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Comment by piramida | Hacker News Reader

Not only Nigeria, may I point out that most countries of the world, besides the very few top ones (US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Eurozone countries) are in about the same position regarding e-commerce and web acceptance in general. You can't start a paypal account, you can't pay online with locally issued credit cards, and you generally are prejudiced as a criminal.

Which must be contributing to the online crime coming from this countries, since if you are already treated as a thief, why not just be one? :)

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> Which must be contributing to the online crime coming from this countries, since if you are already treated as a thief, why not just be one? :)

There is absolutely no logic to that statement.

Not being allowed to do business on a site because your country has a statistically high incidence of fraud is not the same as being treated as a thief.

Being treated as a thief would mean to be wrongfully prosecuted for a crime you did not commit, not being allowed to do business in the way that you prefer is not a punishment, it's an inconvenience, even if it is a substantial one.

'blame the merchant' seems to be the approach taken by most companies that are in the payment chain, our payment processor actually blocks a whole slew of countries and it might lose us the occasional sale but at least we get to stay in business.

There is quite a lot of logic and I'm sorry that I was so brief that my point escaped almost everybody here. Both merchants and customers are "statistically" equated to criminals, forced to do any online business in a closed ghetto. Which does not leave much business opportunities.

Going to an analogy which might make it easier to understand, say you live in Oakland, CA, and by law you can not open a bank account or possess a weapon because your neighborhood has statistically higher crime rate.

I understand people usually don't care much being on the other side of the fence, you lose what, 10% of sales maximum. But please try the mental exercise of being a well-intentioned business on another side.

"Paypal won't let me register and account, so I'll start mass spamming scams online."

I'm not sure I follow.

Also, I'm Brazilian and Paypal accepted my locally issued credit card just fine.

> "Paypal won't let me register and account, so I'll start mass spamming scams online."

Something like: a bunch of reasonably well educated people with internet access, unable to participate in legitimate web commerce, are more likely to pursue illegitimate ways to make money online. Sort of the same problem you had in the 1990s with a bunch of viruses and scams coming out of Eastern Europe.

Exactly. You usually have no choice but to deal in electronic currencies which work in "3rd world" countries. And they most often serve scammers, porn sites, cialex pushers and so on. What are the chances of the legitimate online business which only can accept "dirty" payment methods?

Well, lucky for you then that Brazil is included. I really wish for the situation to change for the better, eventually. But it seems rather stupid, from a programmer point of view, to ban hundred plus countries because you can not fix exploitation of your system by several criminals. Somewhat egocentric, "ah fuck those countries who cares about them anyway", the problem can only get worse.

Internet does not know about borders, and you can't establish ghettos on Internet - it comes biting in the ass later.

> if you are already treated as a thief, why not just be one?

Because that would just perpetual the problem.

Thank you that was my point.

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