posted on April 30, 2002 07:04:13 PM new
I have over 225 auctions behind me, many allowing PayPal as a source of payment. I operate 3 websites with PayPal as a payment option, and I get many direct sales from people emailing their orders and using PayPal. I have had only one problem with PayPal in 3 years and that was one of my own making from a mistake I made posting a large payment twice. PayPal's customer service promptly took care of the problem and it was resolved. I have both a Premier and Business account with PayPal. Following is how you avoid problems:
*Read the Terms of Service. If you violate them, they will respond with whatever penalty promised in the contract. While it generally can be taken care of, it usually is not (as evidenced by the number of people raging against PP here shows) in a time frame that makes most people happy, when their money becomes unavailable. *When selling business items which you count on for income, GET THE MONEY OUT AS SOON AS IT LANDS IN YOUR ACCOUNT. This is critical. I accept payment and withdraw funds in almost the same keystroke. It costs nothing to transfer your money to your bank account and it's hard for PP to freeze something that's not there. Don't be swayed by the "convenience" of the Debit card or the interest on the money market account. It should be a method of getting payment, nothing else. If I have to make a refund, it is by check or money order, never through PayPal. *In a nutshell, follow the terms of service, get your critical amounts of money out of the account and only use the service to receive your payments. While there are no absolute guarantees, that has kept the service trouble free for 3 years for me.
posted on April 30, 2002 09:53:20 PM new If I have to make a refund, it is by check or money order, never through PayPal.
That is very bad advice. If I issue a refund it is through the method the buyer used to transmit the funds in the first place.
If a buyer pays through PayPal I'd refund through PayPal and I'll have a PayPal transaction ID of proof of the refund, if the buyer pays through BillPoint I'd refund through BillPoint for the same reasons. If you refund via a different method then you are making it very difficult to prove your case of issuing a refund if proof is ever required. PayPal nor BillPoint are going to be able to verify a cashed money order or check went to refund the account of the buyer with ease, the result is you may find yourself issuing a second refund.
posted on April 30, 2002 09:59:33 PM new
No harm intended but you seem to be awefully nieve. Please read this could happen to you.
Please be aware that this is our story but this is happening to tens of thousands of people, not just in Texas but all over the world.
On September 14,2000, I opened an account with Paypal. At that time it was for the purpose of transferring moneys to people or business programs I wanted to get into on the Internet. Somewhere around Oct. 15,2000 an Internet friend suggested that people were having trouble funding their egold accounts and it might be a business I might think about. As a semi retired businessman, because of a heart condition, I researched this and found that many of the people needing their gold accounts funded had paypal accounts also. Subsequently I opened an egold account and funded it with a thousand dollars. I started advertising on my web page that I could help people change their dollars into gold. Business started to move slowly until people realized that I made fast transactions through Paypal and was honest. My reputation grew rapidly and soon I was doing $200,000.00 a month in transactions with Paypal alone. Somewhere around Christmas I got a charge back notice saying that I was in receipt of potentially fraudulent funds. They "Paypal" asked for certain information in regard to the account named, which I provided. When I called they said it was under investigation. As time went on day by day these transactions kept coming in to the tune of over $20,000.00 worth of so-called fraudulent funds "stolen credit cards." My calls to Paypal only resulted in being passed from one clerk to another with no results. When I did finally get to middle management personnel all I received was a canned speech but no help. They"Paypal" accepted the credit cards and in return sent me a confirmation e-mail stating "you've got cash." The money was in their accounts and three to six weeks later Paypal is saying the accounts were no good. I checked some accounts and found this to be wrong. These people proved that Paypal had debited their accounts and had their monies.
In late January they gave me another support number to call saying I had a "red carpet" account, that way I could speak with management people, a week later they froze my account. This did not allow me to make any transactions but allowed people to make deposits into my account, which I requested be stopped until our problem was resolved. They refused to do this and took other peoples money to satisfy the negative balance in my account. I requested this by email and phone on February 5. My account became positive and they opened it. I started transferring gold into my customer's accounts again trying to catch up and then they "locked" my account. As of today they have me +$20,000.00 out of pocket money and a negative balance of somewhere in the $9,000.00 range.
Now they are e-mailing my customers saying they should file fraud charges against me. Also telling them that they have had many complaints against my account and basically that I'm the crook. My customers are behind me and now send me monies in other ways. This I have proof of. See attachment
My point is Paypal is not what they say they are. As a supposed financial institution or so, the only thing they are concerned with is getting accounts which adds up to transaction fees regardless of whether they are legitimate or not. I now see that their policies are strictly set up to protect themselves not their legitimate customers. Their security is at best nonexistent.
