I gave China's Alipay my US Passport and Social Security Number and Regret it.

My experiences with Alipay

Updated 1/10/22 

Back in 2015, I had posted a since removed video, about my experiences, concerns and the questionable tactics of Alibaba's payment system, Alipay.  Alipay had requested my passport id and social security number, then locked me from being able to delete that information, edit my account or close the account.  It was 100% sketchy, especially being that the company is located in China and was asking for information that no US or other marketplace had ever asked for.  Why my passport?  Why my social security number? 

A short time after I created the video and posted it to the Randy Dreammaker website, someone reached out of me and told me that the World News had written an article about my experience and embedded my YouTube video into their website.  I was honestly excited at the time, I was a no-body in 2015 and had just reached the requirements on YouTube to become a monetized YouTube Creator.  

In 2022, while checking past articles and making some updates to the website directory, I came back across this original article where I shared the video. I noticed the video had been removed for quite a while, was no longer shown for obvious reasons on the World News website, and decided to see if I still had the original video in one of the RGAP Creative offline hard drives.  Since I found it, I decided to reupload it to YouTube and repost that original video into the original article here.  If for no other reason, than I was wearing a pirate costume and looked authentic.

Why restore a video about Alibaba's Alipay that is over seven years old? One reason is because its a good reminded not to let your eagerness or desire to expand beyond the US Marketplaces to blind you to the fact that regardless of how much we want to accept Alibaba or their version of PayPal Alipay into the global economy, they are still subject to China's rules. 

These rules allow the Chinese government to have access to pretty much any data a company has. Unlike here in America, where laws protect data a little more, requiring a court order, in China all businesses are ultimately part of the government.

In 2015, I gave Alipay and the Chinese government all the information needed for identity theft or worse, and I came to regret it, especially when I couldn't delete the information or close my account. Additionally, under the laws of China, they can indefinitely retain the information I provided.

The World News and PC World picked up on his story, writing their own stories based at least in part on Randy Dreammaker's experience.  World News also embedded his video on to their website.

Below is the original article that appeared on the Randy Dreammaker website back in 2015.

2015 Original Post

World News http://wn.com is featuring the Randy Dreammaker Alipay Video on its website.
The video called, Don't Get Alipay, FAIL documents how Alibaba's payment system that is the equivalent of PayPal, allows US Citizens to sign up for its service, requiring various kinds of National Documents and after sign-up indicates that the service is not available to US Citizens and forbids the option to delete the account or the account information that was provided.

http://article.wn.com/view/2015/08/07/Alibaba_upgrades_anticounterfeiting_system_following_complai_g/

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