Class Action Lawsuit Says PayPal Restricted Funds 278
trenton writes: "CNET News.com reports a class-action law suit was filed Wednesday in California Superior Court in Santa Clara County. The suit charges PayPal with illegitimately restricting customers' access to their money. The suit asks for an unspecified amount of damages. Have you been ripped off or locked out?"
Stock Price? (Score:4, Funny)
Ripped off.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I was ripped off by the seller, not PayPal, so I think PayPal should have the right to do whatever it takes to stop fraud.
Re:Ripped off.. (Score:2)
Re:Ripped off.. (Score:3, Interesting)
However having said that Pay Pal does make it clear you should know who your sending your money too if you send it to the wrong person, or they just take it, they do state thats your problem.
Ripoffs like this accure with banks too, like the nigrian gambit (you know pay me XX and let me use your account to unlock my funds and you get Y%) Of course that one is worse because they try to hook you for more and more. The good news is the police care about tracking those people down, so if you get emails/snails like they talk to your police.
James
Re:Ripped off.. (Score:2)
Escrow does have problems when trying to do things internationally and it does increase costs. But I guess people should think how important losing there money is to them, and factor that into the cost
I think some of the problems people have with Pay Pal is because they think of it like a bank which it is not.
Personally I have been lucky, and I have Never been ripped off by anyone on the 'net.
James
What Rights are in issue here? (Score:3, Interesting)
seems the editors think any bad thing a company does violates your "rights".
Re:What Rights are in issue here? (Score:4, Informative)
-when you link a bank account with your paypal account, you are agreeing to let them take money out of your account at any time for any reason without warning. They have been know to empty peoples checking accounts to cover themselves if they suspect fraud.
-by agreeing to the TOS, you "waive" your right to pursue legal action against them. According to them, the only way to pursue issues with them is through an independant arbitrator. Obviously this doesnt hold up under scrutiny because a suit was just filed...
-paypal is not a bank- when you "deposit" money into your account, they become the legal custodians of that money. Thats how they can freeze peoples accounts on a whim.
-along with that last item, they are not FDIC insured, so when (not if) they become another
paypalwarning.com has a lot more info if you are interested.
Re:What Rights are in issue here? (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly. But they pay interest in "escrowed" funds, issue (or possibly just sell) credit cards, and use internal as well as the ach to clear transfers. This is new ground for banking
services. I beleive that there are more then a couple states attorneys general and banking comissions looking at them.
Heck... when they were X.com they even sold a mutual fund.
bank accounts... (Score:3, Interesting)
assume you stole the card and try to launder the money to yourself, so they freeze and seize all money in your account AND bank account if you made a withdrawl
now i'm nervous to even accept paypal for anything
Re:bank accounts... (Score:5, Interesting)
-Restil
They're ripping me off right now! (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm. Let's see. They don't want to abide by the rules that banks have to follow, yet they want to screw their customers even worse than a bank. Sounds like they want to have their cake and eat it too.
Does anyone have any info on how to become part of this class action suit?
Bank Rules? (Score:2, Interesting)
If you want to accept credit cards over the Internet it's tricky to get a merchant account.
When you do get one you have to have a reserve in your account at all times which card issuing banks can help themselves to if their cardholders dispute a transaction. In addition to that your bank will typically assess a $15 chargeback fee which just magically disappears.
Should your ratio of sales/chargebacks for any month exceed 2.5% or 1% US customer disputes Visa will fine you $100 per chargeback on top of that. Don't keep up your reserve and your bank will hold ALL your money for at least 6 months.
Starting to see PayPal's problems yet?
I can tell you they're not alone in feeling it's unjustified, but they have to pass this on.
http://www.websitebilling.com/pressrelease.html [websitebilling.com]
ANTI-PayPal Communities (Score:5, Informative)
Goodbye PayPal... (Score:2)
Based on all this Bad Press I just closed my PayPal account. Who needs this kind of heartache. It seems to happen often enough and be painful enough to be worth avoiding.
Re: or paypalwarning.com (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that with 13M users, if
Meanwhile your account is locked without anything you can do about it, often for reasons you don't know or know to be false (a buyer pays, but PYPL thinks something is wrong with it and/or the seller and locks both).
When it works, it's fine. But if they ever lock an account (and you don't have to do anything) it is a nightmare.
Re: or paypalwarning.com (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:ANTI-PayPal Communities (Score:2, Interesting)
They all freeze your accounts at the drop of a hat.
They all stick the seller with a loss when there is fraud.
They all hold your money in some stasis where you cannot access it, but you can lose it.
The only thing new paypal did was bring the nightmare of credit processing to the normal joe.
Chet
Re:ANTI-PayPal Communities (Score:2)
The only thing new paypal did was bring the nightmare of credit processing to the normal joe.
And then they coupled it with the most incompetent, unorganized customer service department you can imagine so that it's practically impossible to get even stupid non-issues fixed.
More Links (Score:2)
Good set of links too.
accepting paypal on your website (Score:3, Interesting)
I just want a debit card! (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been screwed by every big name bank I've had so I for one don't want PayPal to be more like a normal bank. I'm perfectly satisfied with them so far other than them being to careful with my money.
