Paypal has so many things wrong with their company. The majority of employees, even in the business support department, have absolutely no clue what is going on. They will give you an answer to a question, you will call back later, get a new agent, and then you'll get a completely different answer to the same question.
Half the time the customer support is clearly just improvising, because the system is such a mess that there are no clear processes for fairly common situations. Let me give an example. A customer on our website makes an order for digital goods. We collect photo ID, check their IP, call them. The customer then opens an unauthorized claim. We call in and outline the information we have.
Half the time, the agent will tell us that the information we have collected is irrelevant to an unauthorized dispute. Let me clarify that. The photo ID documents, IP address on file, and phone number of the buyer are considered irrelevant in a claim where the buyer alleges they did not authorize a purchase. Absolutely ridiculous, right?
Then magically, if you call back and connect to the right agent, they will actually look at your evidence and use it to help determine the case. These cases can be upwards of $500, and must be extremely common. And yet, somehow, there is no clear standard for what proof we need to collect in order to win an unauthorized dispute.
The company is a headache to work with. Half our time is spent verifying and doing risk management in our business, simply due to the horror that is PayPal.
At one of my old jobs I remember Paypal closing a dispute in favor of the buyer, who had claimed the goods were never received, despite the fact that we supplied a copy of said buyer's signature from when he accepted the delivery...
Things like that would happen on a pretty regular basis.
O.K. I'm not a huge fan of PayPal. My biggest gripe is they just got big and stupid. (Holding funds for weeks until a customer gives positive feedback on ebay? I have had mixed results on customer service.)
That said, what product are you selling that you require a picture of the customer? I see this trend popping up and don't like it.
While I have had problems with PayPal practices-- PayPal employees who don't care, etc., when I have given PayPal a receipt from UPS, or Fedex that proves the package was delivered, I did not have a problem with a dispute. (I don't trust usps when I have a gut feeling a customer will file a dispute.)
So what are you selling? I would never ask a customer for a picture ID. Maybe it's just my generation(grew up in the 70's--80's, but I see this trend of mandatory photo ID popping up lately; and don't think it's the right road to go down. Map the IP--fine. Have a gut feeling the customer won't pay ask for cash(leave it up to the customer on delivery of the cash--wire transfer?). I would not ask for their ID, unless I strongly expected fraud.
If I have to give some company, besides a bank my picture; I don't shop there. Asking for anyone picture is beyond rude these days, along with any Photographer taking my picture without my consent. This whole people picture taking thing is done, because of the Internet, and image databases like Google, and have Bing have developed. I see stores putting up "Happy" employee pictures, and it is just rude, an invasion of privacy, and should be abolished? (I have a friend at Costco who is mortified the company wouldn't take down his picture of him doing his job. It was one of those customer appreciation pictures.) Oh yea, you don't need a Costco card to use the pharmacy.
I looked into buying stoptakingmypicture.whatever
and the com is taken. I'm not sure I want to take on another cause; especially because most of you don't seem to care who snaps, asks, or posts your picture? I go on FB, and no one seems to care?
Yes--I understand the need for
ID at DMV, Airport, and passports, etc.)
To any store, or company(Home Depot comes to mind) some of us are really tired of the proliferation of cameras, and don't go to your establishment like we used to.
(Plus--most identity thiefs I have run across(just one so far), sent me a perfect scan of her Drivers license without my asking. I didn't place the order, and never heard back. It is so easy to fake an ID these days. I would be suspicious if any customer sent their ID, even if I asked for it.)
What is collecting pictures of photo ID supposed to do for you? Honest question.
Far as I can tell, it only means the scammer was able to copy the photo that was sitting on my computer (likely via the same malware they used to steal my other credentials to begin with). Why was it sitting on my computer to begin with? Because companies like yours demand a copy of my photo ID. Sure I could delete it but we both know most people won't. IMO its a poorly thought out policy to collect photo ID without verifying the person in the photo is in fact the person you're talking to, ala face to face conversation via Skype or similar.
I don't buy things from sites that demand photo ID without verification, I'm not saying you should change your ways, but you're losing customers like me by enforcing that policy.
picture is obviously not enough. How about a short video where customer clearly pronounces the authorization and makes his/her unique "signature" dance?