1. I did not accept the accounts THEY DID
2. I did not have access to their bank accounts or credit cards. THEY DID
3. I kept my commitment to my customers THEY DIDN'T
4. I researched what accounts I could and proved them wrong THEY DIDN'T
We went to arbitration on the 21st and 22nd of January and the decision is due at the latest on the 4th of April. As I sit here today, I'm asking myself "WAS IT WORTH IT". Well yes and no.Yes, because most of my 60 yrs. I've believed that when you feel your in the right you fight for a principle, as most of you have. We don't know whether we won our case yet, but I do now know that principles come at a high price. The agony that Hanna and I have gone through in the past 14 months is priceless. We have over 95k in credit card debt, 14k of which went to the American Arbitration Association, (in a court it would have cost less than 1k) over 4k traveling to San Francisco. Legal fees have exceeded 100k and I still owe my attorneys over 30k. A year and a half ago we were trying to prepare to retire. Thanks to paypal we now are looking at possibly losing our home as well as everything else we've worked for all or lives. Paypal has filed a protective order on the case guess they don't want you to be able to make a judgement for yourselves. Ignorance of their ways is power. If a court finds me in violation of this ridiculous order then so be it. At least I will go to jail knowing I have done my best to warn my fellow Americans of the possible pitfalls of doing business with them. I have come to the realization that terrorism does not just rest in the hands of bin laden, (he will kill you), but Peter, Max, Reid and the staff of paypal will make you feel like like a bomb has leveled you. By the way, when Peter Thiel was suppose to testify at my hearing he didn't have the intestinal fortitude (GUTS) to show up.
Well the verdict is in. Paypal forced us into arbitration and we lost. Well we did get $5,000.00 taken of the $18,976.29 under the seller protection program, which means we only owe paypal $13,976.29 + $784.97 interest and $312,213.50 in attorney fees and $26,703.91in paralegal fees. So much for doing business with them.
In the near future we will publish the entire contents of the case so that if anyone is interested they can judge for themselves.
We were forced into arbitration. we were trying to settle our differences and had refused their one sided offers, which mainly included that we not reveal anything that happened. This would have prevented us from telling others our experiences and how to prevent it from happening to them.
What we found yesterday was that they needed to have 3 lawyers and two paralegals to prove their case. Their case according to their primary lawyer was "a simple contract dispute".
Being forced to seek legal counsel, after we found out they had started proceedings against us, we hired an attorney in Texas, because the arbitration was in California we needed one there also.
This simple contract dispute resulted in tens of thousands of pages of documents.
Their contention was simple, if you used a credit card to send someone money and they sent it to someone else who sent it to another, all through their accounts we was responsible to pay paypal back. Also if paypal took a credit card that failed the address verification check, which happened twice on one account we were responsible. Now answer this one, one of our customers sent 3 separate transactions, all with the same credit card the first transaction was reversed, but the others were not.
Basically what ever happens, paypal is not responsible. They operate outside of banking regulations and do not protect anyone, but themselves. This we believe is against consumer law because as a merchant they have a responsibility to their customers.
The arbitration process is, to say the least, a violation of a persons right to a fair and impartial trial. The arbitrator in our case was a well-known San Francisco corporate lawyer. Because we did not have a lawyer at the time, we had no choice. To our dismay, after returning from arbitration in San Francisco, we found on the Internet where a corporate lawyer from New York wrote that arbitration favors the big corporations 95+% of the time.
Below is the California civil code that was entered into law in 1989. The arbitrator chose to ignore this when it was noted in the final brief filed by our attorneys.
posted on April 30, 2002 11:29:23 PM new
Uaru
I hate to disagree with you but e-gold is perfectly legal with offices in Florida. The numbered accounts you talk about have a persons personal information behind it. To redeem any portion it is sent to the holders address. They fully comply with all laws.
99+% of the people I dealt with were people right here in the US that wanted to invest in gold. Others came from Canada,England etc. Infact all of the accounts that were charged back were from right here in the states.
My point was not my business but what could happen. I think you should understand that people dealing in illegal money don't do it by buying fifty or a hundred dollars in gold.
P.S. Sure would like to get your comments on them doing business with PORN sites that feature teen sex and also gambling sites from countries they say are hot beds of crimminal activity.