Re:I just want a debit card! (Score:2)
Avoid the big banks like the plague, support your local banks and credit unions.
yeah they ripped me off... (Score:4, Funny)
another informative paypal site (Score:2, Informative)
Visit the Wall of Shame for user submitted horror stories of Paypal's actions.
When times were good (Score:2)
And why did they do their IPO now? Raise cash for what exactly?
Re:When times were good (Score:4, Funny)
Ummmm...to pay lawyers and law suit plaintiffs, meybe? Just like a real IT buinsess does these days.
;^D
Soko
Re:When times were good (Score:2)
What's That, Your Honor? (Score:4, Funny)
Oops.
Re:What's That, Your Honor? (Score:2)
--Abraham S. Simpson
PayPalWarning.Com (Score:2, Informative)
paypalsucks.com (Score:2)
PayPal is just bad news (Score:5, Interesting)
They have buggy software. This means on occasion, more money is withdrawn from your non-PayPal accounts then you authorized them to take. Giving them access to your checking account is a horrible thing to do, double-dipping is widespread and if you have any checks that need clearing, well......you are in trouble - assuming they haven't overdrawn your account in the first place (did it to me).
Due to the sheer size of their user-base, and their inability to correct their problems, much less deal with the number of complaints generated by things that aren't their fault (action sellers taking money and running, for example) they've taken to a scorched Earth manner of dealing with problems.
Any sign of trouble - your account is frozen - along with any money that might be there. Too bad if you're in the middle of a huge transaction involving lots of money that you really can't afford to lose.
This is like using a nuclear device to wipe out an ant infestation. It causes much more damage to innocent users than you could possibly imagine.
You have a problem, even if it is their fault they might not fix it. Wait more than 30 days to complain that they stole your money and guess what? The money is gone forever, you will never get it back. They will not allow you to file a complaint about their rape of your checking account if you wait more than a few weeks.
To sum it up, PayPal provides a great service, but they have shown themselves to be incapable of actually providing that service with any great degree of reliability or accountability.
This lawsuit has been a long time coming. More power to the plaintiffs.
Re:PayPal is just bad news (Score:3, Informative)
Back in November. I'm still trying to get it sorted out.
Re:PayPal is just bad news (Score:2)
Yuh, I had $900 debited out of my account to credit a bunch of cell phones. The thieves used my debit card (not credit card) number to take it straight out of my main account. I got chatting to the CSO that sorted it for me (I used to work there) and she explained that this was pretty common now, and after some initial griping about customers using card online and leaving receipts lying around (nope and nope for me) they'd just acknowledged that these numbers were either coming from legitimate merchants (with or without their knowlege) or were just randomly generated, and were crediting them straight back and doing chargebacks, or (more and more) kicking it to their legal department.
The basic trouble with the whole banking system is that it's entirely based on trust. Once you get into it as a trusted peer, you can initiate any transactions you like, for pretty much any values you like, and there's not a damn thing anyone will do to stop you until well after the fact. When I used to work in banking, we make a cursory effort to look at the paper checks over $1500 dollars when they came back to the branch, but we never caught anything that way, while at the same time, we'd regularly see fraudulent e-transactions for tens of thousands of dollars get presented, and we had both local and federal law enforcement drop by more than once trying to catch a couple of individuals who'd been drawing their ill gotten gains from our branch - and we were a small, sleepy suburban branch.
The level of fraud was high but manageable before every vendor and their dog got into the system. It seems like it's starting to get out of hand now, and there are apparently no plans to deal with it, other than punishing basically honest vendors in high risk areas (e.g. porn sites) by charging them more per transaction. Sooner or later, we're all going to get stung; it's just a question of how much, and how quickly you can convince your bank of your innocence. :-(
Re:PayPal is just bad news (Score:5, Interesting)
Paypal may claim that to be the case, but Federal banking laws are against them.
I have spent many years working on payments systems. I don't think it is possible to do what Paypal does profitably and comply with the banking regulations. I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, but I have spent very large sums on such over the years and my papers have been published in ABA journals (where B stands for either Banking or Bar).
Like it or not, banking is a very highly regulated business. It really does not matter what Ayn Rand the Libertarian Party, Paypal or slashweenies think about whether that is right, Regulation E is the law.
Paypal has been successful attracting merchants by transfering the risk that under Regulation E. rests with either the merchant or the bank to the consumer.
The terms stated in the legal notices written by the Paypal lawyers are almost certainly irrelevant. The first recourse a customer has is to their bank, all credit cards are issued by banks, Visa and Mastercard are merely payment transfer associations (AMEX cards are issued by 'Centurion Bank').
If a bank recieves a complaint from a customer that funds were withdrawn from their account without authorization a very specific and federally regulated complaint procedure begins. The consumer is protected against fraudulent charges over a $50 deductable if a signature is involved or in any amount otherwise.
I very much doubt that the Paypal agreement is at all relevant to the issue. The alleged agreement has no effect on the federaly regulated relationship between the consumer and the bank. The bank can and will effectively reverse transactions that are alleged to be fraudulent, whether they take place by credit card or ACH.
