PayPal denies stiffing bug-hunting teen on bounty PayPal has denied that it refused a teenage security researcher a reward for finding a potentially nasty bug on the basis that he was too young. The payments processing firm said that while it had denied the 17-year-old a reward, it was because another researcher had already reported the flaw. Robert Kugler, 17, found a cross- …
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He posted screen grabs of the emails he received from Paypal. This one says that "To be eligible for the Bug Bounty Program, you must not: [...] Be less than 18 years of age."
Which is perfectly stupid given how so many IT literate kids exist these days.
What next? the Police refuse to believe a kid when they report a crime? there was a 9yr old who burgled a house and stole a car recently (before crashing it of course).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-22665842
There's some clever little buggers around, get on their good side.
Kid finds bug.
Paypal openly refuse payment because they say age. They even cite US law.
Paypal gets bad press.
Paypal change their excuse.
So, Paypal lies. What a shock.
If they knew it was because some one else found the bug first, they would have said so at the time. Or do they just lie to start with just to say something until they can be bothered to tell the truth.
Either way, Paypal is a scummy business with a virtual monopoly with little regulation or oversight (most people I know only use paypal because of the close shop that is ebay and paypal) which they abuse for profit. But they can be convenient so the sheep happily use them.
Well, in the end, customers get what they deserve.
Barclays won't even process payments to them. I tried and my card was locked a a result. "Not a trusted organisation" I was given.
Look, if you don't know by now, ALWAYS IMMEDIATELY WITHDRAW YOUR ACCUMULATED FUNDS from Paypal if you have to use them. If you don't *have* to use them - DON'T. It's the wild west on the interwebs, and this is a pikey scam of a firm.
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@JDX
I don't think anyone is suggesting that they are not entitled to form their own rules.
The arguement that you don't appear to want to engage with is that the choices they have made in this case are likely to prove detrimental to thir efforts on a number of different levels.
It seems very short-sighted to stiff a willing participant in your program for $3K compared to how much financial damage the bug could have been used to cause and how much bad press they are taking over this. That is not to say they did or did not bilk the researcher out of his just reward, only that their handling of it seems unprofessional and counterproductive.
Actually they do.
I just closed my eBay account and transferred my Paypal balance to my bank.
I intend to close the Paypal account too.
This article reminded was what spurred me into actually doing it (it has been on my to do list for a while, due to the way they let people rip you off if they can fob you off for long enough.)
"Two security researchers (one from China and one from India) found the same bug and always the same reply: Someone else found it, we are sorry!"
So he's upset that two people who definitely weren't the first to find the bug were told that they weren't the first to find the bug? I'm not entirely sure how he thinks this supports his claims that PayPal treated anyone unfairly.
His issue is that it seems those others were disqualified because the bug he reported was already discovered, by him. PayPal seems to be citing his discovery as the reason why they disqualified the other researchers. They seem to be playing both ends against the middle in a scheme to avoid payment if the reward to anyone.
There site and service is terrible.
Did you know that you can link your bank account and make a couple of transactions? You did, I thought so.
Did you know that you can then close your bank account and continue to pay for things using Paypal? You didn't, oh well you can.
Did you know it takes a couple of days (at least) for Paypal to notice? Great system isn't it.
I had actually paid for some items, had them delivered before they even noticed.
My experience of PayPal is that they are, typically, a complete shower of useless tossers. I've never spoken to people more disinterested in providing any form of customer service.
This story, therefore, comes as absolutely no surprise, and I hope someone senior on their payroll recognises the utterly-negative views that are aired whenever PayPal is discussed on the internet.
..."I've never spoken to people more disinterested in providing any form of customer service."
You've never had to deal with Logitech "support" then.
Of all the most crap "support" places around, Logitech has the most useless / disinterested ones so far. They don't make PayPal's look good (they're crap too), but Logitech's ones have _really_ got being crap nailed.
/me guys Kensington stuff now due to this.
I experienced similar behavior from a large British game company who decided that there was an arbitrary date on a gift certificate prize I had been awarded as part of the first US Golden Demon contest, but had taken my own sweet time in using. They were not receptive to the argument that there was nothing in the yards of boilerplate on the document itself to say there was any expiration date. They were not receptive to the argument that delaying the use of the gift certificate was to their advantage and my loss since it was not index linked to their platforming retail price escalations.
They were more receptive when they found out I was seriously ill in hospital and that my wife was working for a large law firm. The clincher? I was not, as they had assumed, a teenager. Why that would make the defining difference in attitude I don't know. But it isn't just an American behavior to gyp for no reason.
As for PayPal, I started my relationship with them reluctantly, was forced to participate more fully by an eBaytard who couldn't read and whose payment arrived a couple of days after a critical change in in the eBay TOS. I hate that they attempt to hijack any PP-mediated transaction to use the PP account rather than my credit card (WHY would I spend my money when I can spend the bank's ffs?) and as a result I have avoided doing business with any site that only offers PP payments (predominantly UK sites for some reason. They loves the PayPal).
eBay is no longer a first resort for me when it comes to printed materials (by far my most frequent type of e-purchase) since I can trust Amazon vendors more than eBayers when it comes to describing what they are selling me. Yes I've been burned. Not seriously, but enough to say "enough!"
I have refused to use PayPal for ANY transaction, either on eBay or any other on line seller... If their only option for paying for something is PayPal... SAYONARA SUCKER.... I can find it elsewhere...
Since El Reg refuses to give me a wine glass, I have to pretend this is a good Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon...
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