The Unbelievable Practices From Paypal

[LaoPo]

The unbelievable practices from PayPal

My wife is doing some nice business with eBay and wholesale as well.

I just want to share this with you:

she transfered some money from her own PayPal Account to her own bank account:

1. PP says it takes 3-7 business days; with a normal bank-to-bank transfer it takes us 1 day. SO: they consume interest over a period of 2 to 6 days of the money.

2. They charge $ 35.00 for 1 transfer of less than $ 1K which would cost with a normal bank much less than that. In this case it was 3,59% (!!!) of the amount or around $ 35!

3. PP's exchange rate -today- is 1 Euro = $ 1,39452 whilst the rate today is $ 1,444; here they steal another 3,4% of the total amount or around $ 35!!

All in all it cost her more than 7% on an amount of less than $ 1K; I think that's legalized criminal banking behavior. $ 70.00 on an amount of less than $ 1,000 ? Unbelievable.

4. Another point is that they can LIMIT you accessing your OWN money in your OWN account (they did that a few times already for some vague reason) whenever they want, without asking you first.

The process of reversing that step is so time consuming and SO difficult that it is almost criminal behavior.

It is like I steal your wallet -temporarily- and tell YOU that you can't access it anymore (for a period); I think you would become very angry

5. The point is that eBay bought all shares of PayPal and can do what they want and vice versa.

A Banker friend of mine whispered in my ears, a long time ago, and thus admitted: "Banks are legalized Mafia" and can do what they want, whenever they want.

How true he was back than and still is.

I know PayPal is not a real bank but a privately owned institute receiving and transferring money but their practices are so unbelievable and in my own opinion also almost so criminal that it is against all banking rules and behavior.

The problem is that it's almost completely virtual and only after a lot of research and efforts one is able to talk to someone from PayPal although I believe you're just talking to some call-center, in her case in China.

Nobody knows WHERE the real money is "parked", you receive from a client after they bought something.....is it S'pore, the US, Hong Kong, Denmark ? You tell me.

The trick with Paypal is that you receive the payment/money from a client (if this client pays with PP as well) IMMEDIATELY.

But if you want to remove that money from that account the circus starts.

What a world

LaoPo

[Phil Conners]

Paypal is notorious for freezing accounts for little or no reason and

then being unhelpful in resolving the problem. There are many

examples of this and even complete websites dedicated to it such as

http://www.paypalwarning.com/, http://paypalsucks.org/ or

http://www.screw-paypal.com/.

[sharecropper]

My wife also does ebay business through paypal and they are, I'm sorry to say utter ******* *****!

In fact they are so bad that I set up my UK bank account to collect her money into it, and I just pay her out this end in Thai Baht, and spend the GBP in the UK when we go back there.

And don't even get me started on ebay, who are even worse than Paypal IMHO.

[LaoPo]

Paypal is notorious for freezing accounts for little or no reason and

then being unhelpful in resolving the problem. There are many

examples of this and even complete websites dedicated to it such as

http://www.paypalwarning.com/, http://paypalsucks.org/ or

http://www.screw-paypal.com/.

Thank you Phil; much appreciated.

Holy Moly...I just opened those sites and I'm shocked. I really didn't know this since I'm just on the sideline but learning.

I became so frustrated, seeing the things they did to my wife's account that I stepped in.

I will study a bit more but when I read about this guy who was denied access to his own account for FOUR YEARS....I became flabbergasted.

I'm very surprised that the US authorities let this go and do not step in and take control since this is real -legalized- criminal banking behavior.

UNBELIEVABLE

LaoPo

[JimmyTheMook]

They (PayPal) have a TOTAL MONOPOLY on eBay - they suck and people hate them , yet they continue to earn a fortune.

[LaoPo]

They (PayPal) have a TOTAL MONOPOLY on eBay - they suck and people hate them , yet they continue to earn a fortune.

Look at their staff at the top....

