posted on June 19, 2002 12:26:47 AM new
Usually I don't post to message boards but I think it is necessary.
I have been following this message board as well as E-bay's and other boards on the internet for quite awhile. I like to read up on buyer complaints, problems with sellers, etc. so I am a consumer that is more informed.
I have had a problem reciently purchasing "non-tangable" goods which I have not recieved. I had a problem with there Buyer Complaint Process so I called Paypal. When I phoned them it appeared that Paypal's representitives at the other end of the phone did not even try to help me. But because I have been following this board as well as many others for awhile I decided to contact Damon. Damon responded to me the next day and although I was not overly impressed with the email (because he quoted the User Agreement of Paypal and it seemed that they wanted to advise me of "the letter of the law" it was alot better then the support I have been getting from anyone else at Paypal.
Damon seems to be the only Paypal representitive that listens the customers. And although things do not work out 100% of the time I am sure he tries 100% of the time unlike other people that claim they try to achieve "consumer resolutions".
Now although right now I am out $320.00 I am sure that he is putting his best foot forward to try to correct a wrong.
Do you see me whining/flaming about Paypal on these forems? No. If you have a problem with Paypal you should be very specific about what your problem is and contact them directly. I've noticed some people have said Paypal has hung up on them. Well I must admit that there phone support is not that good but if I worked for Paypal and you called me up calling me names I would hang up on you too. For the people being ignored on these forems: well... if I was Damon and you constantly gave unconstructive critism by flaming and name calling I would ignore you too.
Namecalling and flaming will not help anyone and although you may not realize it you are hurting yourself more then Paypal (which I am sure you have seen already).
If anyone has a problem with my thread and wishes to contact me directly my email is:
[email protected]
posted on June 19, 2002 06:26:41 AM new
Personal experiences speak volumes.....
I have alot of respect for Damon & what he does because it is not easy.
Now as to your problem....
You say you may be out $320.
Wish you the best of luck on retrieving it.
I have a question for you.
Are you still going to use PAYPAL?
If Yes....
& a similiar situation arises & you wind up losing another $200-300 are you still going to continue using the service?
You of course will make up your own mind but in the end it is PAYPAL's actions or reactions when you are dealing with their customer service that will provide you with all the information you need to make your decision.
There is a reason why I & many others are former PAYPAL users.
posted on June 19, 2002 07:41:52 AM new
I was not defending the company's business practices I was just trying to say that name calling and flaming will not help you. You need to understand that Damon IS NOT PAYPAL he is only a representative of Paypal therefore he has no/little control over the policies that his company sets. If I came into your business and started calling you names just because I didn't like a policy that the CEO/President set how would you feel? Probably not very good.
I was not defending the company's business practices I was just trying to say that name calling and flaming will not help you. You need to understand that Damon IS NOT PAYPAL he is only a representative of Paypal therefore he has no/little control over the policies that his company sets. If I came into your business and started calling you names just because I didn't like a policy that the CEO/President set how would you feel? Probably not very good.
"Personal experiences speak volumes....."
Yes this is very true and although I am not prepared to comment about your experiences (because I have not heard both sides of the story) I have found that dealing with most people at Paypal is very frustrating. Damon seems to be #1 Customer Support guy at Paypal, where he probably gets 1million emails a day from people asking for help with problems because they did not find it when taking the "normal route" that Paypal places on there webpage so it is very understandable why you and many other users (like myself) have respect for him (although he has personally not have been great assistance to me yet I have seen what he has done for many others).
"There is a reason why I & many others are former PAYPAL users."
Yes, probably because you did not like a policy that Paypal created or that you found that trying to contact regular support is difficult. This is only reflective of the company not Damon as a person. (Not every problem is reflective of Paypal, however problems about company policy and contacting support are generally reflective of the company). People on this board need to understand that Damon is not the President of Paypal and stop harassing him for heavens sake.
posted on June 19, 2002 10:13:57 AM new
i just called paypal support ,the number given on the back of my debit card and waiting time was 2 minutes or less and it was resolved quickly.
but then it was a easy one!!
anyway,whining and flaming gets kind of old when it comes from the same guys .
dealerjim has a bone to pick with paypal,he admitted he has recovered most of his $$$ losses but he is a vindicative person by nature(not my words,but his own),so every chance he gets,he will continue to whine and whine about his own personal experience.
of course none of us own this board and we have no way to tell him to get a life.
but some of us should get combat pay for reading his posts,the same thing over and over again like an old movie rerun.
as for club1man,you would think anyone running a business and incurred 71 chargebacks should go back to school and learn the basics of retailing 101.
i guess one way to look at it is that we are all different,and that makes the world interesting.
