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PayPal CEO writes personal response

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Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#51

Post by throwa »

sw007 wrote: post #30
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #13

Why now? Why with this story? I've been reading similar complaints to that for years. Some of which were far worse in my view (i.e. taking money out of banks to repay people who weren't even seeking a refund because PayPal changed its mind about someone's product or service). Why does PayPal suddenly care? Is it because there is viable competition now?

Classic case of someone who just can't win whatever he does. People have been crying out for PayPal to change - he notices this, he emails the guy with a first class email but still gets criticised. Criticise him if he doesn't act, don't criticise the guy for being big enough to say 'hey, we have a problem, I want to fix it' - that should be applauded, even if it's come later than people would have liked - at least i…

I agree, that people should give him the chance to fix Paypal if he wants to try. There is always a starting point for change and if this it, he should be applauded and not ridiculed.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#52

Post by dlikhten »

rhizome wrote: post #47
yuhong wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the email says that this is only the first step.

Which leaves us only to assume there will be a second step.

I am always wiery of these maneuvers because they can swing both ways. I must say, good for the CEO to response; smart man who realizes the company is going to get hit, hard, and soon.

The only question left is: to trust or not to trust?

Let's see if PP makes any official announcements on policy to combat this.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#53

Post by dlikhten »

kmm wrote: post #45
sw007 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic case of someone who just can't win whatever he does. People have been crying out for PayPal to change - he notices this, he emails the guy with a first class email but still gets criticised. Criticise him if he doesn't act, don't criticise the guy for being big enough to say 'hey, we have a problem, I want to fix it' - that should be applauded, even if it's come later than people would have liked - at least i…

Oh come on. He can't "win" by solving one person's problems. Will he give his personal email to everyone who has got his account frozen or large chunks of money taken away by PayPal? I doubt it. This is a non-solution, which is almost worse than doing nothing at all, because it's active disingenuity.

We must see the first step. He is trying to stop the bleeding. My guess is that the signs are there that the bleeding has started, it just hasn't hit mainstream yet.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#54

Post by wpietri »

kmm wrote: post #45
sw007 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic case of someone who just can't win whatever he does. People have been crying out for PayPal to change - he notices this, he emails the guy with a first class email but still gets criticised. Criticise him if he doesn't act, don't criticise the guy for being big enough to say 'hey, we have a problem, I want to fix it' - that should be applauded, even if it's come later than people would have liked - at least i…

Oh come on. He can't "win" by solving one person's problems. Will he give his personal email to everyone who has got his account frozen or large chunks of money taken away by PayPal? I doubt it. This is a non-solution, which is almost worse than doing nothing at all, because it's active disingenuity.

Did you read the same note I did? He says explicitly that he's new in the CEO spot and would like to use this story as a tool for redoing how they handle holds, and how they deal with customers.

You can't win by solving just one person's problems. But you also can't win unless you start by solving one person's problems. And then fix the system, so that the kind of problem is less likely to recur.

This, IMHO, is exactly the right way to do it. As contrasted with the wrong way, which is for employees to sit in their comfy offices and avoid all direct contact with customers, making up bureaucratic solutions to imagined problems.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#56

Post by wpietri »

njloof wrote: post #8

Step one for PayPal would be to always provide a reason when they take action, for all users. Every bad experience I have had with PayPal began with them doing something negative, and never explaining why they did it. I have had methods of payment locked out, I have had funds not released, I have been told I could not make an instant payment, and not once was I given a reason why.

I agree that they should always try to give you a reason. But that's not as easy as it sounds.

Put yourself in the position of somebody who is trying to commit massive fraud. E.g., by purporting to sell a bunch of stuff on-line. Every bit of information you have about how PayPal combats fraud is helpful. Every time PayPal gives somebody a reason, it helps fraudsters avoid that particular wall or trap, letting them probe the defenses elsewhere.

It's a hard problem. PayPal solved it the wrong way, but they'll never get to full transparency.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#58

Post by ktizo »

kmm wrote: post #45
sw007 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic case of someone who just can't win whatever he does. People have been crying out for PayPal to change - he notices this, he emails the guy with a first class email but still gets criticised. Criticise him if he doesn't act, don't criticise the guy for being big enough to say 'hey, we have a problem, I want to fix it' - that should be applauded, even if it's come later than people would have liked - at least i…

Oh come on. He can't "win" by solving one person's problems. Will he give his personal email to everyone who has got his account frozen or large chunks of money taken away by PayPal? I doubt it. This is a non-solution, which is almost worse than doing nothing at all, because it's active disingenuity.

Looks more like he is trying to buy direct outside expertise and opinion, without it being filtered through the company, in return for personally looking after this account. The problem from there on in is whether that person can actually continue to be useful as they will no longer be having the experience of a normal customer and might start being less critical in their approach. Picking someone who is absolutely furious probably helps in this as they are likely to be very upfront about their experiences.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#59

Post by wpietri »

maratd wrote: post #35
mcherm wrote: post #21

Here is what I would do... I would take him up on his offer (personal attention from the CEO? Sure!), but I would ask him whether he'd be willing to pick 3 or 4 other customers who had _NOT_ written an article which had gone viral and offer THEM the same deal. I want this to be true. I want PayPal to believe that this behavior is harmful to their business and to push (at ALL levels of the company) to change how they…

Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me! I had 20K removed from my account without an explanation and even hired a lawyer, all of which went absolutely nowhere. This is all a bunch of baloney. If PayPal was really serious about fixing all the pain and misery they caused, they would create a direct line of communication where those on the other end were empowered to resolve all problems ... instead of giving a curt "send us a lett…

How do you think a mechanism like that gets created?

Do it in one go and you're talking a department of tens or hundreds of people, most of them newly hired. Turn them loose without careful thought and at the very least you create massive chaos in your organization. But you also probably create substantial losses as fraudsters use the chaos to take a lot of money.

I think the only way you can get to the customer service experience you want is by starting with one customer's problems, solving them, and then changing the organization a bit so it's less dumb. Then you rinse and repeat for years.

It's an organization of thousands of people across the globe, with a zillion lines of code and, a ton of procedures and habits, and a lot of institutional inertia. The way to solve it is by starting now in a manageable way, and that's what he claims he's doing.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#60

Post by IsaacL »

noonespecial wrote: post #38

This isn't special... Yet. What happened here can happen even in the most dysfunctional customer service paradigms. A promblem randomly and luckily escalated from the people who can't do anything about the problem to the people who (generally speaking) won't do anything about the problem. As a lucky break, the person/department who generally won't do anything, decided in their mercy to do something this one time. IMH…

"IMHO, what was said in the email is just marketing duck-speak, no matter how sincere it sounds until proven otherwise."

I agree that this looks like a PR stunt, but it also shows some potential changes underfoot at Paypal.

Here's my read of the situation: Paypal has been known for being beauracratic ever since the eBay acquisition, when all the smart people left and the bozos and middle managers remained. You know the type of place and the type of people it attracts: it's the smooth-talking-but-not-that-bright individuals who do well, and any smart employees who perceive the real problems the company is in find themselves a part of an outcast fringe.

Don't tell us we have bad customer service issues; expressing that kind of negative attitude is not going to impress senior management, what with bonus season coming up. Stripe and Square are just dipshit startups that no real business will ever use. La-la-la I can't hear you.

It seems someone at eBay finally realised PayPal was going to be "disrupted" if it didn't get a leader with their shit together. This new guy seems competent, but steering a big lumbering ship like PayPal away from its death course takes serious political/organisation-hacking skills, no matter how big the icebergs loom.

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