Is this Paypal experience customary? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#141

Post by luckylion » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

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…

> 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 mistake and didn't bother getting angry.

In many (all?) countries, your bank would've acted criminally. If money has been deposited to your account, only you or a court order can get it out again. If somebody "just does it", they are on a similar legal basis as somebody that forgot a jacket in your house and decides to break your lock and enter your house without your knowledge or authorization to get it back.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#142

Post by winkeltripel » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:44 PM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #90

chrisdew wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some financial systems, a large number of which run on mainframes, have databases where all fields are fixed length. (A database with fixed-length records is trivial to access randomly.) One of my credit cards lists my name as "Christophe" rather than "Christopher" as they have a fixed-length 10 character field for first names. Customer support said it was unfixable. It only takes one such system, in a complex web, t…

It's possible, but this explanation still implies they're storing the passwords, not the hashes.

Think more along the lines of "they once had a mainframe in their infrastructure which stored passwords instead of hashes, which caused their requirements to limit the length of passwords to 20 characters, even if that system is no longer in use, or now uses hashes."

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#143

Post by stratosgear » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:46 PM UTC

noxToken wrote: post #118

stakhanov wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually that doesn't even work. When they don't have a payment method on file that they can abuse, they'll be happy to send your PayPal account into overdraft and start threatening legal action to bully you into settling the balance. Really the only thing to do, as soon as you see a "pay with paypal" screen is to go away screaming. Here's the anecdote: I had had a company with a bank account and PayPal account, then…

I'm starting to notice a trend in PayPal fraud cases: a user has an issue with fraud. User contacts PP. PP's fraud department won't discuss the matter. PP does something oafish to lose a customer. The critical point seems to be that fraud won't talk to customers. It makes sense that PP moves quickly when fraud is suspected. What doesn't make sense is that they're so secretive about the events that take place on a use…

OP here. The fact that I am actively engaging in conversation with them, to resolve this, should bump me up a notch on their trust level (of course I could be playing an "iocane trick" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_eZmEiyTo0] but there is no way to honestly prove this).

Also the fact that they reply to my initial question about the refund, with an absolutist "After investigating, YOU have logged in and YOU have initiated the refund", when I know I have done not such thing, immediately makes me think that I've been hacked or somehow have fallen a victim of fraud.

Further inquiries to clarify the issue, only leads me to get my account blocked/locked. I have no idea how this can be considered fraud protection from their side! And all this means that all in all I agree with you about the lack of competence of the fraud protection team...

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#144

Post by blackethylene » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:47 PM UTC

> it's not like Paypal will miss me, I know, I would just feel too "dirty" to keep it open after all that happened

It's comforting to know that other people feel the same way.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#145

Post by tootahe45 » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

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.…

Do you have an alternative? most of Paypal's conduct around these cases is defined by the regulations. If you think Paypal is bad, try Skrill (which I guess is the EU Paypal). And no, I don't mean actually try it, i still have $700 locked in there which i believe they're taxing for inactivity, because all they have for ID verification is an automated 3rd party system.

What i would love is for these services to require ID for opening account, not after depositing over $250 (when you have skin in the game and have to verify your id or lose the $), they won't though because they would have a 95% churn rate on registration.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#146

Post by IAmGraydon » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

I’m going against the consensus here, but why was this guy so concerned about the reversal of a transaction that never should have happened in the first place? It wasn’t his money. Someone at PayPal obviously manually reversed the transaction when they realized the mistake. These things happen.

I’ve been using PayPal personally for 10+ years without issue. I also own a company and have processed hundreds of transactions and withdrawals through a business account with them without a single problem. I’m not saying that dealing with PayPal is without risks, but it’s also possible that we’re hearing a vocal minority here.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#147

Post by philpem » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

IAmGraydon wrote: post #138

stakhanov wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually that doesn't even work. When they don't have a payment method on file that they can abuse, they'll be happy to send your PayPal account into overdraft and start threatening legal action to bully you into settling the balance. Really the only thing to do, as soon as you see a "pay with paypal" screen is to go away screaming. Here's the anecdote: I had had a company with a bank account and PayPal account, then…

Did you take the vendor (who made the fraudulent charge) to court to get your funds back?

> Knowing that taking the legal route would have been way more costly than the amount of the transaction

That reads like a "no" to me.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#148

Post by stakhanov » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

IAmGraydon wrote: post #138

stakhanov wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually that doesn't even work. When they don't have a payment method on file that they can abuse, they'll be happy to send your PayPal account into overdraft and start threatening legal action to bully you into settling the balance. Really the only thing to do, as soon as you see a "pay with paypal" screen is to go away screaming. Here's the anecdote: I had had a company with a bank account and PayPal account, then…

Did you take the vendor (who made the fraudulent charge) to court to get your funds back?

No, because of the same consideration: The amount at stake was just too small to justify a court battle.

But I really think that the banking regulator should take note of user stories such as the ones that are regularly all over HN and get to the bottom of it. After all PayPal, at least in Europe, is subject to the same regulation as other banks and payment processors. And if that's not the job of a banking regulator to take note when a financial institution has such shitty processes that consumers regularly suffer damages, then I don't know what is.

Also, maybe a private lawfirm should put together a class action or something on the basis of all those user stories. I realize that cases tend to be rather different to each other, but I'm finding it hard to believe that there aren't some things that happen so frequently and so systematically that it should be easy to take a stab at in court on behalf of a larger group of users who have suffered damages.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#149

Post by holtalanm » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #109

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…

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 mistake and didn't bother getting angry. I had an unexpected deposit show up in my bank account last year and then disappear a day later. The bank sent me a letter in the mail explaining what happened. Maybe you need a better bank.

years ago, when Wells Fargo first introduced the ability to deposit a check via their mobile app, there was apparently a bug that caused it to sometimes deposit the same check twice.

so, i deposited a $1000 paycheck (was working for a local guy, fixing computers) once and did NOT notice that i actually ended up with $2000 in my account. This went on for at least three months, when all of a sudden I lose $1000 from my account. Apparently Wells Fargo had figured out about the bug and found all the accounts that had gotten double deposits and 'fixed it'.

All without notifying me.

...I don't bank with Wells Fargo any more.

Re: Is this Paypal experience customary?

#150

Post by StavrosK » Fri, Jul 05, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

stakhanov wrote: post #92

voidwtf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Actually that doesn't even work. When they don't have a payment method on file that they can abuse, they'll be happy to send your PayPal account into overdraft and start threatening legal action to bully you into settling the balance. Really the only thing to do, as soon as you see a "pay with paypal" screen is to go away screaming. Here's the anecdote: I had had a company with a bank account and PayPal account, then…

Do they use accounts linked for withdrawal to transfer money as well? I have an account linked so I can withdraw PayPal money to the bank, but I don't want them to get money from my bank account to PayPal.

Does anyone know how I can avoid that happening?