Is PayPal Safe?

[Singleton]

Is it safe to use a paypal account to make an order for AAS? The paypal account has all the personal info. Mother's maiden name, pet's name, address, et c.

Would it be safer to use Western Union?

I haven't used Western Union in years, but from what I remember, it costs a lot more than PayPal.

 

[plethos]

Paypal is definately not safe. Anything used with a credit card leaves a trail to anyone with access to you credit records (or if you have your credit bills laying around). And credit/bank records are usually the first thing the police look at if they have probable cause to. Of course all it will say on the records is Paypal (which could be ebay auctions, something I think most internet users have taken part in at one time or another) and it would be their responsibility to follow up on, but it wouldn't be very hard- Paypal will cooperate with them. If it's a transaction for several hundred dollars, I'm sure they'd look into it.

WU isn't totally safe either. You don't want any WU receipts around the house. Plus suspected dealers get flagged and if you're sending any money to someone suspected of illegal activity a message appears on the screen at the place sending the money for you, and the cops could be notified.

On a side-note, when my house got raided something I thought was kinda weird was they didn't look through any of my unopened mail laying around the house (sometimes I get bank records or bills and don't open it for some time if at all). It struck me strange till I figured out mail is federally protected and they didn't have a warrant to open my mail.

 

[fizler]

WU isn't totally safe either. You don't want any WU receipts around the house. Plus suspected dealers get flagged and if you're sending any money to someone suspected of illegal activity a message appears on the screen at the place sending the money for you, and the cops could be notified.

Not trying to call you out on this, but how did you come up with that info about the flagged WU address & cops being notified?

 

[plethos]

It's been discussed many times on the boards and I make the assumption based on what others have said and the fact that since it is a given that they cooperate with the authorities flagging certain addresses would only make sense, I may be wrong but a simple google search brought this up:
"We received a letter last week from the Berlin Criminal and Financial Polizei to face accusations of Money Laundering. On attendance today my associate asked the Polizei what were the grounds for these false accusations made against us. The Polizei responded Western Union information pulled out our file from 1999 with every money transfer made, including the amounts, time, locations, names and addresses of all the recipients, etc. showed excess use and therefore flagged us."
http://archive.mail-list.com/privacyworld/msg00051.html

 

[Porky Pig]

With an MTCN number western union monies can be sent to any name... Sending can be done in cash (do you need to show an ID when sending in the US ??)...

An alternative can be found in using false names with iKobo giving the reciever a falsely named bank withdrawl card to remove money from a chashpoint (very safe) and (with a lot more hassle) using anon transaction services like e-gold...

iKobo and western union with ficticious names would be my choices for money transfers.

PayPal definately not.

 

[manny78]

Western Union is definitely NOT an option. Many of them are closely monitored. Last year, we were monitoring over 25 of them in Montreal since they were use for narcotics transactions. You just dont wanna fall in the net...

 

[Porky Pig]

How can a Western Union transfer be monitored if you use a unique name for each transaction ???

 

[Citruscide]

A good friend of mine went down and they had all PayPal records of recept payments, etc... I guess it is safe as long as no one gets caught.. LOL -- but if they do.. damn, look out for THAT paper trail.

C-ditty

 

[manny78]

How can a Western Union transfer be monitored if you use a unique name for each transaction ???

cameras, finger prints, having clerks there that are in fact cops..... and many other ways. You have no idea how many people we caught this way...

 

[Porky Pig]

Manny, I dont dispute you have superior knowledge but I wonder if you understand what I mean...

EG Using the same system that the ebay scammers use to sell high end (>5k) gear and get away with it.. You send each payment to a different name and location... To monitor this would require monitoring every Western Union Transacation.

If the collector has the MTCN number they can need present no ID to collect the money and need not be in the city the money was even sent to... This way payment can be sent to Mr Smith in Berlin and be picked up by anyone anywhere in Germany (and I think local countries also with a prior phone call)... Next time send money to Mr Jones in Dortmund... Next time Mr Bloggs in Frankfurt...

Never pick your money up at the same Western Union locations...

Given this random ability and the fact that you are at the western union (100's or even 1000's of miles from where it was 'sent') for a minute at most I find it hard to think of an operation that could successfully intercept you. I see this method as far far safer than cash in an envelope where you must to to the address location for pickup.

Note all of this is from Euro and Asian western union experience... How the US based system works I am unsure...

I guess everyone should geta temp maildrop address... Sign up to iKobo under a flase name... Always mask your face when removing cash from a cashpoint machine due to the possibility of cameras... Use many machines over as large a geographical area as possible.