Nowadays we have all our clients using Stripe for their CC processing, but back in the day, our clients could use anyone they want. One poor soul choose to use PayPal against our insisting he not. Three days before he had to give the security deposit to the convention center where his organization was hosting their conference, PayPal froze the account. I can't express the stress and despair this poor guy had in voice while talking to him, explaining there was nothing that I could do on my end and that he would have to contact PayPal and try to explain the situation and get the funds released. Ultimately the conference went on, but I never followed up to find out how, if he got the funds released, worked something out with the convention center or something.
I sold an iPhone on eBay once. More than three months later, I received an email from PayPal stating that I'd been charged back because the buyer was disputing her credit card transaction ("Buyer stated that they did not authorize the purchase"). Although I always pull any balance out of PayPal, I owed them the balance. I was required to find proof that I had received the order (right there on eBay), and that I had shipped it (shipping label had been created, and was also visible on eBay). They ended up reversing the chargeback, but the strange thing was how much work I had to do, when it was all systematically available to them.
I once ordered some things together with a few friends. The total sum ended up around $3500, much more than I usually buy for. The buy went through and the company got the message from Paypal that everything was ok and the money was on their account. Sadly they had a vacation day (small home-run company) and did not send the items directly. Two days later when they were back, Paypal had just pulled the money back from their account and left the message that the user disputes the buy or something like that. I had done no such thing. One month later I got the money back except for $20 for 'investigation charges' or some such...
If the company would not have been on vacation at that time they would have sent the goods and we would have gotten both the things and our money back. I ended up transfering the money via the bank as normal and got the stuff about $100 cheaper than over Paypal.
Agreed, $25M is nothing and they should be slapped with a much higher penalty. PayPal is the scummiest company on Earth.
A buyer opened a dispute with them, and PayPal robbed me of $2500, tried fighting them for 2 years but eventually gave up.
To add to the anti-PayPal anecdotes: I once used it to checkout from a merchant that I hadn't used before and didn't trust; there was no shipping charge added until I completed the order. Given the merchant didn't respond to emails, I contacted PayPal. They couldn't do anything until the order was shipped, then after it did they didn't care because the guarantee only covers receiving the item that was promised.
It's a combination of a bad UX that won't confirm the price of the order until you've confirmed and service that's lacking compared to using a credit card.
This is something I've seen as well - PayPal does not like the idea (for some reason) of people using their service for events. I'm personally aware of two event coordinators who had large sums of money tied up by PayPal at the last minute (around $10k and $20k) so that I never used them for my own events. Stripe all the way, never a problem.
I am beginning to think that probably a good comparison of PayPal would be a firewall where people report packets to be looked at manually. Braintree works differently and should not have the same problems.
I have a friend who's small business was killed by Paypal. He had a board game shop (about five employees), but most of his business was online. He used Paypal as his bank account (dumb idea, I know.) During a christmas rush Paypal suddenly froze the account. I don't remember the exact reasons they gave, but it was something like he had too much money or was receiving money too fast.
What if you just need a page (the page can be external to your own site) that accepts payment and emails you a receipt, and you don't want to write any server-side code? Can Stripe do that the way PayPal can?
I once made a major purchase off eBay and received merchandise that was substantially different than what I ordered.
It took 4 months, many exchanges with PayPal via their "dispute center" and many phone calls to have my purchase refunded. They even closed my dispute at one point claiming that I hadn't returned the merchandise because their support staff was too incompetent to check the DHL tracking # on DHL's web site to verify that I had indeed returned the merchandise (at my expense).
I will never make a major purchase with PayPal again.
I've noticed and felt uneasy about their UX around Paypal credit. When checking out, the option is "Use Paypal Credit" or "Use Paypal Balance" -- in standard jargon, of having 'credit' or 'credits' at a payment site, to me those mean roughly the same thing. I've almost made the mistake a couple times, but caught myself. To others it surely could be deceptive, and probably did cause errors. Totally scammy.
It's really bad. I complained but got no response, and it's not a surprise. I'm glad that this (among other things) didn't fly.
That's rich. PayPal's business has primarily been based on obfuscating the difference between card payments and bank drafts, and steering consumers to a choice that is not in their best interests.
Bank drafts (ACH) are almost all profit for PayPal but much worse for customers, as the consumer protections are weaker, reward programs are nonexistent and there is a risk of overdraft and associated bank penalties. But every time you sign into your PayPal account that you've linked to your bank account, it defaults to paying by bank draft. Every time. There is no preference.
