PayPal Denies Twitch Troll $50,000 Worth In Refunds (ubergizmo.com) 194
An anonymous reader writes: Trolling is commonplace on the internet. On Twitch, one of the many ways people troll Twitch streamers is by making donations, only to get a refund from PayPal at the very last minute, thus tricking streamers into thinking they've been given large sums of money. A troll by the name of iNexus_Ninja has been doing exactly this. However, when he tried to go to PayPal to refund the charges, PayPal decided to deny his request which ultimately left the troll $50,000 in debt. Twitch streamers apparently fought against his request for a refund and won. Meanwhile, Russia is paying state-sponsored trolls, elevating the troll to the level of professional propagandists.
PayPal does something for their 'vendors'? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the many reasons I'm not using PayPal is because they thrive of these refunds and using any excuse possible to lock large sums of money in their system. Obviously they continue claiming they're "not a bank" and therefore don't have to follow any of the rules that any other merchant account needs to. With a little bit of looking around you can find cheaper options to PayPal, even solid merchant accounts for credit card processing.
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Not in all cases. For instance if your credit card company/bank determine that you were at fault (ie. you willingly gave your card and details to the fraudsters and you could have determined that they were fraudulent with some checks) or fail to notify them soon enough of you being aware and if they can't recover the money for whatever reason they can still hold you liable for it. Also small transaction amounts are often not covered depending on the situation.
While the credit card companies do have more
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One of the many reasons I'm not using PayPal is because they thrive of these refunds and using any excuse possible to lock large sums of money in their system. Obviously they continue claiming they're "not a bank" and therefore don't have to follow any of the rules that any other merchant account needs to. With a little bit of looking around you can find cheaper options to PayPal, even solid merchant accounts for credit card processing.
In Europe paypal is regulated like a real bank. So they can't do their usual shenanigans.
They still suck, but they suck less than if I were using them from the US of A.
Re: PayPal does something for their 'vendors'? (Score:5, Informative)
In the EU Paypal is, in fact, a bank and has been a bank for years. They have acquired a banking licence in Luxembourg after EU decided that they either have to be a bank or to stop providing their services.
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This actually exists, hopefully minus the green meat. They are called food trucks, and it is a big issue in the same circles that Uber is a big issue. Brick and mortar restaurants don't like them because they steal their lucrative lunch crowds and don't have the fixed overhead of a restaurant. So cities try to regulate them out of business .... and eventually they
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A food truck serving meals is a restaurant without the expenses of a building. Around here, anyone selling food has to cope with rules about cleanliness, food quality and so on.
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That's funny.
But I don't think that disqualifies a food truck from being a restaurant. Just not a fancy restaurant.
Presumably your wife also would not appreciate being taken to the local McDonalds or Subway. Do you also consider them not restaurants?
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Obviously any institution or person that serves food should be subject to appropriate food safety regulations, etc. I don't think "restaurant" is the official term for an institution that serves food. Or at the very least it probably varies by state.
I would say that a food truck is a type of restaurant, like how a truck is a type of car. I think a good logical argument could be made for this type of classification, but I don't think anyone I know would actually call a food truck a restaurant (myself incl
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Nah. Maybe a cafe if it's a fixed location truck.
But the issue is around competition between catering outlets. Restaurants offer different benefits to the local burger van, pub grub competes with bistro snack bars, they're all in the same market and as you say, they all have to adhere to the same food hygiene laws.
PayPal built their company by ignoring the financial regulations and fucking over their customers. I wont eat at a rat infested restaurant with abusive waiting staff, and I don't use PayPal.
Whethe
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I hate PayPal and how they make up their own rules as they go. I sold a laptop on eBay, 5 months later the guy asks for refund on PayPal because it broke. I deny due to it being 5 months, but apparently they have a 6 month return policy and don't care about my return policy that was stated on eBay. The buyer returned a different laptop than I sent, but that didn't stop them from taking what they could and refunding his money. Lucky for me, I didn't trust them from the start and had a separate account for eB
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Yeah, PayPal doesn't offer any of the protections of a bank. That's why everyone should use Bitcoin!