BASIC COMPENSATION:

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/comp...C=C4-Officers-5

Founder of eBay...and # 156 on richest of the world list by Forbes: Mr. Pierre Morad Omidyar (born June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian entrepreneur and philanthropist/economist, and the founder/chairman of the eBay auction site

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Omidyar

I don't like this guy with his 5,5 Billion!

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/54/rich-l...idyar_KQM6.html

Most of the present shares, 73,25% are owned by Institutional shareholders with a 5%/Insider Ownership 15.98%:

http://moneycentral.msn.com/ownership?Symbol=EBAY

LaoPo

[LaoPo]

I think we can be hapPy eBay sold it's stake in SKYPE.....

In October 2009, the Company sold its 65% interest in online phone company, Skype Technologies, to Silver Lake Partners III.

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AEBAY

Hope Mr. Silver lake leaves us alone

LaoPo

[elcent]

1. PP belongs to eBay.

You can try Moneybookers instead. Fast and great exchange rates and lower fees. It's about 1/3 the costs from eBay.. ahem, PayPal I mean. eBay accepts Moneybookers and more and more people using it. It's regulated by European law. The only minus is that American law hinders American to create an account. That might change soon.

2. When you call support you're talking with PayPal Singapore.

3. When your account is limited you can get your money in 6 months then, without lifting limitations.

4. I assume you were talking about money transfer to your PP account. Otherwise transferring money to your bank is free or 50.00 Baht when the amount is below 5.000.00Bah.

5. I will try to find the site where there are hundreds of plaintiffs running a class action lawsuit against PP.

6. Nevertheless, Moneybookers is the cheapest and most reliable, followed by PP and then all the other online payment providers which are out of question because they really suck.

Edited January 4, 2010 by elcent

[elcent]

here it is, the link http://www.paypalsucks.com/ very interesting ...

[LaoPo]

here it is, the link http://www.paypalsucks.com/ very interesting ...

Thanks for your input Elcent!

Is your link the same as paypalsucks.org which member Phil Connors provided in post #2 ? It doesn't look like it but the name is very close ?

LaoPo

[elcent]

here it is, the link http://www.paypalsucks.com/ very interesting ...

Thanks for your input Elcent!

Is your link the same as paypalsucks.org which member Phil Connors provided in post #2 ? It doesn't look like it but the name is very close ?

LaoPo

not the same

paypalwarnings.com is good too, there are lots more out there.

[LaoPo]

here it is, the link http://www.paypalsucks.com/ very interesting ...

Thanks for your input Elcent!

Is your link the same as paypalsucks.org which member Phil Connors provided in post #2 ? It doesn't look like it but the name is very close ?

LaoPo

not the same

paypalwarnings.com is good too, there are lots more out there.

I have that one I believe: http://www.paypalwarning.com/

Thanks!

LaoPo

[Trickcyclist]

why and how anybody does business with Paypal beats me. Their systems must have been set-up by ex operatives of Smersh!!!

[Amyji]

1. PP belongs to eBay.

You can try Moneybookers instead. Fast and great exchange rates and lower fees. It's about 1/3 the costs from eBay.. ahem, PayPal I mean. eBay accepts Moneybookers and more and more people using it. It's regulated by European law. The only minus is that American law hinders American to create an account. That might change soon.

Even if you're an American not living in America? Could I use it if I used my Thai bank account and had nothing to do with the American system?

[LaoPo]

1. PP belongs to eBay.

You can try Moneybookers instead. Fast and great exchange rates and lower fees. It's about 1/3 the costs from eBay.. ahem, PayPal I mean. eBay accepts Moneybookers and more and more people using it. It's regulated by European law. The only minus is that American law hinders American to create an account. That might change soon.

2. When you call support you're talking with PayPal Singapore.

3. When your account is limited you can get your money in 6 months then, without lifting limitations.

4. I assume you were talking about money transfer to your PP account. Otherwise transferring money to your bank is free or 50.00 Baht when the amount is below 5.000.00Bah.

