??? HELP! Is PAYPAL Going Down in Flames ???

[WebCat]

I've been researching alternative forms of payment, including E-checks, merchant accounts, ClickBank, etc....

In the course of my research, I was horrified to find a ton of VERY bad PR about PAYPAL, including class action lawsuits!

So... my question is, are they really this bad, or is this just propaganda by a few whiners? Any DNF'ers have problems?

Here's the sites and news stories:

http://paypalsucks.com/links.shtml
http://www.msnbc.com/news/858786.asp?cp1=1
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/s...03/0001971619&EDATE=WED+Jun+25+2003,+08:31+AM
http://www.paypalwarning.com/legal_actions/
http://dir.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/02/23/pay_pal/index.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/588139/posts
http://www.paypalsucks.com/

Any experiences, thought or comments?

 

[bidawinner]

yawn..

old news ....This is a company that process tens of million s of transactions, you can find the same stuff on ANY processor

 

[Steen]

Yes agreed.


They are very large, bad stuff is bound to happen.


I havent had a problem wiht my account being frozen.

I have had 5 complaints to my account since 2000.

 

[Nexus]

PayPal complaints are old news. I haven't kept up with them. People I know who were denouncing them a year ago are now integrating with them. Eh. The major problem with PayPal is that some people have problems setting up an account and you lose business. Many many other options.

~ Nexus

 

[WebCat]

Originally posted by bidawinner
yawn..

old news ....This is a company that process tens of million s of transactions, you can find the same stuff on ANY processor

Wow, I'm sorry to hear you say that bidawinner. I guess it's real easy to dismiss it when it's not you that getting screwed!

Around DNF, I've heard people rail against someone for ONE bad transaction for $25.00! If even 10% of these stories are true, then Paypal has apparently cheated hundreds of people out of thousands of dollars!

In fact if even ONE PERSON got truely screwed out of their money, then it's one person too many! What if it was you?

I'm sorry if that bores you. How about a little compassion?

 

[GT Web]

I dont think they cheat....their system has some known issues, but I dont think they are intentionally CHEATING anyone out of anything.

I have used paypal for over a year with no problems, but I never keep too much $ in my account just in case

 

[WebCat]

Well, even if they are guarded and cautious, I'm glad to hear at least some positive comments.

I just can't help wondering about the poor people who claim to have lost so much money. :-(

We (domaineers at DNF) work very hard to play it 100% straight with each other, praise each other for smooth transactions, and are very hard toward members that don't play nice.

Just like us, those Paypal "victims" have a right to expect a response when Paypal "owes" them money, or has somehow seperated them from their money.

From the "news", Paypal sounds like Feature Price Hosting (if you know that sordid story)! They offer no answers, no live help, and no refunds. Hence, there are numerous lawsuits against them!

I'm afraid to "upgrade" my paypal to a business account for fear of getting "frozen" and locked out from my own money!

 

[Bob]

When you upgrade to a business account, they start taking fees out of every transaction you do. They give you "interest" though, but as is with all banks, the few cents in interst you get is nothing what they rape you for in transaction fees.

Simply put: Paypal is EXPENSIVE, unless you have a personal account. But a lot of people like it and in order to do business, you have to conform to what people want.

I recently had a debacle with them. They always default to transfer needed fees from your bank account. I mistakenly put the transaction through, then realized that the funds were going to be taken from my bank. I called then and wanted to cancel the transfer so I could fund with a credit card. They informed me that they could not do anything about it and that I would have to issue a stop-payment from my bank. Alright, I was not happy, but I coughed up the $15 to do a stop payment. When the payment was rejected as planned, PayPal FROZE my account for fradulent activity. This really irked me because I was not even warned about this possibility. Instead, I had to spend 3 days getting all kind sof crap together to verify to them that they screwed up..... Meanwhile, I had 4 pending transactions that were all cancelled. The good news, is that I finally got the account unfrozen, but it took awhile.

-Bob

 

[GT Web]

as I said...their system has some issues, many of the employees havent figured it out yet.