They are just hoping that a percentage of their customer base won't notice or bother to switch to paying by card (which is not as easy as it could be).
> The proposed settlement states that the company will set up a $15m fund to compensate affected customers and pay a further $10m fine to the bureau.
Why must there be a fund? Paypal knows exactly who they gave the service to by default, and exactly what interest and other charges they received from them. So why can't they just be ordered to immediately return the full amount to each affected user?
They still try to trick me into using back account instead of credit card, even though I've set credit card as default... I know CC processing costs them more, but It's so annoying.
This is typical of them. To do my best to take a jab at them every time I can, when I am forced to pay with PayPal, I specifically select my AMEX to pay because it has the highest transaction fees for them.
It's ridiculous that Paypal is literally a bank at this point, yet somehow subject to none of the same regulations and consumer (or merchant) protections as one.
> PayPal is accused of making the service the default option for new sign-ups without making clear that it was doing so.
Different but related: No matter how many times I tell them that I want to pay with my real credit card instead of "direct bank transfer", it never persists. I must have set this as the default in my settings a hundred times. No luck.
!@(*#& I was one of those tricked by this scheme which is 5,000% obviously deceptive. There is ZERO chance that Paypal folks were unaware that people would accidentally use the credit product.
I wrote them a complaint and changed the default but never heard back. FUCK YOU Paypal, you MUGGED me and stole money from me.
I am CERTAIN they end up getting more than $25m out of this scheme. This settlement just means they have to share the profit with the UK Gov.
We need a class action suit in the U.S. demanding they return the late fees they criminally charged people like me.
When I was much younger I was doing freelance work for some guy I was referred. He said he was using his girlfriends account because he doesn't use Paypal himself and this was a one off job. I thought, "yeah, that's fine, cool."
Anyway, a while later he disputes that I didn't do the work for him (I did, with evidence) and Paypal take the money back, freeze both mine and his and that's that. They won't re-open my account because it's been associated with a fraudulent account.
They tell me that this guy had been using someone else's account and that I should go to the police. The police say that the guy doesn't live at the registered address, never has. And that was the end of it. Even though Paypal knew it wasn't my fault they wouldn't unfreeze my account.
That was about 8 years ago and it's only recently I've setup a new account to accept donations for my project. And I did that begrudgingly...
I NEVER use Paypal for accepting payments online, it's always Stripe.
That's how these things work though. If you ran a brick & mortar store and some guy bought $1000 of items from you with his "girlfriend's" credit card (which turns out later was a stolen card), you'll eat the chargeback AND not get your product returned to you.
Anyone who accepts payments of any kind is taking that risk. Stripe/Square/whoever operates the same way. Even cash is a risk - if you get passed counterfeits and don't catch them at first, the secret service will confiscate them and you won't be compensated.
Any settlement which allows the company to only pay a fine and not admit wrongdoing is not a deterrent against future wrongdoing. The fine nearly always is far outweighed by the profit. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that the potential for fines are part of the product planning process.
I've been very wary of PayPal given the vocality of those who've had issues, but I've used it a couple of times, in a couple of different ways, and have seen no issues.
I've used PayPal to:
* Buy/sell things from eBay (~$2k in transactions)
* Send money/receive money from friends (~$5k in transactions)
* Use their PayPal card abroad as a pair of primary cards
(one in my name, on in my girlfriend's name) ($~2k in
transactions in various foreign countries)
I even had to settle a disputed transaction from eBay on a sale I made, and though they returned the ~$140 USD to the buyer, since I provided proof of delivery in the form of a tracking number, I was "covered" under their sellers protection policy, and didn't lose any of my money.
Elon Musk seems like a sympathetic guy, but when I'm reminded that he made his money from PayPal, I sort of hope he gets hurt, just a little, in an electric-propelled rocket accident.
I think PayPal has been instrumental in illustrating to people that their money once it is in the paypal system is no longer THEIR money
I had trouble before with paypal holding onto funds for months nearly killing my business, when I contacted the Financial Services Ombudsman, their reply was along the lines of "they are a private limited company in this country, they can do what they want"
PayPal is not a bank, although people seem to think it is, and they seem to be more than happy to let people think that. It's long overdue for some serious regulatory oversight.
PayPal is a fully licensed and regulated bank in some regions including all of the EU, and is licensed and regulated by each US state it operates in.
Many of the startup alternatives people recommend seem to be operating on a "try to grow fast enough that we can afford to operate legally when states start suing us" basis, as they aren't similarly licensed.