What the hell is Twitch? (Score:1, Insightful)
Am I missing something here? I've never heard of Twitch.
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Am I missing something here? I've never heard of Twitch.
Yes, you're apparently missing the ability to do a simple Google search.
This may help you:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+is+t... [lmgtfy.com]
(hint: click any of the 10 results on the first page)
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The easiest way to stay above it all is to not ask, and still not know what it is, and not even tell anybody. I'm so hip, nobody knows how hip I am. I don't even know, because I don't have time to worry about if I'm the only one who doesn't know the new fad.
Re: What the hell is Twitch? (Score:2)
Then you're not hip. You're square.
You're welcome.
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Then you're not hip. You're square.
You're welcome.
Don't tell me that I'm crazy
Don't tell me I'm nowhere
Take it from me
It's hip to be square
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Re:What the hell is Twitch? (Score:5, Funny)
But when you see a commercial on TV about product XX you've never heard of, you don't wonder "why are they talking about XX", right?
Because they can't do XXX on TV?
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In the UK PPV advertise XXX but the best you get is xxx
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I would wonder, "how the hell did I end up stuck in a room with screens I don't control, that are showing commercial propaganda, and where the bleep is the exit?
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No kidding. My daughters have grown up in a house with only streaming TV. When we're at a hotel and have the TV on, they complain loudly when commercials come on, because their show went away and they don't want to watch whatever this other junk is. I don't blame them one bit. At least they're getting old enough to understand it when it happens.
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It's Youtube for channels with a focus on live streaming.
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Where? WHERE?
I only get to see live streams of dicks and assholes.
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It's a live porncam platform for gamers.
reference: legendarylea
captcha: depress
Re:What the hell is Twitch? (Score:5, Funny)
Am I missing something here? I've never heard of Twitch.
Don't you people have *any* social awareness?
tWitch [wikipedia.org] is a popular dancer who made his name on season 4 of So You Think You Can Dance.
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I thought it was an early album by Ministry
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Wow, you're in pretty deep if you think that a company is society. And indeed, only companies that spend a lot of money on propaganda.
I'll give you a hint: that isn't what social awareness means.
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I greatly prefer Lindsay Arnold and Brittany Cherry, both of whom have since been on DWTS.
So has tWitch
good (Score:2)
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Any recommended third parties? Someone I know was working on a political site, and was looking for a way to collect donations that wasn't susceptible to that kind of trolling.
Also, it kinda amazes me that the major candidates haven't been blasted with tons of chargebacks from such trolls.
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Also, it kinda amazes me that the major candidates haven't been blasted with tons of chargebacks from such trolls.
May be, they have, but they don't want to feed the troll by telling the world what happened.
Also, candidates don't have a real-time update of campaign contributions they're getting, which defeats the main purpose of a troll.
Most trolls want attention and publicity. You deny them that possibility and they move on to easier targets.
Re:good (Score:5, Interesting)
If you attempt a chargeback without cause, they'll dispute it and win, your card will get canceled, and you'll potentially be unable to get a credit card for a few years because of credit abuse. Fake chargebacks are no joke, because they deal with banks.
The reason the trolls can do this with paypal is only because paypal isn't a bank, and so isn't held to the industry standards.
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Refunds through paypal are free to the merchant though -- they refund the fee. I don't see how the donor can cause expenses to the victim unless they do a chargeback with their credit card company, which will cost the merchant ~$25.
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Umm... that sounds like a good thing. But while fake chargebacks (and this kind of trolling) are evil and illegal, I'm not sure what recourse someone would have. For a couple of reasons - first, it seems that it'd be hard to get the chargeback upheld. I mean, someone with their CC and CSV (and maybe zip) typed info in. All they have to do is claim it wasn't them. And the counter-argument is?
Secondly, I'm quite surprised a list of stolen CC's wasn't used to troll one of the candidates. So the chargebac
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1) It is fraud to buy, pay or donate for something you have intention of honoring.
So close.
4) Paypal is not a bank and is under no obligation to process or refund anything.
Very wrong in a number of different jurisdictions.
Paypal keeps thousands of pieces of personal information on you, so screw up once and you won't be able to use Paypal again
You say this like it's a bad thing.