The specific case that the class action refers to appears to center on funds held in escrow for customers. The odd thing here is that it is difficult to see how Paypal can do this without functioning as a bank and being subject to regulation. The lack of FDIC insurance is irrelevant, FDIC insurance is not necessary to be accredited as a bank.
Equally it is hard to see how the class action can possibly be successful. If Paypal loses the court case it is unlikely they will be in a position to continue operations.
Re:PayPal is just bad news (Score:2)
I'm guessing that this is the intention. After all, these are people who really have nothing to lose. It's hard to argue that they should sit tight and shut up just to protect the PayPal customers that haven't been scammed yet. PayPal is clearly acting as a bank, and they should have been bitchslapped a long time ago. It's surprising that it's taken so long, really.
Re:PayPal is just bad news (Score:2)
For credit card processing, clearing houses do not have to be a bank though often they are required to be sponcered by one.
I've slept some since I was actively involved in that industry (so memory may suffer) and regs may of certainly changes. Nonetheless, take this with a grain of salt.
Re:PayPal can end up losing out too! (Score:2)
Because of this, you can actually have a situation where PayPal shows you have quite a bit of money available in your account, when really - it's already been spent.
Seems like someone wanting to screw over PayPal could take advantage of this situation and buy much more than they really had in the account, and then close it out.
Not a problem for me... (Score:5, Informative)
Now, maybe this doesn't happen in every case. And maybe if you accept funds from unverified users you don't get protection. But I just want people to know that every fraudulent transaction doesn't result in Paypal seizing your account.
On the other hand, they are very difficult to get in touch with except by email (which we all know is easy to ignore). This is somehting that should definitely be improved upon.
Still, I like paypal. If you want complete control, I suggest you get a merchant account. Frozen paypal accounts are, I believe, rare. And I think they involve more than just a simple charge back in most cases.
Re:Not a problem for me... (Score:2)
I've used PayPal, for eBay mostly, for maybe a year. It was a lot of screwing around before they got their International act together and some (most) people trying to pay me with a credit card who don't already have a PayPal account have major problems working out what to do. But I've probably received 20-30 payments through PayPal and made 15 or so myself with no problems.
In contrast, I've had my Citibank credit card frozen because they didn't fill in some Austrac anti-money laundering form. Go back far enough and you'll find out that I'm a Commonwealth Bank customer because some pissant temporary manager at the local National Australia Bank branch blocked in my mother's car in their car park. He came very close to having a brick heaved through his window when he failed to own up to the fact that it was his car.
complaining much? (Score:2, Troll)
No PayPal (Score:4, Informative)
C2it... (Score:4, Informative)
Use a real escrow service. (Score:2)
Escrow.com [escrow.com] *is* an escrow service. There are others. Yes, it costs more. But you have 1) protection, and 2) legal recourse if you get screwed.
Webplayer Co-op (Score:3, Informative)
We had a hundred or so people send him money via PayPal to make the WebPlayer order. They suspected something was fishy and froze his account. You can read the thread from the Webplayer Co-op egroup here [yahoo.com].
Eventually they straightened it out, the WebPlayers were shipped and we received them, but PayPal sure delayed the process.
Re:Webplayer Co-op (Score:2)
No, I said, "PayPal has my money, Jake can't get it because PayPal has frozen his account."
"We're concerned about fraud."
"If there's fraud being committed, it's by PayPal. We have paid you for a service, namely delivering funds to Mr. Schlacter. You have done no such thing, yet you have our funds."
"Mr. Schlacter has your money. I can't confirm his account status to you, but if his account has been frozen, it's because of something he's done, and he'll have to speak to us about it."
"He hasn't done anything. He is trying to do us a service, and we're sending funds to him. Can you make a note on his account that I have called, that I have not been defrauded by him, and that I insist that my funds be transferred to Mr. Schlacter immediately?"
"Mr. Schlachter has your funds."
And so it went...
When Jake finally did get hold of PayPal, it was difficult to deal with their arbitrary ID requirements, since (as is typical of college students away at school) Jake had some documents with his home (parents') address and some with his school address.
Really, go read the thread that NathanM linked above. I can't believe these idiots are still around.
-Z
Use PayPal only with a Credit Card (Score:5, Informative)
FWIW, using a credit card for most purchases is actually good advice, because it avoids all sorts of frauds and other problems (for example, a restaurant in a foreign country once charged my card twice; I guess they thought since I wasn't from around there I couldn't come back and complain. The CC company removed the fraudulent second charge after a simple phone call...if I had paid with a debit card it would've been a real pain to try to get my money back). This is provided, of course, that you are disciplined enough to pay your credit card bill on time to avoid going into debt and paying high interest rates.
Re:Use PayPal only with a Credit Card (Score:2, Insightful)
FWIW, using a credit card for most purchases is actually good advice, because it avoids all sorts of frauds and other problems....
That is, of course, unless your credit card company belongs in the same detention hall as PayPal. This is slightly off topic, but consumers should remember not only to do their homework about online payment mechanisms, but their credit cards as well. There are some (IMHO) excellent, consumer-focused companies [discovercard.com], and there are some (documented [tripod.com] and documented [zdnet.com]) dishonest companies that suck rocks [firstusa.com]. If your credit card company tries to push off all of its fraud onto the end consumer, then using it is about as good as using cash.