In Europe, paypal registered as an actual bank (in luxembourg). Incidentally, i haven't had problems with them as a merchant through the years other than the fact that they ask for too much documentation in order to accept payments more than a few thousand, and don't have enough withdrawal options sometimes. If i used a bank instead i m sure it would incur much higher fees and bureaucracy.
This is the product PayPal advertises in every single purchase customers make online. I don't understand why any serious business uses PayPal for payments when the company is injecting an extra step (or two) into the purchase workflow. How many sales do merchants lose because of the interruption?
I sell a software production online. The purchase page has a simple credit card payment form, and off the side is a small "PayPal" button an an alternative payment method.
Despite the fact that the PayPal button is tiny compared to the credit card form, a full 2/3 of customers use PayPal to complete the purchase.
That's why people use PayPal, because a large percentage of customers prefer it over credit card payments.
Also, I prefer PayPal disputes because they don't charge a chargeback fee like credit cards.
Well, here in Germany, maybe europe in general, you can't assume that your customers own a credit card. I like Stripe a lot, but using it as the only payment option wouldn't work for us.
Credit cards have become more common here recently but for a long time it was either Paypal connected to the customers bank account or plain old bank wire transfer. Sure, there are some niche services like Sofortüberweisung, but they never gained the status of Paypal.
Right now, any other payment company could hold your money, kill your cat, fill your car with stinky waste, spoof rude emails to your friends and family, and finally blow raspberries at you, and it would still be heads and shoulders above the stinkfest of paypal.
I am paying my payment processor 10% - 15% of each transaction in processing and cross border fee, because, I am told:
1. They are small, and don't get good exchange rates
2. My location makes for a long money route, so I pay between 4% - 8% in cross border fee on every transaction
The above fee doesn't even include the final transaction and conversion fee when I withdraw the USD balance to my home currency.
From where I stand, I would be saving 3% - 5%, or more with PayPal, on every transaction. I am willing to take the risk.
> Wish normal people could just pay off the government to avoid facing consequences for their actions...
Paying money is a consequence for the actions, and "normal people" enter into civil settlements or criminal plea bargains where the only consequence is a cash penalty/damage payment/fine, sometimes, in the criminal case, taking a lesser charge (that admits such a fine) than the original charge (which may not allow a fine instead of imprisonment) in the course of such a settlement.
In the case of civil offenses, settlements without admission of guilt are fairly normal; this is not possible in the case of criminal charges, where the imposition of a penalty (even as a plea bargain) requires a plea of guilty. However, when both civil and criminal offenses are potentially chargeable, settling the civil charges and the government dropping the criminal charges is, again, not unheard of.
So, really, there's nothing out of the realm of what is possible for normal people here.
This is only an anecdote, but I use PP to process payments for my side-business, selling a small gadget for a fairly specialized market. My experience has been overwhelmingly positive. And I closely monitor traffic on web forums for comments from customers, which are fairly frequent, so I think I'd know if PP had negatively affected their experience, or if they were hesitant to buy my product due to PP.
Most of the complaints that I've read about, concerning PP, have to do with the eBay side of the equation. And it probably helps in my case that I sell a tangible good at a pretty modest price. I don't have an eBay store, but sell through my personal web page and hand-crafted web order form. Simply based on the my little corner of the market, it wouldn't break my heart if eBay and PP split up.
Two benefits of PP for me, both are kinda weird:
1. I can just download the entire year's list of transactions, dump it into a spreadsheet, add some more columns, and it becomes my ledger. I spend no more than a few hours a year on accounting.
2. PP has a deal with the post office. You can generate a first class shipping label from your transaction, whereas the post office website only offers priority mail and above, so PP reduces my shipping costs. And I've also had fabulous service from the post office, so maybe I'm just a freak. ;-)
With all this said, I can't discount the horror stories. It's useful information, since I certainly wouldn't want a decline in PP's reputation to affect the trust that people put into my own business.
Things like this amaze me. I really would like to be a fly on the wall just to see if this is incompetence or if they actively choose to deceive people. I would love to hear the conversations that occur around this.
I've never worked for a company that was shady, so this really does fascinate me that companies do this and think they can get away with it (assuming, of course, that this simply was not incompetence).
