows I'm going to lose money which can equate to a significant part of their order, or effectively my wage, even if someone is perfectly comfortable to send a bank payment (or even if they've agreed to do that first). I put it back on if someone explicitly insists on using PayPal because it drove me up the wall paying the same company two different rates because of people's habits relying on an unregulated bank to transact all of their gooseberry fool, half the time for no bloody reason.

I prefer using paypal for security's sake - means i don't have to rely on the vendor to use a reliable and safe card processor (less of a deal nowadays though). I'd say just raise your prices but offer a discount for using bank transfer.

I do understand that, which is why I offer it as an option, just not the default option. No method of payment should be the default option. I have increased prices commensurate with the likelihood people will insist on using PayPal. But here's where the situation is fairly unique to me. The "reliable and safe card processor" literally is PayPal. The payment portal is implemented to their own standards and they verify that. If that weren't true, due to the way this stuff works, it would simply fail. It can only be transacted successfully if that is done so securely. To get 1.8% (which is either a higher transaction volume tier with PayPal or with their stricter subsidiary Braintree) they vet the businesses that are allowed to take payments and the PCI-DSS requirements are largely on PayPal's side. You also have to complete some paperwork and you have to have agreeable terms for situations like refunds.

I store nothing, I transact no card information - PayPal does. That's how it works. That's why it's annoying because it's the same thing, it's the same vendor processing that transaction. It's more secure, because rather than storing the card details (and often numerous bank or card details, creating a great hacking incentive, a bit like a bitcoin coinbase wallet) inside an account locked behind a likely shitty password, the details are encrypted and processed for about 1 second and that's it, nobody holds them for any amount of time, and certainly never in an unencrypted format. If they are stored (for example recurring subscriptions), guess who holds them? PayPal.

At higher volumes, or even on small orders, it can really strawberry float with the meagre margins clients tend to beat you down towards offering them. The least they can do is honour the payment terms.

Then there are direct debits and Bacs which are generally used by businesses (and I sell to a lot of small businesses). Neither part of that infrastructure stores any information useful to the vendor to charge you, with a direct debit instruction in place. It is you who chooses to pay them and the security of that transaction is up to you and your bank. What it does mean is that you need to trust the seller. You can also cancel and revert direct debits if they fail to meet the standards of the guarantee, e.g. fraud.

If you don't trust the seller, why are you buying from them? In this respect, while PayPal is absolutely a useful tool, it also monetises distrust, levies costs to businesses to usurp their hard earned trust, and generally productise a culture where everyone must depend on an enormous private corporation to "oversee" trust in all transactions. That's bad for numerous reasons. The banks should be doing that, the banks that individuals choose to bank with - not a monopoly like PayPal.

If the prices are increased as a consequence, that's an unnecessary cost past on to consumers that they pay when cost of living and inflation are going up. Yet clients and customers don't see this expense, they don't see the additional accounting overheads and costs associated with logging into a PayPal account to do the same thing as using the VISA/Mastercard infrastructure already in place besides PayPal, making it all the more difficult to justify any particular expense in that purchase.

This isn't getting anywhere near PayPal and Stripe and others randomly freezing millions of funds on a daily basis for small businesses that haven't set a foot wrong, but were pegged by an algorithm or some kind of AI as suspicious. Cashflow blocks like that no only strawberry float over the consumer as the business then cannot afford to deliver on their promises but they kill businesses overnight. It's way too much power for any one financial entity to have.

When competition crops up - Braintree, iZettle, PayPal just strawberry floating buy them, because their goal is to literally own trust, to be "the safest way to pay and buy online", with zero competition. I was with both companies, now if I take a card payment, but it doesn't say PayPal on the card reader, despite the transaction on the bank statement stating *PAYPAL, people will worry it's not PayPal so it isn't safe. If I take a card payment online that is processed and transacted by PayPal, but it doesn't say PAYPAL, then that is not safe. That's an entirely manufactured truth that is not the case.

Green Gecko wrote:I do understand that, which is why I offer it as an option, just not the default option. No method of payment should be the default option. I have increases prices commensurate with the likelihood people will insist on using PayPal. But here's where the situation is fairly unique to me. The "reliable and safe card processor" literally is PayPal. The payment portal is implemented to their own standards and they verify that. If that weren't true, due to the way this stuff works, it would simply fail. It can only be transacted successfully if that is done so securely. To get 1.8% (which is either a higher transaction volume tier with PayPal or with their stricter subsidiary Braintree) they vet the businesses that are allowed to take payments and the PCI-DSS requirements are largely on PayPal's side. You also have to complete some paperwork and you have to have agreeable terms for situations like refunds.