A quick search online will give you volumes of complaints from customers on various different banks. The trick is to interpret them and pick the least evil.
One thing that consumers can do to protect themselves (beside reading their cardholder's agreement, but I'll assume everybody does that) is to call customer service of your bank before making a risky transaction and ask the representative to spell out your rights. Record the conversation and inform them you are doing so from the outset. That way if they renege, you have something to fight back with.
Another good thing to do is to find and read the Visa or MasterCard regulations (I would post a link, but they seem to be hard to come by) with which issuing banks must comply. Many banks will play upon the ignorance of the consumer and attempt to push responsibility for fraudulent charges onto the cardholder knowing that if they get lucky even 10% of the time, that's a whole lotta $$$ in their pockets.
Caveat cardholder.
Re:Use PayPal only with a Credit Card (Score:2)
I learned this the hard way when shop4paintball.com ripped me off. Sent me shitty paintballs, verbally guaranteed them over the phone, then refused to allow me to return them. Nextcard [nextcard.com], the "Internet Visa", did jack shit to help. In fact, the bitch who handled my complaint chastised ME! She said I "should have known the prices were too good to be true" and cited the merchant's web site, where they proclaimed "No returns, all sales final" in tiny letters five links deep. Nevermind the fact that I didn't place the order on their fscking web site, I placed it over the telephone and was lied to and given false promises.
I filed a complaint with the merchant's BBB, but they were of little help. They called back 3 months later to get more details from me, which I provided, but I never heard from them again.
$75 lesson learned. Now, I only use my local credit union's cards. I've been a member for 10 years and they treat their customers like family. Better, if I ever do have a problem I can walk my ass down there and talk to a real person face to face.
Re:Use PayPal only with a Credit Card (Score:3, Insightful)
I do have a Visa debit card with a local bank. I had the unforunate experience of having a roommate in college "borrow" my card and purcahse some qustionable material online. I discovered it on my bank statement and immediately called the bank. They helped my track down what the charges were for and when we discovered they were unauthorized, I contested them and got my money back. My bank was very helpful. However, as with everything, your mileage may (and probablly will) vary.
One thing that everyone that uses a credit card should remember is the criteria for a merchant to "prove" that a charge is legit. First, they MUST have your signature. Second, they must prove that the credit card was actually presented to them, wither with an imprint of the card or by recording the full magnetic stripe data. If they don't have both of these, they don't have a legit charge and, if you contest the charge, they automatically lose. Accepting credit cards online is very risky for this reason because they will lack both requirements for a legit charge. Of course, this doesn't mean you should go buying stuff online and contest all the charges; that is fraud.
Re:Use PayPal only with a Credit Card (Score:2)
However, there is a higher incidence of fraud in these types of transactions of course, and card companies often charge higher commissions when the merchant hits the "not present" button.
Also, the merchant is always liable for bad transactions (unless they obtain a auth code from the issuer), so no change there. If a bricks&mortar retailer accepts (for instance) a bad signature, it's the same as if they had accepted a forged note.
Re:Use PayPal only with a Credit Card (Score:5, Informative)
Your rights are the same in both cases and in fact you are dealing with a bank in both cases. The main difference is that with a credit card the dispute only affects your credit limit, if you are disputing a $500 charge your $2000 credit limit will be $1,500 until the dispute is respolved. If on the other hand you used a debit card you have $500 in your current account that you cannot use and is efectively deducted from your account for the duration of the dispute.
I had a recent dispute with a hotel that had illegally charged for a late cancellation despite having agreeed to a 6pm cancellation (Sunnyvale Hilton had changed to a Sheraton). First time round AMEX corporate sent me back a letter saying they had invsetigated the dispute and the hotel had provided the 'enclosed information' that proved their case - absolutely nothing in the letter. I then sent a snotty letter telling them that 1) I am also a Platinum customer so don't mess with me, 2) a photocopy of the booking agreement made by telephone through through an AMEX travel agent and 3) required them to send a copy of a signed charge voucher as required by regulation E.
The charge was refunded in full within a week.
Citibank on the other hand in similar circumstances sent me a sequence of nasty letters, made harrassing telephone calls to the home etc. until they sold the alleged debt to a collection agency. Unlike Citibank whose customer service was dreadful the collection agency was actually helpfull and gave me a fax number to which I served a cease and desist disputing the charge a few hours later and never heard any more. They even took note of the clause in the cease and desist where I stated that any communication to a third party (read credit agency) allegeing that a debt existed would be considered libelous.
One of the things I find frustrating about living in the US is that so many people are cowards who won't defend their rights against Equifax
Exactly... (Score:2)
This is the same reason you should never use a debit card to make purchases online unless it offers the same protections that a major credit card offers. Many don't. Some do. Be sure before you use it online.
Re:minimum monthly payments (Score:3, Informative)
well (Score:2)
But as for minimum monthly payments, of course they're going to make you pay something. Otherwise you could just keep spending up to your limit and then never pay them back - they'd essentially be giving you free money.
