Comment by nathanb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nathanb | Hacker News Reader

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It's attitudes like this that make life miserable for a minority of people.

Google: Our products work for most people. If they don't work for you, we won't support you. Good luck with our competitors.

Paypal, Square: our fraud prevention metrics are generally reliable. If you're a false positive, we won't serve you. Good luck getting your money.

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, etc: Our Internet services work pretty well for most people. If they don't work for you, enjoy spending an hour or more in customer support hell. They may solve your problem. If not, good luck getting home internet from our non-existent competitors.

Imagine if the rest of the world worked like this:

* People whose legs work can use the toilets here. In a wheelchair? Good luck finding somewhere else.

* Only people who can drive a car can get state-issued ID. Can't drive? Good luck not officially existing in the eyes of many.

* Only people without a history of chronic illness can get free health care. Pre-existing condition? Good luck with your third job to pay for your treatments.

It is absolutely Square's prerogative to determine who they will and will not serve. And if you choose not to serve someone because they are an inconvenient minority, it's your call. And it makes you kind of a jerk. Expect to be called out on it.

Square: you are PayPal. You are Comcast. You are the old and busted status quo that the new hotness will usurp one day. Don't like it? Prove it otherwise.

He did a pretty good job explaining the problem which seems quite complex. Cut the guy some slack, it doesn't sound like he is in a position to make necessary changes, such as making the banks liable for their own crappy security procedures.

There are two kinds of attitudes one can take:

1. It's a complicated problem. I will explain to you why it is complicated. Now it is your problem.

2. It's a complicated problem. I will own the problem. I will insulate you from the problem as much as possible.

It's not pyduan's fault, and I'm not asking him to own the problem. But explaining why the problem is complicated or excusing bad behavior because it stems from a complicated problem is an active barrier to actually fixing the problem. How many indignities do we suffer daily simply because complicated problems have entered the status quo and become our problems?

Hard problems should be challenges, not excuses.

I think you may have misinterpreted my comment (you know I don't work for Square right?).

> Hard problems should be challenges, not excuses.

Which is precisely why I mentioned in my original post that my preference (and Eventbrite's) goes towards doing the opposite and trying hard to give the user the benefit of the doubt. By doing this we expose ourselves to more risk because we want to transact with everyone -- without risking to disclose too much about our policies, you'll notice our system is very tolerant for mistakes and missing inputs, and in case something does go wrong we have a dedicated support team to deal with these issues. This makes building and training our algorithms that much more complicated if we want to keep our risk profile in check but it is a trade-off I'm happy to make, so I'd like to think I'm not guilty of what you're accusing me of.

Overall, my point was just to provide some context on where Square comes from since OP seemed confused about what they perceived as a ridiculous policy. The comparisons you picked (Comcast, Google) are a good example of why it's interesting to talk about fraud (which is a topic we rarely have in mind when building or using payment services): fraud is not a simple inconvenience for startups -- it's something that can potentially put the entire business at risk, so you have to have both the ability and the willingness to take on that risk. In the absence of controls I can think of many ways to defraud Square out of millions of dollars in the matter of hours. They're strong enough to take the hit it now, but one single such attack while they were younger could have put their success in considerable danger had they not taken some precautions.

Of course this is no excuse for not having a friendlier or more reactive support, but Square or not Square I just felt this is a topic worth bringing to the spotlight.

I realize you don't work for Square...

I took exception to your comment not because I thought you were representing Square but because it seemed like your comment was using "fraud prevention is hard" as an excuse to defend Square's treatment of OP.

> I just felt this is a topic worth bringing to the spotlight

It's always good to have an experienced, rational explanation of why a company might have engaged in some seemingly-ridiculous behavior. Thanks for providing that. Unfortunately, such an explanation often gets used as a crutch or an excuse for not aiming higher. How many years did individuals and small businesses have no recourse from PayPal before Stripe, Square, et al. came along? Do we really want to have that long of a gap again just because the new incumbents can hide behind the same "it's hard" mentality as the old?

So while I'm sorry that I interpreted your comment incorrectly as defending the "fraud prevention is hard so let's marginalize the minority" argument, I wanted to make sure that I expressed my dislike for that mindset before it took hold.

So while I'm sorry that I interpreted your comment incorrectly as defending the "fraud prevention is hard so let's marginalize the minority" argument, I wanted to make sure that I expressed my dislike for that mindset before it took hold.

So you're saying you were in too much of a hurry to jump on his back to read what he wrote? At least put the apology at the top of your comment rather than at the end of all the excuses.