I store nothing, I transact no card information - PayPal does. That's how it works. That's why it's annoying because it's the same thing, it's the same vendor processing that transaction. It's more secure, because rather than storing the card details (and often numerous bank or card details, creating a great hacking incentive, a bit like a bitcoin coinbase wallet) inside an account locked behind a likely shitty password, the details are encrypted and processed for about 1 second and that's it, nobody holds them for any amount of time, and certainly never in an unencrypted format. If they are stored (for example recurring subscriptions), guess who holds them? PayPal.

At higher volumes, or even on small orders, it can really strawberry float with the meagre margins clients tend to beat you down towards offering them. The least they can do is honour the payment terms.

Then there are direct debits and Bacs which are generally used by businesses (and I sell to a lot of small businesses). Neither part of that infrastructure stores any information useful to the vendor to charge you, with a direct debit instruction in place. It is you who chooses to pay them and the security of that transaction is up to you and your bank. What it does mean is that you need to trust the seller. You can also cancel and revert direct debits if they fail to meet the standards of the guarantee, e.g. fraud.

If you don't trust the seller, why are you buying from them? In this respect, while PayPal is absolutely a useful tool, it also monetises distrust, levies costs to businesses to usurp their hard earned trust, and generally productise a culture where everyone must depend on an enormous private corporation to "oversee" trust in all transactions. That's bad for numerous reasons. The banks should be doing that, the banks that individuals choose to bank with - not a monopoly like PayPal.

If the prices are increased as a consequence, that's an unnecessary cost past on to consumers that they pay when cost of living and inflation are going up.

Aye I agree, that is some bullshit they're pulling on you. Extremely mean gooseberry fool. Especially when they have such a large market share, that pricing system just gouges folk like you.

Also don't get me wrong - its not that I don't trust the seller, its that few small businesses are going to be savvy enough about card processors to ensure that they keep things up to date and secure. I'd rather not pump my card details into an unsecured webpage and have my details sent unencrypted across the pot noodle net. At least with paypal I know it's going to have the relevant security involved for the transaction. Well that and I don't have to type my damned card details in again.

Stugene wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:I do understand that, which is why I offer it as an option, just not the default option. No method of payment should be the default option. I have increases prices commensurate with the likelihood people will insist on using PayPal. But here's where the situation is fairly unique to me. The "reliable and safe card processor" literally is PayPal. The payment portal is implemented to their own standards and they verify that. If that weren't true, due to the way this stuff works, it would simply fail. It can only be transacted successfully if that is done so securely. To get 1.8% (which is either a higher transaction volume tier with PayPal or with their stricter subsidiary Braintree) they vet the businesses that are allowed to take payments and the PCI-DSS requirements are largely on PayPal's side. You also have to complete some paperwork and you have to have agreeable terms for situations like refunds.

I store nothing, I transact no card information - PayPal does. That's how it works. That's why it's annoying because it's the same thing, it's the same vendor processing that transaction. It's more secure, because rather than storing the card details (and often numerous bank or card details, creating a great hacking incentive, a bit like a bitcoin coinbase wallet) inside an account locked behind a likely shitty password, the details are encrypted and processed for about 1 second and that's it, nobody holds them for any amount of time, and certainly never in an unencrypted format. If they are stored (for example recurring subscriptions), guess who holds them? PayPal.

At higher volumes, or even on small orders, it can really strawberry float with the meagre margins clients tend to beat you down towards offering them. The least they can do is honour the payment terms.

Then there are direct debits and Bacs which are generally used by businesses (and I sell to a lot of small businesses). Neither part of that infrastructure stores any information useful to the vendor to charge you, with a direct debit instruction in place. It is you who chooses to pay them and the security of that transaction is up to you and your bank. What it does mean is that you need to trust the seller. You can also cancel and revert direct debits if they fail to meet the standards of the guarantee, e.g. fraud.

If you don't trust the seller, why are you buying from them? In this respect, while PayPal is absolutely a useful tool, it also monetises distrust, levies costs to businesses to usurp their hard earned trust, and generally productise a culture where everyone must depend on an enormous private corporation to "oversee" trust in all transactions. That's bad for numerous reasons. The banks should be doing that, the banks that individuals choose to bank with - not a monopoly like PayPal.

If the prices are increased as a consequence, that's an unnecessary cost past on to consumers that they pay when cost of living and inflation are going up.

Aye I agree, that is some bullshit they're pulling on you. Extremely mean gooseberry fool. Especially when they have such a large market share, that pricing system just gouges folk like you.