I totally disagree and I think Damon does a horrible job as the only contact person when Paypal fails to communicate with its customers.
I e-mailed Paypal several times with my problem and they never replied to me. At which time my only option was to hunt down a phone number which they make very hard to find. Then I called then with concern but with a professional manner. They turned it into a circus. To be told I was at "buyers mercy" and to be quoted terms of use over and over that did not even apply is just bad service. Never could I even get in contact with a supervisor. They would tell me they don't have to transfer me and then hang up. I never called them names.
I once worked for a major electronic retainer. Once a customer drove away from the store with a large TV that feel off their own truck due 100% to the customer own fault.
Rather then turning there back on the customer, they offered to get him a major discount on another set. Sure they did not have to. Sure it was the customers 100% fault but rather then losing a customer for life over $300, they did what they could to make the customer happy. They are still in business. And I bet that customer became a customer for life.
And once I ordered an item from Ubid that came and was the wrong item three times. They ended up giving me an $800 Car amp for under $200 to compensate me for my problems. They did not have to. They did not have the item I ordered anymore. But they made an effort to help me. They could of just pulled a Damon and cut and pasted their term of use and said too bad, but they did not.
Whenever I have had a problem with phone bills, overcharges, ect, Most companies help out even just once as a courtesy. I never received one courtesy from Paypal. Even if I was at accidental fault.
I had a friend who once sat on his cellular phone and made like an hour-long accidental call to Japan. Sure it was his fault. Sure it was like a $300 call. But the company gave him a credit when they investigated and found out they were a good customer and has not called Japan for an hour before.
Never did Paypal offer me help or compensations for allowing one of their accounts to mail fraud me. They never even showed compassion. They were 100% rude.
Know what Damon told me ? He said it does not matter if my buyer got my item or not. If I cannot prove that the location where the buyer requested shipping is the same as the "confirmed address" on the account (which Paypal would not even give me) then I was out of luck. And he follows it by posting terms of use from three months after my transaction. He told me they were not going to do anything to help me or penalize the account used to commit a crime.
Some help. Some protection. They buyer has been proven to have attempted mail fraud and Damon replies, "sorry you are having a problem with your buyer."
Come on. He used Paypal to commit mail fraud. He could not have done it without using Paypal or their help processing the fraudulent claim. And you are sorry Paypal? And you want me to be out $350 plus service charges for service never received? Nice customer service.
Damon claims to be "PayPal Consumer Relations"
LOL...
So they have shown me what little customer relations they have. They will let one of their accounts be used to commit mail fraud and then dump on the victim. And then they say sorry you are having problems but it’s not their job to fix it.
Paypal messed up 100%. They fail to investigate a fraudulent claim. They failed to take “reasonable proof that the sale was completed” and they processed a reversal of funds against me after the buyer clearly got the item. They blamed a credit card company for a non-credit card transaction. They failed to write the terms of use correctly in October 2001 so they changed them in Jan 2002 to be allowed to do what they did to me to others.
And they did nothing but blame me for their account pulling a scam on me.
So basically my buyer got my item and saved serval hundred dollars thanks to Paypal and people like Damon.
I have even turned Damon's posting of the incorrect terms of use over to one of the law firms suing Paypal as I want my account closed and I do not want Paypal assisting any more fraudulent account holders.
But I do have to thank Damon for finally giving me some proof against Paypal. I have Damon clearly saying the "sellers protection" was never changed when it clearly was proven it was and Damon clearly posted the changed term of use against me when trying to excuse Paypal's actions for allowing mail fraud. It’s great to catch the "PayPal Consumer Relations" posting a lie like “the sellers protection policy was never changed” When anyone can visit http://www.archive.org and see how many times Paypal “changed” the terms of use including the “sellers protection” section over the past year or so.
[ edited by kkaaz on Jun 19, 2002 10:45 AM ]
posted on June 19, 2002 12:38:08 PM new
The reason Paypal has the chargeback policy is so they are not the one's that are left holding the bag. As a seller you have a venue of options that you can peruse to get the buyer to pay up.