Companies that only offer payment through PayPal don't get my business. Life really is that simple.
You don't know what a "chargeback" is... (in U.S.) (Score:2)
A dispute is a request to get a charge "investigated". A "chargeback" is an instruction to the bank/credit company take the money back and make it my problem.
Most people don't know that (in the United States) these are completely different things.
If I dispute a charge then the credit card company may contact the vendor and ask them what happened and generally do a resolution where I may, or may not, get a refund. A dispute takes days, weeks, or even months to run its course.
A chargeback tells the credit car
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A dispute is the beginning of the process. A chargeback is the result of a dispute.
If you ever won a dispute, your card company issued a chargeback.
The lack of the ability to roll over on any dispute without a chargeback fee seems like a huge flaw in the system.
It sounds like you kept getting bounced up the ladder until a manager decided that he would say yes to placate you.
Or, you can show me some documentation that I'm wrong, but I couldn't find any that supported your assertion. See a random source [consumerist.com]
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Or unable to obtain a mortgage. Or a job with a financial institution. Or a new bank account. Or any job at all.
The way it works when I was working with a credit card fraud dept. was that you were checked in the register and if your name came up as a hit, the company that put you in the register was called and asked for more information. The client was then asked for their side of the story. Depending on the answers the loan or credit or account was denied - or sometimes granted. For instance, some people w
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My current debt is what's left of the mortgage and the £62 I spent online earlier today.
That £62 went on a credit card. I pay no fee, I pay no interest, I have protection against fraudulent activities, and as a result of purchasing online I get big discounts on high street prices, I get a wider choice of goods and I get a metric fuckload of convenience.
Not having a credit card would be seriously bloody annoying.
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You don't have a choice, they file a chargeback with the credit card company and the credit card company just reverses the charge. They have to give you a chance to defend yourself, but if the guy claims "my card number was stolen and someone else used it" you've got an uphill battle, especially over the internet where you don't even have a signature.
Forget Russia, Hillary spent $1 mil on trolls (Score:1, Informative)
But this won't get any press from /. editors... it's much easier to bash Russia.
Correct the Record, a pro-Hillary Clinton political action committee (PAC), is spending over $1 million on online trolls in order to âcorrectâ(TM) Bernie Sanders supporters on social media sites.
The PAC this week launched an initiative called âoeBarrier Breakers 2016,â which is composed of a âoetask forceâ that will debate âBernie Bros,â(TM) presumably supporters of the Senator Sanders
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I don't see why AC's comment should be rated Troll. After all, the fucking superfluous bit about Russian trolls added to the end of the summary is just an invite to shitpost. It's submitter or BeauHD fault that nobody is going to discuss the actual topic seriously
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The silliness of the Russian troll claims. The Russian government seems incapable of doing their trolling internally via their security staff or military and must resort to cheap PR contractors. So does the Russian government do it, probably, do they use cheap unreliable contractors, probably not. Anyone can search upon this planet and find literally tens of millions of people who will say anything and make any claim you want them to, if you pay them enough and that enough is quite often not very much at a
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Wait until the Russians wise up and start outsourcing the trolling from India
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From such a reliable and impartial source as Breitbart.com, how could I possibly doubt the veracity of this report?
Oh, wait...
Brietbart? (Score:3)
You're linking to a hard right "news" source that is known for lying in public?
Re: Forget Russia, Hillary spent $1 mil on trolls (Score:1)
Why does everyone think political views they disagree with are trolling? Let's focus on jobs and how to stop people's jobs from being outsourced to cut costs. If we build a wall on the border, jobs won't be able to leave the country. We'll keep more jobs in the US and the American people will prosper as a result. That is why you should abandon both Democrats and vote for Trump.
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wtf russia (Score:4, Insightful)
WTF does this story have to do with Russia? Who added this aside, anonymous submitter or BeauHD? It fucking retarded to believe that other governments, law firms, ngo's, lobbyists, and other entities involved with "messaging" don't engage in the same type of activities. The current interest about Russian trolls is due to some batshit looney neocon paranoid conspiracy that Putin is trying to get Trump in the White House because he's scared of Hillary(!).