5. I will try to find the site where there are hundreds of plaintiffs running a class action lawsuit against PP.

6. Nevertheless, Moneybookers is the cheapest and most reliable, followed by PP and then all the other online payment providers which are out of question because they really suck.

Answering your points:

1. Yes I know; thanks for informing me about Moneybookers; I'm just studying their website and looks like a fine alternative to PP!

2. Not always Singapore as we spoke with "Shanghai" which was confirmed by my wife.

3. In my wife's case it was different; she was "limited" for THEIR so-called security reasons and thus limited her....; she had to fill in ALL documents and verifications, personal paperwork, bank accounts, prove of address, supplying electricity bills.... all over again It was not enough....she finallly phoned "Shanghai" and the case was settled and they made apologies.

Until a few days later when the whole process started all over again; and again.

4. No; she was transferring Euro/money from her own PP account into her own bank account, elsewhere, and NO the transfer was not free and was US$ 35.00 for the transfer, apart from the sucking exchange rate as PayPal will only transfer US $'s to transfer from her account to her bank (not Euro) I'm not talking Thailand though but Hong Kong, China and Europe related.

5. OK, please.

6. See #1 and will definitely follow up with my wife.

about #3:

it looks like they block your own account if they notice too much money in a certain account and thus "limit" access to that account and steal a certain period in days that you cannot access your own money.

It has nothing to do with the business or faults that one could have made since there was nothing wrong.

It looks like they do that with many clients and thus create an enormous amount of money they can stash away for a period and thus create interest on a huge scale without facing any serious problems from the side of their account clients.

Criminal.

Thanks a lot for your info. I'm just a newbie with PayPayl and eBay...

LaoPo

[Graham101]

Late last year I also had major problems with PayPal and yes, PayPal sucks.

First my account was accessed by a third party who tried to transfer funds from my bank account to my PayPal account. I don't know what the purpose of that was but it occurred shortly after I returned from Vientiane so suspect my laptop was compromised while there.

Secondly I went through a series of "Your account has been limited due to strange activities" alerts. Each time I logged in there was nothing. I could log in and change passwords and security settings but to have the account unlimited PayPal wanted an electricity bill, mobile phone acc. etc, with the address I used to register the account. As this is not a Thailand account and I have not been home for many yearsthis was impossible to provide. eventually phoned PayPal and the limitation was removed.

I logged back in and two hours later fort another alert. I ignored it and presumed it was not valid. When I attempted to log in a few weeks later I found my account was again limited. PayPal is without a doubt one of the most arrogant organizations in the world. After uselessly exchanging emails - and receiving back canned answers with annotations "do not reply to this emaila s this account is not monitored" I again phone PayPal and ended up in their Philippines call-center.

After kicking up a fuss -- and recording the telephone conversation, which the operator didn't like, I insisted on a call from a manager. Instead I received emails saying "we cannot contact you on the number used to register your account". My response was simple. It was given to your Philippines operator and is on the bottom of the 20+ emails sent to you.

Eventually I received a call and the "manager" -- why do American call center managers only have a first name? - admitted that someone with a UK PayPal account who accesses PayPal from China will have their account limited as part of PayPals secuirty software.

Now this is something fairly new but the operator said "if you work in Thailand, you need to have a Thai PayPal account - even if your salary is paid Uganda."

Totally ridiculous! Hundreds of thousands of people work in countries other than those they are resident of and have their salaries paid into their home country bank accounts.

Two words. PayPal sucks.

[LaoPo]

Late last year I also had major problems with PayPal and yes, PayPal sucks.

First my account was accessed by a third party who tried to transfer funds from my bank account to my PayPal account. I don't know what the purpose of that was but it occurred shortly after I returned from Vientiane so suspect my laptop was compromised while there.

Secondly I went through a series of "Your account has been limited due to strange activities" alerts. Each time I logged in there was nothing. I could log in and change passwords and security settings but to have the account unlimited PayPal wanted an electricity bill, mobile phone acc. etc, with the address I used to register the account. As this is not a Thailand account and I have not been home for many yearsthis was impossible to provide. eventually phoned PayPal and the limitation was removed.

