VietNamNet Bridge – The transactions and online payments from the PayPal accounts in Vietnam would be put under the special control. Explaining this, PayPal, the service provider, said the use of stolen credit cards to withdraw money to Vietnam via PayPal has been increasing.

Tightening control because of… hackers

In fact, this is not the new story that PayPal controls the transactions of remitting money to Vietnam. Prior to 2008, the PayPal accounts overseas would get “frozen” immediately when logging in from Vietnam.

The illegal transactions with the money stolen from credit cards have made the “big guy” in the online payment sector--not to have confidence on the Vietnamese market. This is also believed to hinder the e-commerce development in Vietnam

Only since March 2011, when the world’s leading e-commerce group e-Bay decided to plan long term business in Vietnam with the deal of buying 20 percent of stakes of PeaceSoft – the company well known with the brand “Cho dien tu” (e-market) – has the international online payment from PayPal been “untied.”

However, just one year later, the online payment in Vietnam via the service provider has been tightened again. The notice about the tightened control was released by PayPal’s market development representative on May 7, 2012.

Explaining this, the representative said that the number of cases, where evildoers used stolen credit cards pay for online goods purchases and withdrawing money to Vietnam, increased sharply in the first three months of 2012.

PayPal has temporarily imposed auto alert for the online payment transactions for Vietnam’s accounts, which is understood as putting the transactions into the “black list.” The accounts would be easily blocked when there are the transactions of receiving or remitting money like the ones seen prior to 2008.

Some experts have pointed out that the PayPal accounts relating to Vietnam in general would bear stricter control. PayPal has been described as “going to extremes” when applying the measure. However, experts say there is no other choice for PayPal and it needs to apply the measure until the online payment situation can be improved.

The budget of 200 million dollars for reimbursement

The biggest worry has been raised after PayPal decided to apply the drastic measure is that the automatic control would lead to the delays of transactions. It may happen that users would meet troubles when they remit money to Vietnam from PayPal, but receivers cannot withdraw money.

The representative of PayPal in Vietnam said PayPal has a fund of 200 million dollars a year, which PayPal would use to, on the behalf of the sellers, to compensate the hacked accounts’ owners, if sellers can prove that they have delivered goods as per commitments.

Therefore, PayPal needs to “take actions” to protect the benefits of consumers and the benefits of PayPal itself.

He has also emphasized that the transaction supervision would not lead to the delays of business activities, because the control procedure would be carried out automatically. However, once an account is added into the “black list,” it would take much time to follow PayPal’s procedure to open the account again.

Meanwhile, Hong Anh, a senior executive of TEC, specializing in trading fine arts and handicrafts, which has 90 percent of payments carried out via PayPal, said the automatic control has caused troubles to the company.

The complaint has also been shared by some other companies whose main income sources from international online payments.

Source: Lao dong