 

[WebCat]

Hey Bob! Thanks for contributing to this thread!

I'm sorry to hear you had some trouble. It's good to hear it finally worked out, but there are apparently many for whom this did NOT happen, including some who lost hundreds and even thousands of dollars.

But... as some might say, this is just "old news" (as long as it's not their time or money).

I wonder if anyone else here at DNF had a debacle similar to yours? I sure have mixed feeling about going to a "business" account.

I read that their TOS is over 24,000 words long! Thats onger than the Declaration of Independance, the US Constitution and the Magna Carta put together!

 

[Nexus]

Yeah, PayPal can be VERY iffy, if you take a wrong turn. One online retailer that I know wasn't sending out his orders on time, and had to call a friend of mine in an attempt to square with all of his customers. My friend after many attempts, had issued a CHARGEBACK on the transaction, and PayPal had frozen the guy's account. --Prior to the chargeback, my friend had sent numerous e-mails to the guy, and tried to go through PayPal's system to no available. The guy had held his order for over 30 days, and PayPal only allows 30 complaints (though the credit card company allows at least a window of 60-90 days I think). Long story short, it turned out that my friend was NOT the only one this guy had dicked around with. Promising merchandise that while certainly in a bad back-order status situation with the vendor, he was not delivering, nor communicating well with his customers. End Game, no PayPal for You.

PayPal does millions of transactions a day and needs to STOP fraud as quickly as possible, and as such, they run a balancing act. As much as people would like to lambast PayPal... it's that very model of automatic fraud detection (or questionable activity detection) that makes their business possible. You just have to deal with them very very carefully. PayPal no doubt has a suspend first, ask questions later policy. With such HIGH stakes, what would you do if you were them? Wait until more people were cheated through your system?

Yes, it certainly IS *OLD NEWS*. You shouldn't take offense, but the reason people say that, is because you sounded as if this is something new. It may be new to you, but people have been dealing with and around it for a while. Right when PayPal went public, there was a launch of the class action suit and everything. I'd definitely like an update, but I haven't heard one anywhere.

PayPal is still an AWESOME way to do business for small companies and individuals. WebCat, you said "as long as its not their time or money". Truth is, the majority of PayPal's users have been using PayPal for a long time without incident. I believe in warning labels, but I don't get whipped up into an alarmist frenzy easily.

Tell me PayPal has a security hole that hasn't been addressed that allows people to charge themselves what they want for my products, and that'll get my attention. Tell me PayPal has lost the class action suit, and will need to appeal. Tell me something that's not "old news" with a new face of "PAYPAL IS GOING DOWN IN FLAMES", and it will sounds a lot more compelling.

~ Nexus

 

[WebCat]

Originally posted by Nexus
PayPal does millions of transactions a day and needs to STOP fraud as quickly as possible, and as such, they run a balancing act. As much as people would like to lambast PayPal... it's that very model of automatic fraud detection (or questionable activity detection) that makes their business possible.

I understand that. But that is NO EXCUSE for Paypal completely ignoring valid complaints and victimizing innocent people!! I call that arrogance.

Originally posted by Nexus
Yes, it certainly IS *OLD NEWS*. You shouldn't take offense, but the reason people say that, is because you sounded as if this is something new. It may be new to you, but people have been dealing with and around it for a while.

Yes, the numerous lawsuits and actions by private parties and government agencies ARE new to me, and I apologize if I sounded "offended"! I felt bidawinner was discounting the pain and suffering each of these people went through, but maybe I misread him. I've seen him argue points before and he is very passionate (when it involves him).

Originally posted by Nexus
WebCat, you said "as long as its not their time or money". Truth is, the majority of PayPal's users have been using PayPal for a long time without incident.

As I have as well. But hey, if it's wrong for a deadbeat at DNF to skip out on a $35.00 bid, then let's apply that same principle to our Pals at Paypal who have cost people thousands! They need to be accountable.