What good timing. (Score:3, Informative)
I've used paypal since the begining (when it was a way to send money with your palm pilot) and always thought it was a great service, untill this incident. Luckily I've never stored money in my paypal account and I've never given them my checking account information(mama didn't raise no fool). With their form letter response today, It's looking like it's time to investigate the paypal alternatives that will be happy to have my business.
Re:What good timing. (Score:2)
billpoint is Ebay's payment service, and also offers a secure way to pay another individual with a credit card.
These might not do everything paypall does, but they do everything I've used paypall for. Does anyone know of any other services?
Re:What good timing. (Score:2)
What is the fee for using Yahoo! PayDirect?
Yahoo! PayDirect offers two tiers of pricing based on your usage level. The standard rate is 2.5% of the transaction amount plus $0.30. Any fee you will be charged will be automatically calculated and displayed by Yahoo! PayDirect before you send or receive payments, so you will always know what the cost is.
To learn more about the fee structure, please visit:
https://paydirect.yahoo.com/fees
If you are a high-volume user of Yahoo! PayDirect, you can qualify for a reduced rate of 2.2% of the transaction amount plus $.30 for each applicable transaction.
To qualify for the Yahoo! PayDirect Preferred rate, your account must be in good standing (i.e., your account is not restricted and you have no unresolved chargebacks), and you must have received $2,000 or more in Yahoo! PayDirect payments in the previous 90 days.
To learn more about our Yahoo! PayDirect Preferred rate, please visit:
https://paydirect.yahoo.com/preferred
When compared to other secure money-transfer products, Yahoo! PayDirect is clearly a simple and cost-effective solution. Plus PayDirect makes it easy for you, with a click of your mouse, to instantly send or receive money from a number of Yahoo! services including Auctions, Greetings, Mobile, and Points.
My lockout experience (Score:3, Interesting)
To unfreeze it, I needed to fax them:
Despite the glaring violation of privacy, I did get the account unfrozen in under 24 hours, and I did find them easy to communicate with. However, I do believe that Paypal needs to be regulated as much as your local bank.
Re:My lockout experience (Score:2)
I'm amazed you got it unfrozen in under 24 hours as I couldn't even get an email reply in that time, though this site [paypalwarning.com] gave me some phone numbers that might lead to better luck. Or at the very least maybe I'll be able to cost them as much money as they've stolen from me.
Classic (Score:2, Interesting)
When I first heard about PayPal a couple of years ago I thought "This is great!". Micropayments, done deal. I was excited and about to start receiving payments via Paypal.
Then I heard the horror stories about accounts being closed down and money even being reverse charged out of bank accounts. I stopped using my Paypal account before I even started, luckily.
Sure, you can do what someone else recommended--open a bank account just to receive PayPal payments and withdrawl the funds as soon as they come in. But at that point the hassle isn't worth it.
We still need a good micropayment solution. Something that is truly innovative and breaks paradigms. I'm not sure what it is, but whoever or whatever company comes up with it will be taking it to the bank.
I Sort Of Like PayPal (Score:2, Informative)
I contacted the buyer and asked them to make an adjustment.
Not being able to correct a payment mistake shows that PayPal is running a peculiar type of business. Credit card companies allow you to void, or correct transactions, but PalPay has taken away the ability to do so. The question is why?
Re:I Sort Of Like PayPal (Score:2)
This is probably because of extreme arrogance on the part of management. I read somewhere (trying to find it) where some manager was quoted that they had reduced the staff answering phones not to save money, but to discourage people from complaining. When I merely tried to close my PayPal account so I would no longer be spammed by them, I ran into many roadblocks, including a broken web server (I eventually figured out what was broken, but so far no one there seems to care), and auto-mail responses that direct you to a web page that fails and directs you back to the mail address that gives that auto-mail response. That's the kind of stupidity that goes on there.
I wonder if Arthur Andersen will be doing their audits (now that they went public, someone has to).
Either get a Merchant Account or Stop Whining (Score:2, Informative)
Paypal makes it no secret how they handle problems, they clearly say that they will restrict withdrawls of part of, or all of your money for up to 180 days during reported disputes.
This notice is in their Terms of Use on their front page. http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/te
Re:Either get a Merchant Account or Stop Whining (Score:2)
Their idiot policy is the very reason many of us are telling people to totally avoid PayPal. That and general stupidity of some of the people there. The only way I take payments is that you mail me a cashier's check, a personal check if willing to wait while it clears (unfortunately the banking system still drags this out for as much as 2 weeks), or wire it to me via Western Union.
Not PayPal bashing (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm disabled. Getting out to buy stamps, or a money order, is difficult. It takes several hours, and a few tries, to write out the envelope. Add to that, using snail mail from Seattle to anyplace *but* the West coast takes a full week. So, if I must pay by check, we've added a week's mail lag, then ten days for the check to clear, then it's a week more to get the item. By then, I've been dying to get it for weeks. Using PayPal cuts two weeks off of that delay. I like it.