This has been a long time coming in my opinion, but $25m is nothing for Paypal. I have had my fair share of troubles over the years, but none worse than the time I got paid for doing some freelance work into my Paypal account, I ended up with a balance of around $8k and it took me 3 months to get it released. I went through their ID process, sent them stuff and would wait a week only to be told to send it again.
The problem with Paypal is they are too big to care. They've essentially become a bank, nobody knows what is going on, you get passed on from department to department when you need answers and they are always quick to freeze your Paypal balance when they want you to do something or want to insinuate you have done something wrong.
I would have slapped them with a $100m penalty, $25m is just too little to make any kind of impact or different to Paypal.
[+] [-] r2pleasent|10 years ago|reply
Half the time the customer support is clearly just improvising, because the system is such a mess that there are no clear processes for fairly common situations. Let me give an example. A customer on our website makes an order for digital goods. We collect photo ID, check their IP, call them. The customer then opens an unauthorized claim. We call in and outline the information we have.
Half the time, the agent will tell us that the information we have collected is irrelevant to an unauthorized dispute. Let me clarify that. The photo ID documents, IP address on file, and phone number of the buyer are considered irrelevant in a claim where the buyer alleges they did not authorize a purchase. Absolutely ridiculous, right?
Then magically, if you call back and connect to the right agent, they will actually look at your evidence and use it to help determine the case. These cases can be upwards of $500, and must be extremely common. And yet, somehow, there is no clear standard for what proof we need to collect in order to win an unauthorized dispute.
The company is a headache to work with. Half our time is spent verifying and doing risk management in our business, simply due to the horror that is PayPal.
[+] [-] arprocter|10 years ago|reply
Things like that would happen on a pretty regular basis.
[+] [-] marincounty|10 years ago|reply
That said, what product are you selling that you require a picture of the customer? I see this trend popping up and don't like it.
While I have had problems with PayPal practices-- PayPal employees who don't care, etc., when I have given PayPal a receipt from UPS, or Fedex that proves the package was delivered, I did not have a problem with a dispute. (I don't trust usps when I have a gut feeling a customer will file a dispute.)
So what are you selling? I would never ask a customer for a picture ID. Maybe it's just my generation(grew up in the 70's--80's, but I see this trend of mandatory photo ID popping up lately; and don't think it's the right road to go down. Map the IP--fine. Have a gut feeling the customer won't pay ask for cash(leave it up to the customer on delivery of the cash--wire transfer?). I would not ask for their ID, unless I strongly expected fraud.
If I have to give some company, besides a bank my picture; I don't shop there. Asking for anyone picture is beyond rude these days, along with any Photographer taking my picture without my consent. This whole people picture taking thing is done, because of the Internet, and image databases like Google, and have Bing have developed. I see stores putting up "Happy" employee pictures, and it is just rude, an invasion of privacy, and should be abolished? (I have a friend at Costco who is mortified the company wouldn't take down his picture of him doing his job. It was one of those customer appreciation pictures.) Oh yea, you don't need a Costco card to use the pharmacy.
I looked into buying stoptakingmypicture.whatever and the com is taken. I'm not sure I want to take on another cause; especially because most of you don't seem to care who snaps, asks, or posts your picture? I go on FB, and no one seems to care?
Yes--I understand the need for ID at DMV, Airport, and passports, etc.)
To any store, or company(Home Depot comes to mind) some of us are really tired of the proliferation of cameras, and don't go to your establishment like we used to.
(Plus--most identity thiefs I have run across(just one so far), sent me a perfect scan of her Drivers license without my asking. I didn't place the order, and never heard back. It is so easy to fake an ID these days. I would be suspicious if any customer sent their ID, even if I asked for it.)
[+] [-] click170|10 years ago|reply
Far as I can tell, it only means the scammer was able to copy the photo that was sitting on my computer (likely via the same malware they used to steal my other credentials to begin with). Why was it sitting on my computer to begin with? Because companies like yours demand a copy of my photo ID. Sure I could delete it but we both know most people won't. IMO its a poorly thought out policy to collect photo ID without verifying the person in the photo is in fact the person you're talking to, ala face to face conversation via Skype or similar.
I don't buy things from sites that demand photo ID without verification, I'm not saying you should change your ways, but you're losing customers like me by enforcing that policy.