I logged back in and two hours later fort another alert. I ignored it and presumed it was not valid. When I attempted to log in a few weeks later I found my account was again limited. PayPal is without a doubt one of the most arrogant organizations in the world. After uselessly exchanging emails - and receiving back canned answers with annotations "do not reply to this emaila s this account is not monitored" I again phone PayPal and ended up in their Philippines call-center.

After kicking up a fuss -- and recording the telephone conversation, which the operator didn't like, I insisted on a call from a manager. Instead I received emails saying "we cannot contact you on the number used to register your account". My response was simple. It was given to your Philippines operator and is on the bottom of the 20+ emails sent to you.

Eventually I received a call and the "manager" -- why do American call center managers only have a first name? - admitted that someone with a UK PayPal account who accesses PayPal from China will have their account limited as part of PayPals secuirty software.

Now this is something fairly new but the operator said "if you work in Thailand, you need to have a Thai PayPal account - even if your salary is paid Uganda."

Totally ridiculous! Hundreds of thousands of people work in countries other than those they are resident of and have their salaries paid into their home country bank accounts.

Two words. PayPal sucks.

You explained it much better than I did and the situation is exactly similar.

It's unbelievable that these scams are going on.

These so called operators are nothing more than low-paid staff call centers; I don't believe they are real PayPal paid staff, maybe in exceptional cases like "managers"..

What amazes and scares me most is the brutal system and way they are stealing money from people and getting away with it.

Scandalous!

LaoPo

[BEENTHEREDONETHAT]

I made a order to a Indian company through PayPal and the order was suppose to be shipped in 3 weeks. After 3 months I got tired of the constant excuses and told them the order is canceled. went to PayPal for a refund and they essentially told me it was not their problem and I would have to work it out with the seller.

Finally went to the Credit Card company and charged the company with fraud to get my money back. PayPal was less than worthless and their only job seems to be to get as much money out of everyone as they possible can. So don't expect them to provide any assistance for non delivery of the order.

PAYPAL SUCKS BIGTIME

[Phil Conners]

There is no demand for Moneybookers. Every additional payment channel means more work, programming code on websites, billing/account maintenance, so the fewer payment channels the better. I've done business on the Internet for about 10 years and accept payments through both credit cards and Paypal with a factor of about 4:1, i.e. for every four that prefer credit cards there is one who prefer Paypal. After recent trouble with Paypal we made a push to get people to move away from Paypal and pay with credit card instead, but there is still about 15% who regardless of Paypal horror stories still prefer Paypal, so we are unfortunately stuck with Paypal for now.

[george]

I have used Paypal since they started, both private and business account, and never had any issues with them.

[Phil Conners]

^ So have I. Almost 10 years of smooth sailing. Then one day due to a routine bank change the account was frozen, and no matter of contacts, calls, mails, pleading or anything else could reopen it again. Had to go through a lengthy procedure of issuing refunds to debitors, and then try to recover the funds through a new Paypal account.

The point with Paypal is, as long as you don't have a problem they are easy to work with. When (not if) you get a problem you can forget about finding a solution.

[skippybangkok]

Paypal is notorious for freezing accounts for little or no reason and

then being unhelpful in resolving the problem. There are many

examples of this and even complete websites dedicated to it such as

http://www.paypalwarning.com/, http://paypalsucks.org/ or

http://www.screw-paypal.com/.

Yep,

had my money frozen for no reason at all

[wichianburi1]

Late last year I also had major problems with PayPal and yes, PayPal sucks.

First my account was accessed by a third party who tried to transfer funds from my bank account to my PayPal account. I don't know what the purpose of that was but it occurred shortly after I returned from Vientiane so suspect my laptop was compromised while there.