The few times I've been paid with PayPal it's taken 5 days for my money to show up in my bank account, but they say that it might take that long. I wish they were faster - just how long does it take electrons to flow from them to my Seattle bank? - but they're likely making money on the "float", and I cannot begrudge them that perk.
Re:Not PayPal bashing (Score:3, Informative)
But after after visiting paypalsucks.com and the other websites and reading some of the stories a definite pattern emerges.
It is clear that paypal has a lot of problems, and I would be stupid to trust them with my money knowing what I now know. You would be too. The question is what are you willing to risk?? Also, they _are not_ a bank - so if anything does go wrong, you're out of luck. There is no FDIC - so if they were to file chapter 11 you would never see your money.
I will look for other services for direct pay. I'm sure that with paypals impending demise alternatives will arise to fill the gap.
Here's a couple;
https://secure.ikobo.com/ [ikobo.com]
http://www.upspayment.com/ [upspayment.com]
http://banking.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com]
Also, many _real_ banks are implementing online banking. You should see if any local banks in your area are online and see what services they offer. With a real bank you have FDIC insurance.
Read the Terms Of Service before you join up with anything.
never had a problem (Score:4, Interesting)
My experience with paypal.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Luckily my bank is being good about it and are not charging me for those overdrawn withdrawals. Needless to say, I will never use PayPal again, nor will I ever recommend it to anyone! Avoid it like the plague!
Re:My experience with paypal.... (Score:2)
Obviously there are quite a number of clueless people at PayPal, starting with Peter Thiel. I haven't lost any money there, but I ran into their basic stupidity when I merely tried to close my PayPal account. A broken web page said to send email to a certain address to report problems. An auto-response from there said to use the web page to send a message. It was the broken one. Duh.
Re:My experience with paypal.... (Score:2)
Pay attention, he didn't have $900 in his paypal account. He had paypal linked to his savings account, and when he realized there was a problem he contacted his bank. His bank discovered someone trying to withdraw $900 from his savings account, after they had been told someone had fradulently obtained the number to his account)
I personally never kept more then a buck in my paypal account when I used them, and when I quit using them (no longer was using a service that accepted paypal) I took all money out. however the account was still linked to my checking account until I closed it, so someone who got in would have been able to withdraw all the money I had in my account.
PayPal is a financial institution (Score:2)
PayPal's big problem is that they aren't staffed for the exception rate of a financial institution. In banking, less than 1% of transactions are exceptions, but exception handling consumes about 25% of bank resources.
Now that PayPal has moved away from being a peer to peer service (consumer-level PayPal accounts can only send money, not receive it), they're probably going to be regulated like a credit card issuer. In fact, it's not clear what PayPal's role is now that they basically have consumer accounts and merchant accounts. That's basically competing with banks that handle credit card merchant accounts, and the banks do a better job of that.
Solution: Don't use PayPal. Mail it instead (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if you spare a little more money to mail them a money order instead, what they did magically turns into something called "mail fraud." Federal agents wearing dark suits and carrying badges begin looking for this person to throw them into pound-you-up-the-ass penetentiary for up to five years (multiplied by however many other people he's ripped off through the mail).
Of course, if this is the first and last time they defrauded someone through the mail, there's a chance the Postal Inspectors might not have the time to really give it much attention. But just because they're not activley seeking the person doesn't mean there's not a felony warrant issued for the culprit, which will make employment background checks, driver's license renewals and plane ticket purchases a whole lot more interesting. And that's before we wonder how often he gets pulled over for traffic violations...
I ask you: If you don't wholly trust who you're buying from, where can you get more entertainment for $1.24? Certainly not PayPal!
Re:Solution: Don't use PayPal. Mail it instead (Score:2)
I do a lot of eBay business, too, and that's the only reason I keep a PayPal account around.
The ability for someone to click and pay, and be done with the transaction, is a great incentive to buy.
If I post a product for sale, identical to another one up for sale at the same price, I'll usually get mine sold first if I take PayPal and the other person doesn't.
As I keep telling people, just don't leave too much money sitting in your PayPal account. Immediately transfer most or all of it to another account, where it's FDIC insured and where you don't have to worry about your money being frozen by PayPal staff.
Bank fraud? (Score:2)
Once upon a time.... (Score:5, Interesting)
See PayPal's S-1 IPO filing (Score:2)
You can see PayPal's S-1 IPO filing here [finsys.com] [1851943 bytes]. I haven't looked through it, yet, but from some other places I've heard it actually looks bad. Go see for yourself for the real truth.
Re:See PayPal's S-1 IPO filing (Score:2)
Those were things other people have said in other forums after some time was spent waiting for people to read it. Maybe by now some /. readers have done the same. It's stuffy reading, but some people can figure it all out.
I do know these things are supposed to report all negative aspects of the business honestly. But there are many which they are not reporting at all. It may not be as big a thing as the debt hiding partnerships that Enron is accused of masterminding, but hiding the problems your business is having with the way they poorly handle the fraud situations (they only gave the fraud problems a standard "lip service" in the S-1), is itself a form of fraud. This is something investors need to know about.
What about the good experiences? (Score:3, Informative)
I have used PayPal for a year now. I have done probably over 1,000 transactions of people sending me money and me purchasing goods. I have not ONCE had a problem with their service.