Also don't get me wrong - its not that I don't trust the seller, its that few small businesses are going to be savvy enough about card processors to ensure that they keep things up to date and secure. I'd rather not pump my card details into an unsecured webpage and have my details sent unencrypted across the pot noodle net. At least with paypal I know it's going to have the relevant security involved for the transaction. Well that and I don't have to type my damned card details in again.

I 100% get the inconvenience of putting in card details repeatedly yeah.

I don't think it's possible to accept card details on the PayPal platform on an unsecured page. Instead the products and prices etc are tokenised and sent to the PayPal website to pay and then it goes back again.

That's an option for me, it just bugs the hell out of me that I pay more for that when it's PayPal handling the card data anyway. Like, imagine if somebody refused to receive packages unless they were always sent by Royal Mail - I have seen that before too. My partner was sending a coffee machine, which sold for about £12, and in her eBay auction, it clearly stated the method of shipping was UPS.

Wait, it's NOT being sent by ye old faithful Royale De Maile? WHAT? I cannot possibly go through with accepting your goods! Please refund me immediately.

But.. But... Tracked and insured shipping from Royal Mail costs £15 for this item. Do you want to pay that?

Why CERTAINLY NOT, that is OBSCENE!!

Yet I felt your concern was about your items going missing? In which case, DPD/UPS can ship it for £4, you can track the delivery door to door or collect it from several locations.

I WILL ONLY TRUST THE QUEENS LOYAL COURIERS IN SUCH IMPORTANT MATTERS AS THIS.

So I guess my overall bug is, it's not the mechanisms, or the technology that bothers me, it's people being 100% faithful only to a brand when they don't even know why that is, and that it is quite possibly wasting billions and billions of pounds at scale, due to uncompetitive rates, and shitty practices like the aforementioned account/funds seizure. You can also point at sellers losing disputes on places like eBay, when they were owned by PayPal, protecting PayPal but letting buyer fraud just happen.

Send Adam Jensen already.

Green Gecko wrote:I 100% get the inconvenience of putting in card details repeatedly yeah.

I don't think it's possible to accept card details on the PayPal platform on an unsecured page. Instead the products and prices etc are tokenised and sent to the PayPal website to pay and then it goes back again.

Aye I mean when they don't use Paypal and instead use an unsecured page to send the details on to a card processor and I scream

Yup that's very bad practice and if they do use a card processor it breaks their agreement too so they should lose it (the merchant account).

Never submit any sensitive data through and unencrypted Web page, card details absolutely not worth it.

To make it easier on Firefox I block all http pages by default.

The industry self regulation is massive, the standards are called pci dss and for any company that accepts card data directly the requirements are brutal. But since some of this is self assessed they can just lie about most of it. Its pretty much a giant list of all the dumb gooseberry fool people do when handling customer data.

Fridge freezer doors not closing properly annoys me as it causes it to frost up. Today I decided ton adjust the feet at the front of mine so that the front tilts slightly upwards so the doors would more likely close shut under gravity. But turns out that's how its supposed to be all along...https://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/tech ... -be-level/
Did everyone else know that fridge freezers are supposed to be set higher at the front?

No:1 Final Fantasy Fan wrote:Fridge freezer doors not closing properly annoys me as it causes it to frost up. Today I decided ton adjust the feet at the front of mine so that the front tilts slightly upwards so the doors would more likely close shut under gravity. But turns out that's how its supposed to be all along...https://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/tech ... -be-level/
Did everyone else know that fridge freezers are supposed to be set higher at the front?

Yes.

Yes

Yes

Vermilion wrote:Nope.

Hi,

Hope you're well. Can you please edit your post to say "Yes." please?

Kind regards,

Stugene
Community Engagement Officer

Shyguy64 did you know that fridge freezers are supposed to be set higher at the front

Victor Mildew wrote:Shyguy64 did you know that fridge freezers are supposed to be set higher at the front

Stugene wrote:

Vermilion wrote:Nope.

Hi,

Hope you're well. Can you please edit your post to say "Yes." please?

Kind regards,

Stugene
Community Engagement Officer

eBay buyers suddenly asking for VAT invoice receipts, and then not seeming to grasp the fact I can't issue one (not being a business seller it would also be illegal). Seems to be happening every few months now.

Stugene wrote:

Vermilion wrote:Nope.

Hi,

Hope you're well. Can you please edit your post to say "Yes." please?

Kind regards,

Stugene
Community Engagement Officer

As a result of both this and me finding my post has been edited, i just spilt my tea because i couldn't stop laughing.

Vermilion wrote:

Stugene wrote:

Vermilion wrote:Nope.

Hi,

Hope you're well. Can you please edit your post to say "Yes." please?

Kind regards,

Stugene
Community Engagement Officer

As a result of both this and me finding my post has been edited, i just spilt my tea because i couldn't stop laughing.