Your anger towards me is either that you do not understand or are happy with paypal either way so be it I will still try to warn people as to what could happen to them, Lord I wish someone had warned me.
posted on May 1, 2002 07:26:54 AM new
club1man,
you said you are receiving 200,000 dollars in paypal transaction in a month?
what is the average size of one transaction??
why cant the investors send you a money order,cashier check,intl money order or wire transfer??
AVS-address verification system only vefify the numeric portion of the street addr and the first 5 digits of zip code,for foreign address,only recently UK are verified,the rest of the world,there is no way to verify the addr online.
the last time damon posted on AVS,paypal does not have the feature in place to verify UK address.
hindsight of course is always 20/20-since investing in precious metals is a long term(?) investment and gold has hardly moved up in price until recently,i would think most investors would be using their existing savings or liquidating their other forms of investment to purchase gold,there should be ample time for them to go to the bank and either wire you the fund or buy a cashier check or intl money order.
posted on May 1, 2002 07:39:23 AM newYour anger towards me is either that you do not understand or are happy with paypal...
After 15 months of you using this messageboard as a 'call to arms' I'm a bit bored with it. You could have settled but you choose the long road instead. When the long road resulted in a larger loss for you it's back to square one with a 'call to arms'.
Please don't try and feed me this 'matter of principle' story and you're too noble to let injustice go unchallenged. I remember all to well the offers of PayPal to e-Gold spam that was being plastered all over the usenet.
posted on May 1, 2002 09:30:48 AM new
Stopwhining
Most of my transactions were in amounts of 50 to 500 dollars and many of my customers did send checks,money orders etc. Many of my customers used e-gold as an investment or as a payment service,which paypal evidently didn't like. They told me after I got all these chargebacks that I wasn't covered by SPP but the arbitrator ruled differently.As far as AVS checks all I know is that several of the accounts failed the check atleast once but were sent to me anyway,Which a fraud manager testified "if they failed the AVS they didn't go through"
P.S. all the chargebacks where he in the states.
Uaru
If your bored please don't vent on me.
Yes I could have settled and who knows how much I would have had to pay them.One of the offers was I could pay it off over a 6 month period,but I was totally responsible for any and all further chargebacks. Several of the customers that I was able to talk to proved paypal had taken their money and still had it. What about the ones that I couldn't contact because of their refusal to provide me with the necessary info.Also they forced the arbitration on me. I didn't have a choice. It was pay up or else.
By the way you haven't commented on the gambling or porn issue. I got an email last nite from one and when I checked it out with WHOIS it was in Cyprus. Sure hope your boredom gets better.
P.S. If you don't have principles what's left.
[ edited by club1man on May 1, 2002 09:34 AM ]
posted on May 1, 2002 10:12:59 AM new
Paypal sued me, one day I answered the phone and the american arbitration assoc. was on the phone and them I got notice in the mail along with a bill. Even the lady at the AAA said that paypal was suppose to send me a notice of intent, they didn't. We did counter claim because we felt the charges were illegal. By the way in a court the filing fees would have been about a thousand dollars. I payed the AAA 14k and now I am supposed to pay paypals share.
posted on May 1, 2002 10:20:37 AM new
AVS address verification system cannot verify most foreign addresses,so it is not true that paypal would not send out payment emails if address cannot be verified.
with us addresses this is not true either,i think many of us have received paypal payments from someone whose addr is not verified.
there is also another problem facing internet sellers accepting cc payments,the real time verification system does not verify the name of the cardholder.
with paypal ,i think the registration process verifies the member with its card and bank account??so unless someone hacks into his account,one assumes the one who is sending you money is the one who owns the credit card??
with merchant account,the only way to find out your customer is the owner of the cc he is using is to call the card issuer and gets a yes/mo answer.and this is not 100% proof,as your cleaning lady can come online with your cc and order something to be delivered to your home while you are away on vacation.or how about all these college students who live together in a house??.
the credit card is not really suitable for e commerce,it is the best means we have right now,the best way of accepting cc is for a brick and mortar shop where customer walks in with his card,you verify online or through a swipe machine and ask to see his driver license and have him sign the charge receipt.
for us sellers,the only form of payment which offers us 100% comfort is that hard cold cash.
re: "After 15 months of you using this messageboard as a 'call to arms' I'm a bit bored with it."
It's a free country - if you're bored with it - don't read it and/or respond to it. There are pleanty of us who DO want to hear Stoney's story.
It's amazing, you're so cynical and negative, you can't even imagine that someone simply decided to stand up for what he believes in. Then you have the audacity to jump on him for it! You should be ashamed of yourself.