I've paid for many things through PayPal and using my debit card. I have never been overcharged. I have never had funds taken out of my bank account that were not authorized. I've never had a problem. I've never had a person take my money and run.
Those who post here about their bad experiences are a vocal minority. People tend to speak up when they have a problem with a service, but say nothing when the service is good. PayPal would not be in business in the first place if they weren't doing something right.
Of course there are people who have had problems with PayPal, it happens at every company -- but I think it is unfair to PayPal to have only negative posts regarding their company moderated up for all to see when really there are many, many more happy customers than customers who are not satisfied with the service.
I'm a firm supporter of PayPal, I have done probably over $10,000 in transactions with them with absolutely no problems.
Re:What about the good experiences? (Score:2)
Problems do happen in any business. And that's not an indicator that the business itself is a problem. But how they handle those problems can be. If they handle them well, that's good for them. Unfortunately for PayPal, they are in a business that has risks of fraud. Credit cards can be charged back for a few months (I've done so as much as 5 months after the fact). The situation can easily leave someone unhappy. But, there are also a lot of ways to handle things properly that PayPal simply does not do. For example, if incoming payment is suspected to be fraudulent, they should put THAT AMOUNT on hold, not the whole account (unless there is evidence that the whole account is somehow part of the fraud). PayPal needs to be able to answer the phone and deal with the problems that do exist, and deal with them in a timely manner. No doubt there are a lot of satisfied customers, or else they would have gone bankrupt by now. But the bad experiences that are being reported do show a serious pattern of problems with how the company is managed. If 1% of the customers are unhappy, then the company has some very serious problems and needs to be investigated. Yet, if 99% of the postings say "I'm happy with PayPal", people would really think nothing is wrong. You do have to emphasize the negative. Do you think if 50% of customers were ripped off that it would be neutralized by 50% of the customers being fully satisfied? I didn't think so.
FWIW (Score:2)
Just got off phone with VISA... (Score:2, Informative)
I called VISA this morning trying to recover the rest of my money but they said that since its been over 60 days they can put the complaint in but I shouldn't except to recoup any of the money.
Just a word, DONT go through PayPal's horrible "FRAUD" insurance bullsh*t-- Once you think you have been ripped off IMMEDIATELy call your credit card company and have them deal with the situation..
This isn't the first time I've been screwed over, and I don't plan on using their service in the future.
Re:Just got off phone with VISA... (Score:2)
61367 items on eBay do NOT accept PayPal (Score:3, Informative)
I went to the eBay [ebay.com] Smart Search [ebay.com] page and entered "no paypal" and checked the buttons to also search descriptions. It matched 61367 items [ebay.com]. Interesting. I'm sure the number will change every minute.
Now 66824, was 61367 (Score:2)
Show me facts mis-represented. I'm just saying that there is some number of people out there (certainly smaller number of people than items, but counting the actual number of people isn't so easy) who are not trusting enough of PayPal to work with them. There could be more than list things like "check, cashiers check, or money order only" or the like. I didn't count those, either. But I will assume that percentage-wise, this represents about the proportion of people that don't want to use PayPal.
I do believe 1% to be significant in this case. 1% is an awfully high number if it represents people who mistrust an organization. Considering that a great many people won't have that mistrust until they actually lose money, that really makes 1% a serious number. Would you put your money in a bank which had statistics that said 1% of the people won't get all of it back with no recourse?
I just ran the search again today. The number is now 66824. Of course that could be because there are more auctions active today, too. So let's see. Trying "paypal only" I get 98565. That's an increase, but not as significant of one.
Re:Now 66824, was 61367 (Score:2)
1. Say someone writes you a bad check. Not only do they have to pay a fee for bouncing the check, but so do *you*!
2. Banks do make mistakes. I, of course, can't give you statistics on this - but I have certainly had it happen with my own checking account at least once. If you ask around, I bet you can find quite a few people with at least one story of how a bank made a math error that caused them to bounce a check or two and pay a bunch of fees.
3. Unnecessary misc. fees for services rendered. For example, my last bank started charging people 50 cents for a deposit slip when they went in to deposit money. (You could use a slip from the back of your checkbook, but how often do people have those handy when they want to deposit some cash or a check in their bank?)
There are more examples, I'm sure, but these are just 3 off the top of my head. People are generally willing to put up with a certain level of inconvenience and expense before saying "Enough!" I think PayPal, like the banks, realizes this and therefore isn't going to be TOO concerned about 1% of their users complaining.
ProPay Looks Like a Good Alternative (Score:2)
Perhaps someone has some insight regarding the services ProPay, a competitor of PayPal?
Had No Problems (Score:4, Informative)
All of these lawsuits and threats from states are sure making us nervous, though, and due to various other things we were probably dropping PayPal soon - that timeline's just been moved up now. But I agree with what someone said or at least alluded to earlier; even if 10,000 people have had problems like this, that's only a tiny fraction of PayPal's actual userbase, and that's pretty impressive to me.
