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More Paypal nonsense
31–40 of 257 posts
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#32At the risk of being perceived as the devil's advocate, let me ask a question. I've heard of dozens of stories about Paypal along a similar vein. "They locked my account for unreasonable reason X and now are keeping the money". Most of these stories seem anecdotal. Can someone point to a rigorously documented set of cases where both Paypal and the customer's side of things are reviewed? Over the last few years, all o…
I've yet to see a "PayPal horror story" that didn't fit into one of the "any payment processor in the world would consider this high risk and temporarily or permanently freeze the account" slots. If this discussion with the customer service rep did occur as written, it's the most ridiculous one I've seen yet, though. It's a major customer service fail even if the original reason for freezing the account was valid.
Absolutely: that every other payment processor in the world would do the same thing is hugely relevant. Paypal is just the only one it's easy enough to set stuff up with, so they get all the bad press.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#33I have never seen a company more in need of competition. I realize its massive installed base makes it tough to approach, but isn't there somebody who can compete credibly? I have to think that there's enough user dissatisfaction that people would defect in droves, given a decent alternative.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#34I'll be looking at alternatives after receiving the friendly "We reviewed your account and determined that there's a relatively higher than average risk of future transaction issues" email that states they'll be holding my money for 21 days... I have never made a claim. I have never had a claim filed against me. My account receives maybe $500/year, tops. I send $500/year, tops. HUDGE risk of transaction issues.
I got one of those after years of service with 0 problems, so I canceled my PayPal and eBay accounts. I haven't missed them.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#35At the risk of being perceived as the devil's advocate, let me ask a question. I've heard of dozens of stories about Paypal along a similar vein. "They locked my account for unreasonable reason X and now are keeping the money". Most of these stories seem anecdotal. Can someone point to a rigorously documented set of cases where both Paypal and the customer's side of things are reviewed? Over the last few years, all o…
A friend of mine down the street tried to sell an online account via PayPal. The would-be buyers sent the money to his PayPal account, got the online account credentials from him, then took the money out of PayPal. The money was lost but the admins for the software he used the account on reinstated it to him since this happens a lot. There are scammers with deep penetration into PayPal.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#36I'm sorry that you don't realize what you are trying to do is nearly equivalent to a Nigerian scam, but in the eyes of a payment company, it is. So cut Paypal some slack.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#37I'm sure everybody knows by now, but this is certainly not the first time paypal has done this kind of thing: http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/paypal-fiasco-summary.p... (slightly nsfw)
That's a story of how a payment processor froze an account that had a sudden, incredible jump in processing volume, just like any payment processor in the world would have done. When he contacted PayPal they, understandably, wanted some evidence that the money was going to be used for the stated purpose, because if it's not PayPal could be on the hook for $30k in chargebacks and a few thousand more in fees. Instead of doing some work to provide convincing evidence, he asks a CSR to donate all his account money to Red Cross which she can't do, then gives up immediately and directs them to refund all the payments.
I don't see anything about this story that makes PayPal look bad. Not objectively at least. Subjectively, we'd like the fundraiser to have worked out, but it's the processor on the hook if the fundraiser is a scam...
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#38i use dwolla
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#39At the risk of being perceived as the devil's advocate, let me ask a question. I've heard of dozens of stories about Paypal along a similar vein. "They locked my account for unreasonable reason X and now are keeping the money". Most of these stories seem anecdotal. Can someone point to a rigorously documented set of cases where both Paypal and the customer's side of things are reviewed? Over the last few years, all o…
I've yet to see a "PayPal horror story" that didn't fit into one of the "any payment processor in the world would consider this high risk and temporarily or permanently freeze the account" slots. If this discussion with the customer service rep did occur as written, it's the most ridiculous one I've seen yet, though. It's a major customer service fail even if the original reason for freezing the account was valid.
Can you explain how the OP's situation is high risk?
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#40I'm going to be somewhat direct here.
I allege that what Paypal is doing here (holding funds over 10 days) is illegal.
In order to do what Paypal does in the USA, you need licensure. They point out that they are not a bank. Indeed, they aren't: in many states they are classified as a money transmitter. In 8 states, they have no license to operate.#1
And, Indiana also requires licensure for money transmission. IC 28-8-4-20 (a) A person may not engage in the business of money transmission without a license required by this chapter.
What is this money transmitter stuff? In essence, the law in all the locales I have checked (I have not gone through every one), indicate only a short holding period (5-15 days) and only allow holding of money of a known crime. So indeed what they do is absolutely fraudulent. In other words, if you have a patent troll corporation with many lawyers, target Paypal for their illegal behavior. #1 Source: https://www.paypal-media.com/state_licenses.cfm