PayPal Freezes $750K in MineCraft Dev's Account

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Joe Deadman

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Jan 9, 2010
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Fleo Black said:
But it is his fault. After fund over 100K, I would have just put in a saving account or put in a U.S. Saving Bond or the stock market.
He does withdraw the money on a regular basis but this has all built up since his account was limited.
Also he's Swedish and wants to start his own company so I doubt he would want to invest the money in U.S saving bonds :p.

Anyway I hope he gets his monies back I would hate it if something like this happened to me.
 

Albino Boo

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Jun 14, 2010
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Cpt. Red said:
Good point...
But the MOMS(=VAT) is at max 25% and that's nowhere close to the 50% you are talking about but then again there might be some additional taxes I don't know about...

Also sorry if it looked like I was complaining I was just trying to give more details...
Hes going to be liable for personal tax on what ever is left of after he has paid the 25% vat per sale, in Sweden I think the top rate tax is 55% or there abouts.
 

LightOfDarkness

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Mar 18, 2010
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Altorin said:
why in all holy hell would you keep 750,000 dollars in your paypal.
His PayPal account was disabled, but people could still buy the game. The 750K is from accumulation over about 2-3 weeks.
 

KaiRai

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Jun 2, 2008
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Payapl once froze my account for a week when I bought my car. It was £675. They sent me an e-mail detailing it was "An oddly specific number." OF COURSE IT WAS YOU ASSHOLES! I'D JUST PAID FOR A CAR!

Needless to say they did eventually give in 16 days or so later.
 

TOGSolid

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Jul 15, 2008
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On one hand, people have told Notch that he had to ditch PayPal ASAP due to how crappy that service is.

On the other hand, PayPal has a bit of a track record when dealing with sums of money more than a hundred bucks. They really shouldn't be trusted for large transactions.
 

Bill_Stanbrook

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Oct 13, 2009
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It's always a good idea to have multiple payment processors as backups in case on of them has issues, and it's also a good idea to have your payment page setup so that you can easily enable and disable links for payment processors on it.
 

Squiggers

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May 10, 2008
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Michael Flick said:
He says he clears out his paypal account every week?

"Persson noted that he actually clears out his account every week"

Holy fucking shit, how much money does this dude actually have then? sounds like 750k is a drop in the f'ing bucket for him, he might as well tell paypal to shove it up their asses and switch to a direct deposited credit card system.
Because of how Paypal works, its generally advisable that you don't keep vast sums in the account connected to your paypal. Mainly as you'll have no end of fun if someone demands a refund (Ebay.. mm.), or if they freeze your account. Hell, i'd clear it out if i was having an income of £100 a week.

The_root_of_all_evil said:
With online banking though...
Paypal isn't technically a bank - due to how its set up, it doesn't have any form of regulation body to keep it in check. Not to mention, Paypal makes substantial interest on the money it has on its books - so, like this $750,000 here. Paypal is making money off that while its on their accounts.

Legally, theres bugger all you can do, as theres no regulation for the type of service that is provided/what Paypal is. Anywhere. Which is deeply concerning.

I'd suggest an alternative, such as google checkout for example. I've yet to start properly using paypal, but I suspect i'd begin to have issues as an indie developer due to income spikes. Although most probably nowhere near the levels that Notch has seen.
 

SimuLord

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Aug 20, 2008
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Paypal remains a constant source of headaches and fraud on the Internet. It's a wonder anyone bothers with it anymore.
 

Tony2077

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Dec 19, 2007
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i only have 5$ in mine and its limited i need to confirm my location but my photo id is in the mail somewhere and the other thing i have no idea what would work
 

De Ronneman

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Dec 30, 2009
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Altorin said:
why in all holy hell would you keep 750,000 dollars in your paypal.
Read the article, it's one weeks revenues.

But seriously, how awesome must that game be to make 750k in one week?
 

The Random One

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May 29, 2008
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Squiggers said:
Paypal isn't technically a bank - due to how its set up, it doesn't have any form of regulation body to keep it in check. Not to mention, Paypal makes substantial interest on the money it has on its books - so, like this $750,000 here. Paypal is making money off that while its on their accounts.
Not to mention that, if you read the terms of service, they keep all the money they have in bank accounts and keep the interests. So if a bunch of people leave ten bucks in their accounts for a long time they make money off just keeping them.

I never had any problems with Paypal but I only use it to pay. It's probably better to use only for microtransactions. If you're making 750K a week you can pay more to use a better service.

I'll also comment that if Minecraft is the game I'm thinking of I tried the demo and found it utterly drab. Do notice that I'm not some ADD-addled idiot, I just found it to be a tamer, more colourful Dwarf Fortress. Which speaking of Paypal I need to give money to.
 

Zing

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Oct 22, 2009
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Minecraft is great if you're a neckbeard with a lot of time to waste. Gotta congratulate him on his success though...hope he gets his money.
 

Thaius

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Mar 5, 2008
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Straying Bullet said:
Cpt. Red said:
"600592 registered users, of which 133537 (22.23%) have bought the game." And the price have been ?9.95 so that's a total of ?1328693.15... A bit more then 750k...
Jesus, I wouldn't want to invest that money into a company. Just invest it into something else, generate more revenue so you can realize more dreams.
If your dream is to make games, that makes perfect sense. Heck, it's what I'd so. Well, a new car, a PS3, then split it evenly between college loans and money for my next game. Close enough.
 

Swifteye

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Apr 15, 2010
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Altorin said:
why in all holy hell would you keep 750,000 dollars in your paypal.
Oh you didn't read the whole article did you? He empties the money in paypal weekly however there was a unexpected spike in sales.
 

Sneaky Paladin

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Jan 21, 2009
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I love Minecraft. Infact I reviewed it on this site once but anyway. I can't beleive how unfair this is. He made all this money as a bedroom programmer alone and now he may lose it all. And worse even Paypal gets to keep it then. I hope they figure out he just made a really good game is all.
 

Quaxar

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Sep 21, 2009
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Well, looks like Paypal and he won't be
*puts on sunglasses*
pals anymore.
YEEEAAAAAH!

I'm sorry, overused meme and everything. But this is weird. Can't he... tell Paypal that he's using the account for big business money transfers?
 

dawdarsd

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Aug 16, 2010
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the explanation why they took the money should be this
paypal guy:hey some kid just made 750k off an addicting indie videogame that was made with cheap resources
paypal guy 2:hey this asshole isn't donating his hard earned money, let's steal everything he owns and say it's clasified
paypal guy: this is the most awesome idea we ever though of thanks!
one hour later
minecraft creator:why are you taking all my money away from me?
paypal guy: it's clasified, but we probably will go rob some video game companies next, because they use millions on video games then instead of giving away the money to africa like we planned to, we are gonna take over the world k?
my op they're downright retarded