Originally posted by Nexus Tell me something that's not "old news" with a new face of "PAYPAL IS GOING DOWN IN FLAMES", and it will sounds a lot more compelling.[/B]

And finally, some of the news in the links provided is as late as March/April of this year. And I was asking a question not making a statement. I need your and other's input before committing to a "Business" account which costs. Perhaps my headline was inflamatory, but you can understand why if you read about the incredible pain and loss of the people in those stories!

Anyway Nexus, as always I very much appreciate your well thought out comments!

WebCat

 

[beatz]

I had one VERY bad experience with paypal.

Their system waived the red flag without prior warning, simply because i received a larger payment than usual and the system "thought" there might be someting fraudulent - took me like 3 weeks to get my account unfrozen and i had to fax zillions of documents.Everytime i had sent them all the documents they had requested, they asked for new ones.A real nightmare.

At one point a customer rep even said yeah if i would not send the requested documents they would keep the money and it would be theirs then.No kidding.

And remember, i didn't do *anything* wrong - their automated system just *thought* there might have been something fishy going on simply based on the observation that this was a larger sum as usual.And support was no help at all, quite the contrary, they acted VERY arrogant, basically saying "when the system waives the red flag, you HAVE to send us all the documents we request, or we keep your money".

The funny thing was, as i had heard lots of horror stories like that *before* the payment, i called them up prior to the transaction to make sure such a thing would not happen with this transaction.They answered saying that there "shouldn't" happen anything but that they would not be able to guarantee as the system itself decides when to freeze an account and when not.

Well, as said, it of course *did* happen.

Anyway, strangely enough after that nightmare finally was solved,
they suddenly gave me a direct phonenumber to my personal paypal assistant and since then they treat me like a king and nothing else like that has happened again.

Seems to get real good service there you first have to go through a freezing or alike so they have everything about you, know who you are etc.

If there was a real alternative, i certainly would never use paypal again.Problem is, there is no alternative as everybody is using them.

So from my own personal experience and from what i have heard from others, this kind of stuff mainly happens with larger amounts of money, not $20 transactions.

 

[WebCat]

WOW! Hey Beatz, I'm very glad you got your money back! I think you are one of the lucky ones!

So now I begin to understand... FIRST- they have to beat you up for awhile, THEN they are your best friends!

Not unlike the "Stockholm Syndrome", where Prisoners of War begin to relate to their captors, then finally side with the very people torturing them!

Sounds like a well thought out business model to me! :goofy:

 

[Nexus]

Originally posted by WebCat
Sounds like a well thought out business model to me! :goofy:

WebCat, you're of course completely right in your outrage. That sort of stuff has no precedent in other businesses. I think the "apologists", if anything like me, are just trying to make it by-and-by. I understand what's going on, though I may not always like it... as beatz says though, they've become wildly popular, and there's not really anyone in their league. I think part of the "arrogance" comes from the point of view that dealing with SO MANY customers and transactions, how would you deal with your customers if you had no competition and a large number of people using your system are trying to perpetrate fraud as long as they can and not get caught. If it were my company, I'd have a nervous break-down. The mind boggles.

Over a barrel, I'm trying not to make daily business a huge irritant by thinking of all their faults. You're not alone though.

~ Nexus

 

[Spider]

Paypal is great, I have been using them forever and have never had even 1 issue with them or 1 complaint. They are great and I don't know what I would do without them.

 

[dtobias]

Yeah, they're "great" as long as they don't screw you... I admit they're very convenient, as long as you don't run into any problem... but if you do, you wind up in a bureaucratic nightmare.

I suppose the best way to treat them is like a casino... don't put any money into there that you're not willing to lose.

http://paypal.haters.info/

 

[Spider]

Why would they screw you unless you are doing something fraudulent and in that case they are helping everyone else out by removing you. I have probably had about $40k in transactions through Paypal and not even 1 hickup.

 

[mole]

Originally posted by jh3
I have probably had about $40k in transactions through Paypal and not even 1 hickup.

hiccup.

 

[Spider]

Since when did this become a grammer forum?