Secondly I went through a series of "Your account has been limited due to strange activities" alerts. Each time I logged in there was nothing. I could log in and change passwords and security settings but to have the account unlimited PayPal wanted an electricity bill, mobile phone acc. etc, with the address I used to register the account. As this is not a Thailand account and I have not been home for many yearsthis was impossible to provide. eventually phoned PayPal and the limitation was removed.

I logged back in and two hours later fort another alert. I ignored it and presumed it was not valid. When I attempted to log in a few weeks later I found my account was again limited. PayPal is without a doubt one of the most arrogant organizations in the world. After uselessly exchanging emails - and receiving back canned answers with annotations "do not reply to this emaila s this account is not monitored" I again phone PayPal and ended up in their Philippines call-center.

After kicking up a fuss -- and recording the telephone conversation, which the operator didn't like, I insisted on a call from a manager. Instead I received emails saying "we cannot contact you on the number used to register your account". My response was simple. It was given to your Philippines operator and is on the bottom of the 20+ emails sent to you.

Eventually I received a call and the "manager" -- why do American call center managers only have a first name? - admitted that someone with a UK PayPal account who accesses PayPal from China will have their account limited as part of PayPals secuirty software.

Now this is something fairly new but the operator said "if you work in Thailand, you need to have a Thai PayPal account - even if your salary is paid Uganda."

Totally ridiculous! Hundreds of thousands of people work in countries other than those they are resident of and have their salaries paid into their home country bank accounts.

Two words. PayPal sucks.

You explained it much better than I did and the situation is exactly similar.

It's unbelievable that these scams are going on.

These so called operators are nothing more than low-paid staff call centers; I don't believe they are real PayPal paid staff, maybe in exceptional cases like "managers"..

What amazes and scares me most is the brutal system and way they are stealing money from people and getting away with it.

Scandalous!

LaoPo

Thanks for sharing this vital information with others. I was on the brink of joining pay pal........not anymore after reading these horror stories.

[manarak]

I once had a Paypal account, a "verified business account".

When the balance reached 900 USD, I wanted to take the money to my regular bank account, and they made a big fuss about it.

I told them I needed a business account to make business, and I asked them what would happen if I wanted to transfer 10.000 USD every month to my bank account.

The answer was unsatisfactory, so that I abandoned the account completely, with a remaining balance of 280 USD.

Thankfully, I had open charges of slightly less that amount - believe it or not, they asked that I pay the charges separately, completely ignoring my balance!

By Swiss law, debits and credits against the same person/entity can be added up, so that I owed them nothing!

I told them they can kiss my ass and then talk to my lawyer, if they like.

Use Moneybookers - much better!

[thommo46]

I made a order to a Indian company through PayPal and the order was suppose to be shipped in 3 weeks. After 3 months I got tired of the constant excuses and told them the order is canceled. went to PayPal for a refund and they essentially told me it was not their problem and I would have to work it out with the seller.

Finally went to the Credit Card company and charged the company with fraud to get my money back. PayPal was less than worthless and their only job seems to be to get as much money out of everyone as they possible can. So don't expect them to provide any assistance for non delivery of the order.

PAYPAL SUCKS BIGTIME

I bought something last xmas off EBAY . It never arrived contacted both EBAY and PayPal for refund and stated in their advertising money back guarantee. After many emails and online chats to ?????? I was told to go through my visa card company to get my money back. ^months later I got my money back.

After reading OP's above it's got me thinking , EBAY set up fake sales (Got me in because of free mail from 'seas) People buy through PayPal , then tell people claim through your visa company.

[LaoPo]

I have used Paypal since they started, both private and business account, and never had any issues with them.

OK, but were you selling products from any given country and receiving payments from said country as well as from overseas clients in US$'s, Euros, Australian Dollars, GBP's etc. ?