Re:Donate $100 (premier), Only $96.60 makes it (Score:2)
Re:This has happened to someone I know (Score:2, Insightful)
That way, if they do try to retrieve money from a chargeback or because of an error, at least you only have a problem with them and a bank that isn't the primary holder of your money.
And, as you pointed out, you'd have to be freaking insane to carry a balance on PayPal.
Re:Comment posted before... (Score:3, Funny)
Hmmm, I'm detecting a pattern here...
Re:Comment posted before... (Score:2, Funny)
What story do you think your repling to ?
The first thing is, we kill all the lawyers. (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, since I'm talking about lawyers here, I'll qualify this by saying that I'm about to state an opinion. So don't sue me, okay?
This law firm, who is handling this class action suit, is little more than a bunch of ambulance-chasers. These guys have advertised here on KTLA and KCAL since I was a little kid. They always seemed creepy and slimy to me, like that Larry H. Parker guy...even as a kid, I wondered why good lawyers would need to advertise on TV.
Someone else said it here, someplace...doesn't it strike anyone else as strange that this suit was filed right after the IPO? That just sort of stinks to me.
Also, I've been using PayPal for a few months, to accept payment for some eBay auctions, and I've never had a single problem with them. Of course, I think I've had a grand total of 6 or so transactions, so YMMV.
After reading all of this, however, I'm getting my 50 bucks out tonight.
Or spending it on my own copy of GTA 3.
Re:No Access (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Paypal Is An Unprofessional, Troublesome Servic (Score:2)
Supposedly that might be a stolen credit card. In any event, if the charges are reversed on you, you have to be able to bring legal action against whoever made the payment (assuming you give the money back to PayPal, which I'm assuming you won't be doing, so this is all academic talk). If PayPal tries to contact you again, see if they are willing to provide you with that legal information (they should be able to get it from the credit card company that reversed the charges on them). When people reverse credit card charges, they can get this information and pursue conventional legal civil action (complicated in your case by the trans-national aspects).
Also check your credit report in case they try to stick it on there as an unpaid debt. That kind of thing happens.
Re:I'm still out $100 thanks to paypal (Score:2)
Maybe they are below their interest quota, and need to hold your money to get the interest on it to make sure they can meet the payroll. You wouldn't want all those kind, charming, intelligent staff members to go without their paycheck, now would you?
Re:Paypalino (Score:2)
Let's see if you keep singing the same tune if they end up ripping you off. Maybe we should just take the money out of your account.
Re:Paypalino (Score:2)
I've never lost any money through PayPal. Fortunately for me, I discovered what was going on before I let myself into a position where I could lose money.
Then I got spammed by PayPal. Well, since I had a "relationship" (e.g. an existing account), I can expect to get that spam. No point in complaining. I would just close my account (which was at 0.00 anyway). That's where the trouble began. I couldn't get logged in to do it. It's not because I had the wrong password; it's because of an error in their server programming (which I did later figure out what it was). The error message told me to send a report to a particular email address. So I sent one. I got back an automated reply that said I needed to send the report via a new web form. So I tried the URL it gave for that. But that didn't work because I needed to be logged in to do it. So I ended up doing a sequence of mailings to hopefully trigger some alarms there. That finally worked and a technical person I believe to be their lead tech guy sent mail which, while initially assuming all the wrong things, did include a real phone number. I called and explained the circumstances and was promised the account would be closed. At the time I did not know why I was getting the login error, but it was error code 3014 and had something to do with SSL, which works fine for me everywhere else. I have since figured out what I believe to be the cause of the problem, but I decided not to contact them any more to tell them what it is. At least I have not been getting any more spam, so the account there is probably really closed.
My own objections against this company is the poor attitude they take with problem resolution. I would rather see them go bankrupt and someone else with a better attitude come along and fill the void. I'm not part of the class action lawsuit because I have not lost any money. But I have been reading the reports, and I cannot conclude that all of them are cases of accounts being decremented because of a CC chargeback. Many might be, and people should better understand this. But when 2 accounts get frozen because someone was trying to send a little more money to someone else than their "pattern of activity" suggests, and then doing nothing about it when both parties complain, then I know there is a problem at the company. And when they intentionally cut back on service support people to try to discourage complaints ... and I suspect so that they can report the lower complaint numbers in their S-1, then I know there is a problem at the company.
BTW, the employees at Enron that lost much or most of their life savings because they put such a high percentage of their 401K money into Enron are certainly in part to blame. But the bulk of the blame belongs to the company execs that carried out shady practices to hide the truth (surely, fewer people would have put so much money in the company if they knew the truth), and also froze those 401K accounts at the time the truth was coming out. Just because you can find a blame on the part of people who lost money does not mean they are 100% at fault.
Re:It can't be that bad for everyone (Score:2)
There may well be thousands of people who have been ripped off. Perhaps it would not be so bad if PayPal actually communicated with people and tried to resolve the problem. Instead, they don't even list their phone number. Do you see it there on their web page? The company has a big attitude problem.
Re:It can't be that bad for everyone (Score:2)
And if you can't get logged in? They give you an email address to send to. The auto-responder suggests using a form to send the problem report instead. You have to be logged in to use the form and when that fails, you get the same email address again. These people are idiots.