>> Unfortunately, such an explanation often gets used as a crutch or an excuse for not aiming higher. How many years did individuals and small businesses have no recourse from PayPal before Stripe, Square, et al. came along? Do we really want to have that long of a gap again just because the new incumbents can hide behind the same "it's hard" mentality as the old?

What's the solution here? If I assume you aren't advocating legal requirements for how easy companies have to make verification (which, let's be honest, is a non-starter since laws generally make it harder to verify than easier), the only real solution is to call out companies that do this, which should in turn spur competition from those who think they can do better. It's unfortunate that it takes as long as it does, but I'm not sure if there is a better system.

That said, writing this post is exactly the type of response that should encourage improvement and competition.

I'm not sure, at an implementation level, what the solution is. But I know the only way to get there is to not view the problem of fraud prevention without alienating the minority to be an insoluble problem. And that's the response my comment was intended to provoke.

You seem to be demanding that someone somewhere make the problem go away. Personally I hope whatever grows out of bitcoin (maybe even bitcoin) makes it go away. It's a hard problem. It's not ideal for customers, merchants or payment processors.

The reality is that it's not solvable right now without compromises. Transaction fees are high until it get solved. It could take 5, 10, 20 years. We won't know until it gets solved. Big hairy problem. I don't think it's fair to get up and demand this be solved.

Who are you making this demand to?

I'm not making the demand that anyone solve the problem. I'm making the demand that we not view the problem as fundamentally insoluble.

There are several categories of service which are in this category where a private company's decision not to service certain customers amounts to a problematic (and sometimes arbitrary) discrimination. Credit cards & financial services, payment processing, insurance (auto, health, tradesman etc.), some rental markets. There are a bunch.

These tend to be oligopolistic or monopolistic markets where where decisions are made methodically by algorithms, actuarial & statistical analysis & such. Low margin industries.

The problem is that accessing health or financial services is something bordering on the realm of human right. I understand and sympathize with the objection to the proliferation of"positive" rights. The "right to housing" for example has been tried and (not everywhere) failed or at least caused a lot of collateral damage.

But, I also sympathize with the statement that access to (for example) financial services is pretty fundamental and needs to be accessible to everyone in order to maintain a base level of egality necessary for democracy. So if by whisky you refer to…..

It's a hairy problem. I think square & paypal should make it a priority to be fair in a common sense way, even if it raises costs somewhat. If not, they will eventually get stuck with ombudsmen or regulators.

> * People whose legs work can use the toilets here. In a wheelchair? Good luck finding somewhere else.

So you're saying a business discriminating based on credit rating is equivalent to discriminating against the disabled?

I think he's saying that businesses discriminating based on incorrect credit ratings when in fact the person is demonstrably credit-worthy, and it's the business who is at fault for not checking correctly, and not providing an alternative route to getting things checked, is somewhat analogous to discriminating against the disabled.

In each case it's not the customer's fault, and the customer should not be discriminated against. It's not an equivalence, it's an analogy. In each case the business is denying service for a reason that is not the customer's fault. There is an analogy to be drawn, even though it's not an equivalence.

I think here it's not a matter of "credit worthy", it is a matter of, "does this person exist?"

I'm pretty sure Square knows he exists, especially given that they allow him to accept cash payments. The title is (possibly justified) hyperbole. They know he exists, they just choose to ignore him having decided he's a bad risk for some of their services.

@ColinWright - From what I understand, Square's verification exists to make sure the person signing up is who they say they are. So if I find someone's social security card on the ground, or guess the SSN (not that hard in some cases), I can't sign up for Square pretending to be that person. I don't think they are running credit checks. Their provider simply scrapes credit reports as an additional source for questions ("Which of these banks do you have an account at?" or "What's the street number of your first mortgage?")

We're using the same terms in slightly different ways. You're talking about acknowledging that someone really is who they are, but being unwilling to extend them credit. I'm talking about not being willing to extend credit to the entity in question, whether they are who they say they are or not.

It's a genuine distinction, but perhaps it doesn't really matter. Perhaps it does, but regardless, we're not really disagreeing. Square is refusing to provide access to the individual because they claim it is risky to do so. They're saying it's because they can't confirm his identity, but it's still a refusal to extend "credit" to an "individual."

> People whose legs work can use the toilets here. In a wheelchair? Good luck finding somewhere else.

Sounds like a lot of Europe.

Which part of Europe have you been?

In the last 2 years? Holland, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Italy.

Or all of Asia

Which is precisely why things don't always "scale" elegantly. There's always someone, somewhere, some how having an exception to the rules of your system.

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