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Is this Paypal experience customary?

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Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#121

Post by fieryskiff1 »

Lutzb wrote: post #59
fieryskiff1 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, but I spent 2 years trying to make Paypal explain why they disabled my account, but even they didn't know. This was about 15 years ago, and back then this was the first Google result when you searched for "Paypal complaint".

The same happened to me. 10 years ago my personal account was frozen. They requested additional verification. Getting any information on why my account was suddenly frozen lead to nothing. Paypal was not able or willing to explain to me what caused this issue. This was the moment I decided I did want to do any further business with them.

I know, but 10~15 years ago there wasn't really any alternative. So I just created a different account.

The funny thing is, Paypal just unfroze my old account after like 4 years...also for no reason!?

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#122

Post by Lucadg »

pabl0rg wrote: post #77
FDSGSG wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PayPal, and the rest of the industry.

I hope Libra (the new currency from FB) will set a higher bar. I can confirm that PayPal is horrible to legitimate merchants. One would expect better fraud protection given the high fees they charge. I never expected they would simply “freeze” our funds without explanation.

Maybe. But Paypal and all the other fintech are still based on traditional banking with all its regulations and inefficiencies. I doubt Libra, if it's ever actually launched, will escape those.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#124

Post by nicky0 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #111
kalleboo wrote: post #9

No, most people would not be this agitated about a mistaken transaction being silently refunded. At best they'd probably assume the notification went to spam or something and went on with their day My bank doesn't notify me about any transactions, I have to check my bank book manually. Once a mistaken transaction showed up and disappeared a few hours later, with no trace left behind at all. I just assumed it was a mi…

You're not agitated by being called a liar, nor being implicitly accused of fraud? It sounds like PayPal, or someone, made a mistake that PayPal then processed a fix on. When the guy called to say someone took money from his account with no notification, "what happened?", they said _he_ had actioned the refunding of the money. Which he hadn't. They lied, purposefully and deliberately. But there's a good chance that t…

Lied perhaps ... or somebody made a mistake. Support rep might just not have understood the information they were seeing on their screen. Why immediately say THEY LIED rather than, they were mistaken. I find it more fruitful in life not to assume bad faith from the outset.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#125

Post by analog31 »

pjc50 wrote: post #24
tinus_hn wrote: post #21

It’s difficult to understand why people are even using this service anymore. PayPal is not your ‘pal’ and to use them safely you need insurance and leverage all the way. The only reason I can imagine is that it works most of the time. But the times where it fails are invariably a disaster.

It's a two-sided market with one-sided dispute resolution, like eBay. Customers love it because it almost always finds in their favour. Sellers hate it because it almost always finds in favour of the customer. Neither side really wants to pay higher transaction fees in the hope of better justice from the dispute resolution. Ultimately if you get into a bit enough dispute with Paypal you have to consider using the rea…

I'm a seller and I actually like the buyer protection, because it emboldens people to buy a product from a small and relatively unknown seller. Customers also don't have to give me any of their personal or financial information except for where to mail their package.

Now, an aspect of running even a small business is that I have some cash on hand, and a profit margin to cover the cost of eating one or two disputes if necessary. If a $100 sale goes down the toilet, I don't lose $100, but only my original cost of goods.

Where I read about horror stories is individual sellers who are selling things like a second hand electric guitar. In those cases, the buyer and seller are probably both not swimming in cash, so having their money tied up in a dispute is in fact painful. And that entire economy is rife with fraud and outright theft. Also, electric guitars are a case where there is extensive room for dispute about the provenance and condition of each piece. This gives the buyer an easy way to claim "item not as described."

In my view the hot business model for using the small payment services is selling an inexpensive physical good with a generous mark-up.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#126

Post by jorvi »

voidwtf wrote: post #10
voidwtf wrote: post #7

PayPal manipulating, removing, or holding hostage the balance of your account? Yes that’s normal for PayPal. Getting a the runaround about how and why it happened? Yep, that’s expected too. Actually getting a non-form letter response of any type? That’s just lucky. We couldn’t get an account rep on the phone for almost 4 days when ~35k was suddenly deducted from the account. Nor when they accidentally cancelled all o…

P.s. never ever link any account with shared funds to PayPal. Business or otherwise, open a completely separate account for PayPal if you must use it. Imagine having PayPal place a hold on the funds in your account to make sure refunds/fraud can be handled. Then when a customer does request a refund you’re literally unable to process the refund because it won’t take it from the funds you just received that are held.…

> PayPal needs to end IMO

You say that but it's literally the only way to counter scamming sellers on the internet. PayPal needs to stay, at least until there are viable competitors.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#127

Post by JudgeWapner »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #111
kalleboo wrote: post #9

No, most people would not be this agitated about a mistaken transaction being silently refunded. At best they'd probably assume the notification went to spam or something and went on with their day My bank doesn't notify me about any transactions, I have to check my bank book manually. Once a mistaken transaction showed up and disappeared a few hours later, with no trace left behind at all. I just assumed it was a mi…

You're not agitated by being called a liar, nor being implicitly accused of fraud? It sounds like PayPal, or someone, made a mistake that PayPal then processed a fix on. When the guy called to say someone took money from his account with no notification, "what happened?", they said _he_ had actioned the refunding of the money. Which he hadn't. They lied, purposefully and deliberately. But there's a good chance that t…

PayPal exists, by design, in a legal gray area where they do almost everything that a bank does, but aren't legally a bank and thus avoid all the regulations and liabilities of the banking industry. Removing funds from your account sent in error (something normal banks do) and not telling you why is fully within the realm of a non regulated money transfer service. Use fed wire transfers next time. They're irreversible.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#128

Post by fxleach »

Completely expected. As a developer that has been forced to integrate with PayPal numerous times I'm not surprised the customer service side is as abysmal as the developer side. Terrible service, run-arounds, just shitting all over the bed in general. Don't even get me started on their fraud resolution.

They are simply the biggest name in the business and have been around the longest. There is absolutely no other reason they deserve the market share they have.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#129

Post by sethammons »

antihero wrote: post #120

Yeah, had this happen to me. Currently my account is limited, they want me to send proof that I have shipped things that do not exist. I am not a merchant or anything like this, I just sent money to my gf and she sends money to me. It's fucking stupid. These companies are absolute shit.

My wife and several of our friends are using venmo for transferring money and seem to like the app.
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