Paxum.com Issues: Recommend *Against* Using Paxum Now

[dikidera]

Am i to understand you are sexually attracted to the same sex?

If you mean the same as her husband, then yes.

Right, thanks for the clarification.

[1714952942]

1714952942

[1714952942]

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[Piper67]

Am i to understand you are sexually attracted to the same sex?

If you mean the same as her husband, then yes.

Right, thanks for the clarification.

You mean, on top of being a smart cookie, and having a husband, she's also attracted to the same sex... I think I'm in love :-)

[dikidera]

Am i to understand you are sexually attracted to the same sex?

If you mean the same as her husband, then yes.

Right, thanks for the clarification.

You mean, on top of being a smart cookie, and having a husband, she's also attracted to the same sex... I think I'm in love :-)

Women tend not to be tech geeks, unless it's Jeri Ellsworth ofc. But would be cool. Proof would be nice

[error]

All right guys, stop drooling and stay focused on the technical issues.

[Piper67]

All right guys, stop drooling and stay focused on the technical issues.

Hey, she started it, what with telling us she was checking and all :-)

[ErgoOne]

Am i to understand you are sexually attracted to the same sex?

If you mean the same as her husband, then yes.

ROFL!  Well put.

There may be more women on the forum than many of you know.  I've noticed that a lot of women use androgynous handles on forums where there are lots of men, particularly if there's any of the typical masculine back-and-forth teasing about sex.  I'm an old lady by geek standards (50 this year), pretty tough, and perfectly willing to tell any nitwit that behaves inappropriately to BACK OFF.  Not all women are, though.  Where the topic of conversation isn't personal -- like, say, a new monetary system -- it's often easier to participate if some guys assume that we're men.  The grown-ups, of course, have long since figured out that we might be interesting for reasons other than our gender.

[Piper67]

Am i to understand you are sexually attracted to the same sex?

If you mean the same as her husband, then yes.

ROFL!  Well put.

There may be more women on the forum than many of you know.  I've noticed that a lot of women use androgynous handles on forums where there are lots of men, particularly if there's any of the typical masculine back-and-forth teasing about sex.  I'm an old lady by geek standards (50 this year), pretty tough, and perfectly willing to tell any nitwit that behaves inappropriately to BACK OFF.  Not all women are, though.  Where the topic of conversation isn't personal -- like, say, a new monetary system -- it's often easier to participate if some guys assume that we're men.  The grown-ups, of course, have long since figured out that we might be interesting for reasons other than our gender.

Uhm... you sort of blew your cover there, Ergo 

[fitty]

I just attempted to open a Paxum account, to try them out.  The experience was extremely difficult, and at the end I called Paxum and had them walk me through the process of closing the account.  I did not feel safe using it.

Here's what I noticed in the process;

1) Paxum's automated emails use HTML, but have incorrect MIME settings.  This means that they are displayed by Thunderbird and the other email clients that I tested as plain text.  *That* means that you have to search through a bunch of HTML codes to find the information that you need to confirm your account, etc. 

2) Paxum uses attached PDF files to send certain types of critical information, but because of the broken MIME settings, the attachments cannot be viewed or detached in normal email clients.  They must be handled by hand, by saving the email as text and then using a utility to demime them.  Most users are not up to figuring this out.

3) Paxum's web site is extremely picky about the format of information that it accepts in fields when you are signing up, but does not tell you in advance which symbols are disallowed.  Among the issues: periods (.) are not allowed in street addresses, but you find that out only when you include one and get an error back.

4) Paxum will not accept a scanned image above 4 MB in size for identity verification, but states that images must be "high quality" and rejects faxed images.  It took me several tries to come up with an image that was of a size it would accept and also a quality it would accept.  This is *really* annoying.

I could continue, but frankly, the email and web site tell me that the people managing Paxum's servers are not very good at what they are doing.  I work in networking security, manage a mail server, have managed web sites since the mid-1990s, and am intimately familiar with what it takes to run a secure site.  My assessment of Paxum's setup is that their technical people do not appear to be experienced enough to be trusted running a site that requests and holds information that will allow identity theft.  I didn't run a vulnerability scan on the site, but would not be at all surprised to find cross-site scripts and other vulnerabilities that can be used to steal information.

I recommend not using Paxum.  They probably mean well, and after they get their act together on their technical services might be worth using.  For now, though, giving them the information that they request to manage your money is IMHO taking an unnecessary and unwise risk.