[+] [-] trhway|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] techaddict009|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rip747|10 years ago|reply
Nowadays we have all our clients using Stripe for their CC processing, but back in the day, our clients could use anyone they want. One poor soul choose to use PayPal against our insisting he not. Three days before he had to give the security deposit to the convention center where his organization was hosting their conference, PayPal froze the account. I can't express the stress and despair this poor guy had in voice while talking to him, explaining there was nothing that I could do on my end and that he would have to contact PayPal and try to explain the situation and get the funds released. Ultimately the conference went on, but I never followed up to find out how, if he got the funds released, worked something out with the convention center or something.
[+] [-] sshanky|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Moru|10 years ago|reply
If the company would not have been on vacation at that time they would have sent the goods and we would have gotten both the things and our money back. I ended up transfering the money via the bank as normal and got the stuff about $100 cheaper than over Paypal.
Haven't used Paypal since.
[+] [-] aleksandrm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gav|10 years ago|reply
It's a combination of a bad UX that won't confirm the price of the order until you've confirmed and service that's lacking compared to using a credit card.
[+] [-] silverbax88|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yuhong|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ripter|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sblawrie|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alyandon|10 years ago|reply
It took 4 months, many exchanges with PayPal via their "dispute center" and many phone calls to have my purchase refunded. They even closed my dispute at one point claiming that I hadn't returned the merchandise because their support staff was too incompetent to check the DHL tracking # on DHL's web site to verify that I had indeed returned the merchandise (at my expense).
I will never make a major purchase with PayPal again.
[+] [-] calinet6|10 years ago|reply
It's really bad. I complained but got no response, and it's not a surprise. I'm glad that this (among other things) didn't fly.
[+] [-] abalone|10 years ago|reply
That's rich. PayPal's business has primarily been based on obfuscating the difference between card payments and bank drafts, and steering consumers to a choice that is not in their best interests.
Bank drafts (ACH) are almost all profit for PayPal but much worse for customers, as the consumer protections are weaker, reward programs are nonexistent and there is a risk of overdraft and associated bank penalties. But every time you sign into your PayPal account that you've linked to your bank account, it defaults to paying by bank draft. Every time. There is no preference.
They are just hoping that a percentage of their customer base won't notice or bother to switch to paying by card (which is not as easy as it could be).
[+] [-] rlpb|10 years ago|reply
Why must there be a fund? Paypal knows exactly who they gave the service to by default, and exactly what interest and other charges they received from them. So why can't they just be ordered to immediately return the full amount to each affected user?
[+] [-] nvk|10 years ago|reply
They still try to trick me into using back account instead of credit card, even though I've set credit card as default... I know CC processing costs them more, but It's so annoying.
[+] [-] irl_zebra|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chimeracoder|10 years ago|reply
> PayPal is accused of making the service the default option for new sign-ups without making clear that it was doing so.
Different but related: No matter how many times I tell them that I want to pay with my real credit card instead of "direct bank transfer", it never persists. I must have set this as the default in my settings a hundred times. No luck.
[+] [-] quadrangle|10 years ago|reply
I wrote them a complaint and changed the default but never heard back. FUCK YOU Paypal, you MUGGED me and stole money from me.
I am CERTAIN they end up getting more than $25m out of this scheme. This settlement just means they have to share the profit with the UK Gov.
We need a class action suit in the U.S. demanding they return the late fees they criminally charged people like me.
[+] [-] jbrooksuk|10 years ago|reply
Anyway, a while later he disputes that I didn't do the work for him (I did, with evidence) and Paypal take the money back, freeze both mine and his and that's that. They won't re-open my account because it's been associated with a fraudulent account.
They tell me that this guy had been using someone else's account and that I should go to the police. The police say that the guy doesn't live at the registered address, never has. And that was the end of it. Even though Paypal knew it wasn't my fault they wouldn't unfreeze my account.
That was about 8 years ago and it's only recently I've setup a new account to accept donations for my project. And I did that begrudgingly...
I NEVER use Paypal for accepting payments online, it's always Stripe.
[+] [-] Domenic_S|10 years ago|reply
Anyone who accepts payments of any kind is taking that risk. Stripe/Square/whoever operates the same way. Even cash is a risk - if you get passed counterfeits and don't catch them at first, the secret service will confiscate them and you won't be compensated.
