Questions on Donating

[Ragnarok]

Hello all, I have been a player on this shard for around 4 months now, and i figured I would finally try to donate a little to the shard since I like it so much, but I have just a few questons before I do so. And before anyone gets giddy, yes I have read the donation policy page.

1. Is Paypal truely safe? I have never had a credit card before in my life so a lot of these things are new to me after getting my first one... so I just wanted to make sure that by doing this I wouldn't risk screwing myself over by having my information stolen...

2. Paypal converts money to Euro? I read this on the FAQ, does that really hinder the donating process at all? And as for fees, say I wanted to donate 20$ what would paypal charge me in fees so I know exactly how much to put in my account?

3. How long does it take my money to reach Excelsior's account? Just so I can keep track of things, you know its my money, I kinda keep a close eye on it lol

4. How long after Excelsior receives my donation that I will receive my ingame ED? Or is there a certin Admin or staff member I should talk to after my transaction?

5. Has anyone ever had had a problem with donating or using paypal before? Not that I don't trust the staff on this shard, I just want to get all the stright anwsers before I throw my hard earned money into something.

Thanks for any information you might have for me.

[Llexa]

My recommendation would be NOT to get a CC just for the sake of using PayPal. You can use PayPal with your checking account too which is better imo. You don't have the interest that can come with CC's

That's just my first thought on the matter.


love,
Llexa

p.s. PayPal has been safe for me so far. It's used by businesses also.

[Ragnarok]

Oh I have a credit/debit card, I have it through a military bank, I just wanted to make sure that if I did donate that there is a small possibility of anything being stolen. So even though it is a credit card, it comes out of my bank account, I never receive a bill

[everwolf]

As far as I know +Colibri is the only one that takes care of donations. Most of the time you will get your rewards or ED the same or next day......but sometimes if +Colibri is away it can take longer. Paypal has always been safe for me through checking acct and credit card.

[labmonkey]

You don't have anything to worry about with using paypal. Our account had been hacked towards the beginning of the year and it was paypal that caught it, not us having to complain to them about it. They then went out of their way to make sure the problem was corrected and even worked with our bank to make sure we got our money back. But wait, there was more. They then sent us a special digital pass key that changes every 30 seconds for free just to make sure we didn't have this problem again. Now these problems do not happen any more than they do with banks so don't worry at all about using them.

[anarchy]

paypal's pretty safe i use it for certain things online like ebay. also, what part of the military. Whats your MOS? sometimes it's hard work in the military, and people don't understand how hard it is. (except for leave), i have a lot of good memories mostly just a haze though.

[Adin]

You don't have anything to worry about with using paypal. Our account had been hacked towards the beginning of the year and it was paypal that caught it, not us having to complain to them about it. They then went out of their way to make sure the problem was corrected and even worked with our bank to make sure we got our money back. But wait, there was more. They then sent us a special digital pass key that changes every 30 seconds for free just to make sure we didn't have this problem again. Now these problems do not happen any more than they do with banks so don't worry at all about using them.

I wouldn't paint the world as pink as that, the enormous ammount of trust in a big company is exactly what brought us to where we have to take such drastic actions to avoid frauds. Against a well run botnet a key like that is useless, because it uses exactly the key you are using at the same time you are using it. Hence paypal will only be secure if your computer itself is secure.

Do not store your passwords anywhere.

Use secure connections.

Don't ever .... EVER ... trust Microsoft when they are talking about security.

Same goes for Ebay and Paypal.

There are more then enough pages that can easily be found on google that will explain you how to make your system pretty secure.

[labmonkey]

I wouldn't paint the world as pink as that, the enormous ammount of trust in a big company is exactly what brought us to where we have to take such drastic actions to avoid frauds. Against a well run botnet a key like that is useless, because it uses exactly the key you are using at the same time you are using it. Hence paypal will only be secure if your computer itself is secure.

Do not store your passwords anywhere.

Use secure connections.

Don't ever .... EVER ... trust Microsoft when they are talking about security.

Same goes for Ebay and Paypal.

There are more then enough pages that can easily be found on google that will explain you how to make your system pretty secure.

Don't worry my computer is very secure. When my paypal account was hacked I was not the only one. We were informed that it happened to multiple accounts and that it was on their end. I am interested about what you said though about how a botnet could be using the exact same key that im using. The key is a physical device with a small lcd screen. I press a button on it and get a random 6 digit number and every 30 seconds the number completely changes. It is actually a Vasco Digipass Go 3 with paypal branding on it.

[Adin]

Well the bottleneck is still the computer. Yoou press the button, you buy something woth paypal. The data is transfered securely and encrypted, this is all fine so far. The problem is another. A botnet is little something like a trojan hivemind. Literally tens of thousants of computers get infected, and their processing power is used to keep it going. Now if you get effected, it does not actually matter if your paypal or your ebay account gets cracked or even your amazon account. It uses keyloggers, it abuses security holes, does everything to keep the hive supplied with as many password as possible, then starts using them in ways that on first glance seem to make little sense. One of them worked so nicely that it let many ebay accounts buy items that were previously created and actually fictional, the essence was that it did not work in 90% of the cases, but there are the weird 10% that just paid the bill without checking it twice.

And yes, i do recoognize the device you have there sounds pretty fancy, but machines aren't the answer to all problems of the digital age, as funnay as that sounds. There are several ways to make a password so secure that any attempt to brute-force crack it would quite literally take years. Now if you let another device do that job for you, it creates another point were you lose control over whats going on. I know it's a hassle to change passwords, but with something as important as you money, i'd just think twice. And consider something else: Seeing how customer friendly Ebay has been in the part, do you really think they would have been even close to as friendly as they were now, if you would have been the only one ... or just one of a few people ?

Again: I am NOT saying that things did not improve. I do NOT mean to be the scarecrow.

All i'm saying is don't trust them.

And if you wonder why i would say all that, i helped developing security routines for bigger web-based companies, i just know they do exactly enough to keep the newspapers friendly towards them and won't invest one cent more then that.