I suppose you don't see a problem with the $350K in legal fees that paypal racked up with this 'Simple Contract Dispute' either, do you?
I think a 'call to arms' is exactly what's needed here. People need to know what could happen to them. Don't worry, we know you'll always be there, defending paypal till the very end, so people doing research will get both sides of the story.
Be careful though, people don't tend to like listening to someone with a constant smug, condescending attitude, such as yourself.
posted on May 1, 2002 07:20:06 PM new
most of us would not have the time and resources to go to court with paypal.
there is another thread on a dealer who sue and countersue and lost the case with her customer on an antique armoire.
at one point we have to ask if our time would be better spent selling than appearing in court,unfortunately if you read her posts ,it is all about everyone urging her to continue waging the battle,(do not let anyone use her as a doormat,someone said).
i know you are not in a position to say too much while the suit is ongoing,but is there anyone besides your wife and lawyers who advise you when to cut your losses??
or are you expecting some punitive damage coming if you win??
a few years ago, i was involved in a case and my lawyer urged me to fly and contest the case in court and i will end up paying a smaller fine.after figuring plane and hotel and others for me and my lawyer,how much is my savings??also there is no guarantee i will win altho past did indicate a very good chance.
i paid the fine and moved on.
lawyers are nice people,respect them and stay away from them ,if you can.
posted on May 1, 2002 09:50:10 PM new
As I said before payponzi sued me and we thought we could win. The law was on our side the arbitrator wasn't,so now I know what it's like to be a half a million in debt. My lawyers were so amazed at the decision that they told me not to worry about the 30k that I owed them. Let's face it the arbitrator knows he'll get more business for them than me.
posted on May 1, 2002 09:57:05 PM new
club1man,
i just reread your post,you said most of the paypal chargebacks came from usa.
your paypal email would have said something like the buyer address is not verified.
does it ever dawn on you why these folks based in usa are using paypal??and having unverified address??
did paypal sue you because they cannot get the chargeback money from you??did you empty your paypal account before paypal has a chance to restrict it??
posted on May 1, 2002 11:07:47 PM new
Stopwhining
You have a lot of questions and my typing skills are limited if you would like to talk personally I'd be more than happy to call you. Email me at [email protected] . To answer your last question at that time remember the their policies were totally different then they are today,most people took advantage of their free service. They put many options in their software due to my talks with Sandeep Lal and Reid Hoffman. One was to accept or reject credit cards. They ended turning that aginst me at the hearings because I changed my preferences to allow customers I knew were good to use their credit cards.
[ edited by club1man on May 1, 2002 11:10 PM ]
posted on May 2, 2002 05:53:12 PM new
A few things here about my original post. First I didn't mean to start a war here, I was just reporting what has kept PayPal payments trouble free for me for 3 years. "club1man's" post calling me "awfully naive" was ridiculous considering I would never allow PayPal to have enough money in my account or engage in the ludicrous events he mentioned for that to happen. That was the point of my post. Besides that he misspelled "awfully" As to refunds, I don't depend on PayPal or Billpoint for records concerning refunds and don't care if they have them or not, or if they request them in response to a complaint (which I have never had over a refund issue).
I made a small misstatement on that issue in that I have made immediate refunds back to PayPal accounts when a person purchased something by mistake and emailed soon enough for the money to still be there, and also small amounts like overpaid shipping charges. Other than that, all refunds are handled some other way. Call it what you want. It works. As to one Premier and one Business account, one account (Premier) is in my name and personal bank and credit info, the other is a Business account in my company's name under other banking and credit info. The information I gave in my post was just a report on the history of my and my company's use of PayPal and advice related to what has worked for 3 years. For those of you who hate PayPal or are afraid of it because of what you read here, don't use it. To those of you who have lost money and want to criticize me, go ahead. As this is being written I've never lost a cent with them and PayPal could "freeze" a total of 82 cents of my money if they did it right now. The only guarantee you have with them is to use them only to receive payment and get your money out quick. Period.
posted on May 2, 2002 06:51:46 PM new
Mrpps,
Cleaning out your paypal account will put the money in your control. However, if you lose a chargeback decission to paypal you will owe them the money. That debt could be sold to a collection agency at some point in the future.
dendude
posted on May 2, 2002 07:38:43 PM new
every now and then someone asked why does anyone keep so much money in their paypal accounts?
i asked a certain savvy person and this is what she gave as reasons-
paypal is not a bank,and it holds your money for as long as you want them to,it does not send out any statement,and when you need that money you can ask them to mail you a check.