[+] [-] ajtaylor|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vidyesh|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Chinjut|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dimino|10 years ago|reply
I've used PayPal to:
I even had to settle a disputed transaction from eBay on a sale I made, and though they returned the ~$140 USD to the buyer, since I provided proof of delivery in the form of a tracking number, I was "covered" under their sellers protection policy, and didn't lose any of my money.[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrweasel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yc1010|10 years ago|reply
I had trouble before with paypal holding onto funds for months nearly killing my business, when I contacted the Financial Services Ombudsman, their reply was along the lines of "they are a private limited company in this country, they can do what they want"
[+] [-] arbitrage|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icebraining|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dangrossman|10 years ago|reply
It's hard to imagine there being more oversight than the over 200 governments regulating them currently, including ~55 separate agencies in the US.
https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/licenses
PayPal is a fully licensed and regulated bank in some regions including all of the EU, and is licensed and regulated by each US state it operates in.
Many of the startup alternatives people recommend seem to be operating on a "try to grow fast enough that we can afford to operate legally when states start suing us" basis, as they aren't similarly licensed.
[+] [-] return0|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] true_religion|10 years ago|reply
What more oversight would be needed?
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] s73v3r|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NelsonMinar|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Osiris|10 years ago|reply
Despite the fact that the PayPal button is tiny compared to the credit card form, a full 2/3 of customers use PayPal to complete the purchase.
That's why people use PayPal, because a large percentage of customers prefer it over credit card payments.
Also, I prefer PayPal disputes because they don't charge a chargeback fee like credit cards.
[+] [-] thirdsun|10 years ago|reply
Credit cards have become more common here recently but for a long time it was either Paypal connected to the customers bank account or plain old bank wire transfer. Sure, there are some niche services like Sofortüberweisung, but they never gained the status of Paypal.
[+] [-] railsisfails|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nish1500|10 years ago|reply
1. They are small, and don't get good exchange rates 2. My location makes for a long money route, so I pay between 4% - 8% in cross border fee on every transaction
The above fee doesn't even include the final transaction and conversion fee when I withdraw the USD balance to my home currency.
From where I stand, I would be saving 3% - 5%, or more with PayPal, on every transaction. I am willing to take the risk.
[+] [-] joshstrange|10 years ago|reply
I'm getting REALLY sick of this shit. Wish normal people could just pay off the government to avoid facing consequences for their actions...
[+] [-] dragonwriter|10 years ago|reply
Paying money is a consequence for the actions, and "normal people" enter into civil settlements or criminal plea bargains where the only consequence is a cash penalty/damage payment/fine, sometimes, in the criminal case, taking a lesser charge (that admits such a fine) than the original charge (which may not allow a fine instead of imprisonment) in the course of such a settlement.
In the case of civil offenses, settlements without admission of guilt are fairly normal; this is not possible in the case of criminal charges, where the imposition of a penalty (even as a plea bargain) requires a plea of guilty. However, when both civil and criminal offenses are potentially chargeable, settling the civil charges and the government dropping the criminal charges is, again, not unheard of.
So, really, there's nothing out of the realm of what is possible for normal people here.
[+] [-] benihana|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] analog31|10 years ago|reply
Most of the complaints that I've read about, concerning PP, have to do with the eBay side of the equation. And it probably helps in my case that I sell a tangible good at a pretty modest price. I don't have an eBay store, but sell through my personal web page and hand-crafted web order form. Simply based on the my little corner of the market, it wouldn't break my heart if eBay and PP split up.
Two benefits of PP for me, both are kinda weird:
1. I can just download the entire year's list of transactions, dump it into a spreadsheet, add some more columns, and it becomes my ledger. I spend no more than a few hours a year on accounting.
2. PP has a deal with the post office. You can generate a first class shipping label from your transaction, whereas the post office website only offers priority mail and above, so PP reduces my shipping costs. And I've also had fabulous service from the post office, so maybe I'm just a freak. ;-)
With all this said, I can't discount the horror stories. It's useful information, since I certainly wouldn't want a decline in PP's reputation to affect the trust that people put into my own business.
[+] [-] JustSomeNobody|10 years ago|reply
I've never worked for a company that was shady, so this really does fascinate me that companies do this and think they can get away with it (assuming, of course, that this simply was not incompetence).
[+] [-] DigitalSea|10 years ago|reply
The problem with Paypal is they are too big to care. They've essentially become a bank, nobody knows what is going on, you get passed on from department to department when you need answers and they are always quick to freeze your Paypal balance when they want you to do something or want to insinuate you have done something wrong.
I would have slapped them with a $100m penalty, $25m is just too little to make any kind of impact or different to Paypal.