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good link. I especially like this story from the results:
Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal [nytimes.com]
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.
...
Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown. But the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation, headed by a former president who relied heavily on foreign cash to accumulate $250 million in assets even as his wife helped steer American foreign policy as secretary of state, presiding over decisions with the potential to benefit the foundation’s donors.
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The submission is here: https://news.slashdot.org/subm... [slashdot.org]
So yes, it was added by BeauHD.
(The submissions link is in the 'Related Links' section right below the article summary, but for some reason, the Submission link doesn't show up unless you have JavaScript and even then you can't right-click and 'copy link location' on it. Come on, does nobody know basic HTML any more?)
Number 23 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Later this month, people stupid enough to give money to a crowd-funded project, and do it via PayPal, will be shit out of luck,
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2016/... [ubergizmo.com]''
PayPal offers customers Purchase Protection for things they buy, including payments to crowd-funded projects. PayPal has announced that effective June 25 they be changing their TOS and will no longer offer Purchase Protection for crowdfunding. If you donate to a project via PayPal and it fails or turns out to be a scam, PayPal will no longer gua
This is what probably did it (Score:5, Insightful)
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This. Damn it I have no mod points :/
I despise PayPal, but ..... (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't sound to me like the service was in the wrong, denying a refund in this situation? If you're just using the service to troll people, requesting transfers of funds you know up-front you don't *really* want to transfer, it seems like it's YOUR problem if the payment processor grows tired of participating in your game and declares your funds transfer final.
As someone who was forced to deal with PayPal's antics as part of the "package deal" selling on eBay when the two of them formed a cartel, I can think of SO many more legitimate situations to complain about PayPal over than this one.
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Everyone has them, just because it doesnt state to the letter every single thing you should not do to break the rules it doesnt mean it doesnt apply.
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I disagree. If someone is abusing your service, you ban him from the service.
They did. They banned him from using the refunds due to abuse. This is entirely consistent with what you want.
Refunds in my opinion should only be possible from the sellers end or from a legal warranty point of view. In that regard donations should NEVER be refundable unless you can explicitly prove the transaction was fraudulent in the first place. I distrust paypal as much as the next person but I fully support them in this point, and I only ever use it from the buyer's side (i.e. the side that would bene
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Troll gets served. What's the problem?
Perhaps I have missed some of the facts and please correct me if I am mistaken, but here is my understanding of it:
Is that the way of it and, if so, what is the problem?
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What exactly ... (Score:2)
I understood that it was some sort of video streaming/chat service, purportedly used by gamers. But if 'contributions' are really a big thing, I suspect that there might be something other than gaming going on, for which people expect 'contributions'.
Dare I suggest: Cam whores?
Re:What exactly ... (Score:5, Interesting)
To try and explain it better, imagine if instead of just watching Aaron Rodgers play football (or any other pro athlete in their sport), but instead of maybe having a couple of outside commentators, you're watching him play, from his point of view, while he tells you what he's doing and why, chatting and interacting with you, and giving you tips on how to do better in your own games. How cool would that be? Nevermind that you can also chat with everyone else watching, too. And while most of the gamers on Twitch aren't on quite that level, even some of those with a smaller following can do alright, with people chipping in to buy pizza for them. Some of them will also run promotions, give away codes for free games, etc. It's probably not for everyone, but it can be very entertaining.
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So, if the whole 'contribution' thing is purely a gratuity, not some sort of pay for service, then what's the point in reversing the charges? Why don't the cheap bastards just not pay up front to watch?
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They reverse the charges because they think it's funny.
Normally when you make a donation you also get to send a short text message. Sometimes this message will get read out loud. So you donate a couple of dollars, have your troll message read and then reclaim your money and think that it's funny that you both tricked the streamer into thinking (s)he got money and also you tricked the system into giving you a "free" billboard message out (which is often mean or silly).
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OK, this makes sense in a perverse sort of way.
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I assume he's jolly, and is thus some kind of pirate.
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Maybe I should have gone with a car analogy, and cited a Nascar driver, but I'm not as familiar to make a choice there.