I would suggest first contacting the police and seeing if they can lay criminal charges as a DA would probably be able to get a subpoena for the scammers information. Once the police are done with him proceed to small claims court and charge him with damages also include expenses that you needed in order to help collect the money. You probably do not need to sue him in his state, as I believe you can sue anywhere a service is performed. I highly doubt it would reach civil court as he would probably try to settle with you after the police are finished with him.
posted on June 19, 2002 03:18:15 PM new
Stopwhinning I don't think that you have a handle on the whole situation,as far as what my problems were. The chargebacks came almost all over a span of a few weeks. The investigation on these accounts were passed from one person to another. These poeple also testified they had no experience, no training, no manuals (one of the fraud managers testified that 90 days before becoming Fraud manager he worked for a cement company)and could not explain why one transaction was deemed fraudulant and then two others from the same person using the exact same credit card and exact account were good. Why after failing two AVS checks they sent me an e-mail saying "YOU'VE GOT CASH". They changed the status of accounts from verified to unverfied and we had emails proving they were verified at the time "they doctored the books" You would realize after reading the transcript that the company is full inexperienced people,lies and deceit. I don't believe all their employees are crooks,but in order to keep their jobs they must do as their told.
Remember this happened almost 2 yrs ago well before payponzi commented in their sec filing that they had limited experience and that one thing, among others that could hurt them was employee fraud. When I suggested an "inside job" they flatly said no It couldn't happen and didn't even investigate the possibility.
Kkazz Your exactly right about about the seller protection plan
IE-- It use to state $5000 per yr. now it says $5000 per yr. of payment.
posted on June 19, 2002 04:17:56 PM new
club1man,
this is exactly what i mean that you should go back to school.
you pick a service which has untrained,under qualified and dishonest employees.
you are the CEO of your business and you flunk in your choice of service provider,you should go the way of chuck watson and ken lay.
by the way,chevron owns a big chunk of dynergy,may be chevron chief should go too!!
posted on June 19, 2002 04:53:00 PM new
Well Stopwhinning I can't argue that I flunked. I guess the 3000+ honest people that I had as customers didn't realize that by trusting them I was also trusting some untrustworthy people and a dishonest company that lured their customers into a false sense of security.They did advertise "send and recieve money securely" if I remember right. It's a shame when you flunk because you trust. Guess I'm too much of a country boy,I still shake hands and my word is my bond. Y2K is here.
posted on June 19, 2002 05:09:46 PM new
[Kkazz Your exactly right about about the seller protection plan ]
Yep
I think I signed up for Xcom/paypal in 1999/2000
The earliest sellers protection / term of use I could finds is
(March 2000)
5. Once a Payment is made it is non-reversible and non-refundable.
11. You are fully responsible for any goods bought or sold or any services provided by or to another User and settled through the PayPal™ system. You agree that a payment received from or paid to another user is final and not reversible. Any disputes that arise between Users relating to payments made or any other transactions between individuals are not the responsibility of Confinity.
So under the old Paypal. The user I was frauded by could not fraud me. Paypal would not give them their money back after they get the item like they did to me in October 2001.
The seller’s protection when I got frauded..
(October 2001)
General. PayPal agrees to indemnify sellers of physical goods from chargeback liability resulting from a buyer's unauthorized use of a credit card and/or false claims of non-shipment of goods. This protection applies to up to $5,000 per year of payments received by the seller through PayPal if the following conditions are met:
(chargeback liability.)
And then the way it is today :
General. PayPal agrees to indemnify sellers of physical goods from reversal liability resulting from a buyer's unauthorized use of a credit card and/or false claims of non-shipment of goods. This protection applies only to the sale of physical goods, and not to any non-tangible, non-physical goods or services pursuant to section 1 above. It applies to up to $5,000 per year of payments received by the seller through PayPal if the following conditions are met:
Oh look how much longer it gets !!! Damon clearly said the seller’s protection did not change ? What Paypal is he working for ? Is he just blind or does not know who he works for ? Or does he just lie ?
Then they changed it to the way it is now.
See how it now claims you must follow certain steps for reversal liability !!!!
It no longer says chargeback. They changed it from chargeback to reversal.
Which is now Paypal saying they will allow you to commit mail fraud if you can "unprotect" your seller and you are now not limited to contacting your credit cards. You can do it with e-checks for funds.
posted on June 20, 2002 02:12:24 AM new
Calling the Police for every transaction that a person did not get a product would overload the police departments. That is why we use credit cards so we can chargeback if something is not as we like it or if we do not get it.
it was alot better then the support I have been getting from anyone else at Paypal.