LaoPo

[LaoPo]

There is no demand for Moneybookers. Every additional payment channel means more work, programming code on websites, billing/account maintenance, so the fewer payment channels the better. I've done business on the Internet for about 10 years and accept payments through both credit cards and Paypal with a factor of about 4:1, i.e. for every four that prefer credit cards there is one who prefer Paypal. After recent trouble with Paypal we made a push to get people to move away from Paypal and pay with credit card instead, but there is still about 15% who regardless of Paypal horror stories still prefer Paypal, so we are unfortunately stuck with Paypal for now.

I was already afraid of that; leaves no other option than to change onto and promote CC payments.

LaoPo

[LaoPo]

I once had a Paypal account, a "verified business account".

When the balance reached 900 USD, I wanted to take the money to my regular bank account, and they made a big fuss about it.

I told them I needed a business account to make business, and I asked them what would happen if I wanted to transfer 10.000 USD every month to my bank account.

The answer was unsatisfactory, so that I abandoned the account completely, with a remaining balance of 280 USD.

Thankfully, I had open charges of slightly less that amount - believe it or not, they asked that I pay the charges separately, completely ignoring my balance!

By Swiss law, debits and credits against the same person/entity can be added up, so that I owed them nothing!

I told them they can kiss my ass and then talk to my lawyer, if they like.

Use Moneybookers - much better!

Do you use them on eBay?

LaoPo

[LaoPo]

I made a order to a Indian company through PayPal and the order was suppose to be shipped in 3 weeks. After 3 months I got tired of the constant excuses and told them the order is canceled. went to PayPal for a refund and they essentially told me it was not their problem and I would have to work it out with the seller.

Finally went to the Credit Card company and charged the company with fraud to get my money back. PayPal was less than worthless and their only job seems to be to get as much money out of everyone as they possible can. So don't expect them to provide any assistance for non delivery of the order.

PAYPAL SUCKS BIGTIME

I bought something last xmas off EBAY . It never arrived contacted both EBAY and PayPal for refund and stated in their advertising money back guarantee. After many emails and online chats to ?????? I was told to go through my visa card company to get my money back. ^months later I got my money back.

After reading OP's above it's got me thinking , EBAY set up fake sales (Got me in because of free mail from 'seas) People buy through PayPal , then tell people claim through your visa company.

1. I don't think eBay has or had set-up fake sales; that would be too risky for them.

2. What DOES happen are people who order certain items, pay for them with CC and later claim that they didn't receive the item(s). My wife uses free shipping as well since one can't sell to some countries without the free shipping; it's policy from eBay in certain countries. Depends where you're selling from.

The point is that they deduct their commission over the TOTAL amount, including the shipping once the order has been placed; they don't even wait until the payment has arrived via eBay or that you click: payment received. Sometimes it takes many days or even weeks before the money arrives or that the client made a buying mistake and says: "sorry" but in the meantime eBay is sitting already for the same time on your money/commisssion.

OK, back to no #2: the client now claims that he/she didn't receive the goods and claim their money back and in 99% of the cases the CC company pays back.

Profit? Client has the goods AND money back. Of y the client has to sign for receipt.course they can only do so if the shipment is without registering or tracking number whereby the client has to sign for receipt.

With PayPal it's different; a client can open a dispute and the moment they do that, PP freezes (deducts) immediately the funds of the claim and the seller has to prove that he shipped the goods.

Luckily my wife's business make photos of ALL packages and store them in a database; next to that there's the proof by means of shipping agent's documents as well as documents from PP itself.

In dispute cases all documents are presented and case closed.

3. with valuable things above a certain amount of let's say $ 15.00 they always use a Tracking number (+ $ 2,50) which also goes (most of the time) with an insurance number.

LaoPo

[Noodles]

I sell items on ebay regulary and paypal froze my account as they said too much money was sent from my paypal

account to my bank account in the UK. I had a good month that month! I had to send them proof of purchase receipts

proof of postage receipts etc, which I did with no problem. I heard nothing back from them for 2 weeks. I had to call them

and eventually they un-froze my account. BUT from now on there will be a rolling reserve on my account, where they keep 15% of any

payment that I receive for 90 days!! CRIMINAL!!!