Meanwhile, the US is paying state-sponsored trolls (Score:2, Troll)
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Well said.
The CIA editing Wikipwdia does not count (Score:2)
https://slashdot.org/story/07/08/14/1453223/see-who-is-whitewashing-wikipedia [slashdot.org]
Little kid??? (Score:2)
Re:Well known fact; (Score:5, Insightful)
PayPal may suck, but they redeemed themselves with this action.
LOL @ iNexus_Ninja.
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I think "they redeemed themselves" is a bit strong, but I do agree that this sounds like something that should be counted on the positive side of the ledger.
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If they did it consistently, it would redeem them... on this one issue out of dozens of persistent problems they have.
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This... and if they went after the guy for making false clams, or convinced the authorities to go after him for Fraud then they would be redeemed. All they really did was block what should be classed as a criminal act of Fraud and reading the info online, paypal rejecting his refund request wasn't that big of a deal for him. For a $50k attempted fraud he should be going to jail. If he had tried something similar at an actual bank he would be.
Payment reversals are a big deal for Twitch streamers, not only
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not only do they lose the money involved, after its likely been spent
This part I have no sympathy for. "Don't count your chickens before they hatch." When you get a payment from a stranger, be it check or money order or electronic transfer, don't rush out and spend an equal amount before it has irreversibly cleared. In addition to this particular scam, there are lots of other scams that involve the reversal of payments. All you have to do to avoid being bitten is: never return over-payment in the same billing cycle, never count your chickens before they've finished clearing
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PayPal may suck, but they redeemed themselves with this action.
LOL @ iNexus_Ninja.
Oh... It gets better!
This genius (Read: Prince of Idiots) had his personal pic revealed. He looks somewhere between 16 to 19.
So, if he used his parent's info to do this... I'd hate to be in his shoes.
Re:Well known fact; (Score:5, Insightful)
> WTF? How the fuck is this even a troll.
Because he didn't do it right away, he'd wait until the streamers had spent the money, and then try to issue the refund with PayPal, which would then cause PayPal to charge the streamer back for the money. In essence, he was putting the streamers in debt.
Really, he ought to go to jail for that, but at least in this case he got stiffed.
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Click the link, there is a video. He was doing this to game streamers, not cam-whores.
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That's a strange definition of exploitation. Poor teenage boys. Exploited by free streams. Forced into hours of watching. Robbed of the time they could be gaming.
Re: Well known fact; (Score:2)
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I totally tricked you into thinking you were getting money from me. GOTCHA!! :facepalm:
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"Person who uses the internet to cause other people emotional grief, frustration and anger for his own amusement."
See also "Douchebag"
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OMG! Israel donated $50k to Twitch accounts via PayPal... and then they asked for a refund!!! And they've been doing that for 15 years!
Sigh.
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There is something seriously wrong with you
I think you are probably right. The language and the structure of the GP's ranting reminds of schizophrenia: the introduction of bizarre word constructs (such as man+girl: what does it mean? Something perhaps with pedophile connotations?) and the cognition that seems to be jumping incoherently around without much logic; both are often found in schizophrenia, or it could be mania, I suppose.
It is probably not entirely appropriate to "diagnose" somebody like this, over a long, thin wire, but it fills me with
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I'd say that Jesus declared it complete. Obsolete carries a slightly different connotation for me, so while I might agree with the sentiment, I disagree ever so slightly on vocabulary. I believe that Jesus was the completion of the old law and so He had the authority and did the things that made the old law complete. It wasn't invalidated like the term "obsolete" would usually imply, but rather finished. According to my beliefs, he completed the theocracy and he alone had the right to determine what, if anything, would complete it. He said that there were things that people should do and he defined how people should behave but he expected a direct relationship with God and didn't expect politics to be a part of that.
It can either be complete or consistent. If Jesus declared it complete then it must be inconsistent. Would you rather your life be run by incomplete laws or inconsistent laws?
Also "Not one jot or iota shall pass from the Law until the end of days." so why aren't Christians required to be circumcised and follow other aspects of the LAW such as dietary restrictions? Huh, in reality Christians are a bunch of atheists who don't even follow the Law that their prophet/God laid down.