then you can take that check and cash it at your bank ,take that cash home and no one knows where that cash comes from,expecially uncle sam.
folks who are retired and collect ss payment,folks who are disabled and collect ss disability,folks who avoid child support,foreigners who see paypal as a way to hold foreign exchange in an unstable envrionment at home,need i cite more?
of course there are legit sellers who need to make payment fast to their vendors and paypal is a fast way to send payments.
posted on May 3, 2002 04:23:41 AM new
If I end up oweing PayPal money, I can pay it out of my account, and in the meantime it is in my control in case there is a dispute, not "frozen" in PayPal. Anybody looking for an "absolute" way to have zero trouble with PayPal will not find it. I just know what has worked to keep PayPal payments avaialable and not having the mess associated with it that you see in this forum.
posted on May 4, 2002 04:50:07 PM new
MRPPS
Thank you for correcting me on my spelling deficiency, now check yours. I think the war started when you failed to realize that my comments were meant to prevent you or anyone from having what happened to me.
That was the point of my post. Besides that he misspelled "awfully"
Then your post:
"...If I end up OWEING PayPal money... to keep PayPal payments AVAIALABLE..."
Good one! You are so critical of one little mistake, then turn around and double it yourself. Don't worry, though, you've got tons of credibility here! LOL
posted on May 15, 2002 08:47:28 PM new
Since I've been gone for a while (because I've got a life) I just figured I'd throw another reply out here to watch club1man and this "ltlcruddy1" or whatever his user name is, pile on a new comment. Just kidding. Take it easy. club1man you had a terrible experience with PayPal, no doubt and you are letting everybody know about it. No problem. I have had no problems with PayPal but don't trust them with my money and I wrote to tell people who do decide to use them how to do it carefully. My original post was "BEFORE You Use PayPal". It was a warning, not an endorsement for PP. I started out not criticizing anybody, but it looks like you can't put anything but something horrible about PP on here without being ripped up. Here's the deal. I don't blame you for telling the world about your experience, and it's a perfect picture of what can happen with PayPal. Just let me tell it like it is with my experience too. And maybe we better both get a couple of dictionaries to help us when we post. And hey "lilcritter1", nobody needs your help piling on, and my credibility here will only have to do with what I write about my experience with PP, not on what you think about it. So go find something important to do for a change. I've gotten to where I kinda like club1man but I don't think you're very nice. And I'm very sensitive........
posted on May 15, 2002 09:56:39 PM new
Hey MrPPS thanks and I'd like to say that if you keep that additude you'll even get to like crafty. we're mad but we're also trying to alert people of the injustices that can be incurred when using paypal. Damn I run a legit business and they lied,cooked the books and plain out SCREWED me. Even to emailing my customers negative things about me. That backfired and many of my customers closed their accounts. you'de be mad as hell if you read the transcript of the case. But don't worry next week 60k emails go out to paypal customers thanks to a friend of mine and we're also gonna try to get this to capitol hill. As they say "the fat lady ain't sung YET"
P.S. wish they would get a spell check here for you and me.
posted on May 18, 2002 05:23:57 PM new
mr(sensitive)pp, regarding your OVERLY sensitive post in another thread: "club1man's ridiculous life ruining battle for "what is right" is nothing more than a demented self righteous unwinable battle to undo his uncontrolled financial dealings."
Then your post here (to club1man): "...I started out not criticizing anybody... I don't blame you for telling the world about your experience, and it's a perfect picture of what can happen with PayPal". And to me: "...my credibility here will only have to do with what I write about my experience with PP."
Unfortunately (for you) sybil, you don't get to determine how your credibility (or lack thereof, in your case) is established.
posted on May 26, 2002 06:41:37 AM new
Yeah, "lilbugger" things kinda got outta hand and my last post was to let club1man know my post was out of line, and try to find some middle ground where we can post about PayPal without fighting about who is what since it looks like we both have warnings (if from a somewhat different perspective) about PayPal. Looks like it's gonna take you a little while to get it. Gee, let a guy say he's wrong and get over it. Hey club1man, I'm really trying to like this guy, but I just don't know. Ok, I'm gonna go have a good cry now. You can go back to your cave "lilpiggy". (Get a sense of humor). "Can't we all just get along?"
As to refunds, I don't depend on PayPal or Billpoint for records concerning refunds and don't care if they have them or not, or if they request them in response to a complaint (which I have never had over a refund issue).