Paxum has been around awhile. They've handled 100s of millions of dollars through their network. They're not american so of course their website is going to suck. European websites are trash by default.

[Mousepotato]

Because Canada is in Europe.

[ErgoOne]

European web sites all suck?  Not in my experience.  Besides, as somebody noted, this is a Canadian company, not European.

I've emailed Chris and heard back.  Hopefully we'll be able to work together to fix some of the issues that I saw.

[Tasty Champa]

Really now...

ON A FRIDAY!?!?!

[petercyr]

Not sure if it was humour or not but claiming that anything not US grown sucks is pure BS... Half the shit in the US is outsourced...

And with regards to the original topic, I signed up last night and it went pretty smooth. The only thing I had to look around for is swift codes and routing number formats since its presented differently than what i'm used to but then again, I don't do lots of international transfers. I also confirmed my account by taking pics of my ID and power bill with my iPhone.. No hassle. Not sure if I got in easy but if not, you must be doing an awful job with that ID.

[PaxumChris]

Really now...

ON A FRIDAY!?!?!

It's friday it's friday .....

[stsbrad]

the verification process it a bit much. I'm actually irritated right now. I send pictures of drives license. it's expired on the front. cool no problem I'll send a picture of the back with the extension sticker. still get denied because the sticker expires 8/12/2011 and I'm avoiding going to the DMV until the last second. hey tell me they can't take it because it can't be expiring within a two week period? wtf ? I literally opened a regions checking account today with the same license. so my money sits on tradehill idle until I can send them something else? I'm all for being secure but c'mon... why did tradehill remove the dwolla withdrawal option again? this is a pain. do any other trading services offer dwolla withdrawal? I'm about over this paxum stuff.

[stsbrad]

is there any risk why tradehill stopped dwolla withdrawals???

[JoelKatz]

is there any risk why tradehill stopped dwolla withdrawals???

Yeah. The risk is that Dwolla would keep the money against additional chargebacks. TradeHill might send your $1,000 to Dwolla only to have Dwolla claim TradeHill has a negative balance because someone else charged back a transaction from last month and so can't send you any money.

[Smalleyster]

... Half the shit in the US is outsourced...

And all the good stuff is done here! 8^)

(that's a joke son...just in case)

[PaxumChris]

the verification process it a bit much. I'm actually irritated right now. I send pictures of drives license. it's expired on the front. cool no problem I'll send a picture of the back with the extension sticker. still get denied because the sticker expires 8/12/2011 and I'm avoiding going to the DMV until the last second. hey tell me they can't take it because it can't be expiring within a two week period? wtf ? I literally opened a regions checking account today with the same license. so my money sits on tradehill idle until I can send them something else? I'm all for being secure but c'mon... why did tradehill remove the dwolla withdrawal option again? this is a pain. do any other trading services offer dwolla withdrawal? I'm about over this paxum stuff.

Ill post this here aswell as send you another email - you are able to withdraw funds via wire/eft or to an external credit card with the issue you are having with your ID expiring too soon for us to issue a mastercard.

Resubmit the back of your card with it in full frame - it was cropped out.


Chris



Edit: Also keep in mind EFT transactions may be subject to extra steps in verification. Simple and painless but it is just a fraud prevention step that has helped us stop ACH fraud

[stsbrad]

cropped out? it's a picture of the back of my license sitting on my kitchen counter. I didn't crop anything lol. it is good to know I can use your service like dwolla for withdrawals right now. I didnt really want another card anyway in my wallet. I do have to say that you being on the forums offering direct customer support and giving out your email is very cool. good customer service so far. thank you

[zenmetsu]

I gave up on setting up a Paxum account as well.  In order to add a checking account, you need the bank's SWIFT-BIC code.  I understand that not all banks have a record with Swift and they often deal with intermediary banks when it comes to international transfers.  This would be fine, but the website will *NOT* let you set up an account with an intermediary this way because the primary account still requires a SWIFT-BIC code.  Seriously... the routing number+account number is not sufficient? 

FAIL.

Huge pain in the butt.  At least Dwolla was easy to set up.  Perhaps the simplest means of withdrawing from Tradehill without incurring huge fees is to simple have them cut you a check and send via U.S. Post. 

And having a razor sharp image of my driver's license rejected (taken with my Thunderbolt's 8MP camera in full daylight with no image cropping) is a joke.  The image was perfect enough that I could have laminated it to a plastic card and used it in place of the original and no one would be the wiser.