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You should read this website then.

As if things are bad enough under the surface, eBay just finished its business absorption of PayPal. PayPal has it's own fraudulent problems, especially with credit card fraud. Check out PayPal warning. The stories on this website scare me because I use PayPal regularly but now I tend to withdraw all but $1.35 from my account just to be safe.

• paypalsucks.com
• paypalwarning.com

If you're unhappy with PayPal, PayPalWarning.com lists a bunch of phone numbers. Call (877) 672-9725 if you want to reach them toll free.

Here's a bunch of known paypal numbers:

(402) 935-2000 / (402) 935-2001 / (402) 935-2062 / (402) 935-2258 [this is Craig, complaints resolution manager] / (402) 935-7733 / (402) 537-5740 (fax) / (650) 251-1100 / (888) 221-1161 / (800) 836-1859 / (877) 672-9725 / (866) 272-9725

And addresses, in case you need to send a process server or wish to register a complaint in person:

PayPal, Inc.
1840 Embarcadero Rd.
Palo Alto, CA 943030

PayPal, Inc.
11128 John Galt Blvd.
Omaha, NE 68137

I signed up for paypal because it was the only way someone who had something I wanted to buy would accept payment. But I wouldn't allow them access to my checking account. They won't let you spend more than $250 through their service unless you allow them direct access to your checking account.

After reading PayPalWarning.com, I decided that I never would use them again.

I was unaware until recently that by giving PayPal access to your checking account, you forgo the liability protections that a credit card vendor is required to give you.

So if you pay a lot of money through paypal for some merchandise you never receive, you basically have no legal recourse - you're screwed. If you had paid with a credit card, you could dispute the charge with your credit card company and they'd have to give you your money back.

I think I'll call Craig when I get up and ask him to delete my account.

also: paypalwarning.com.

There can't be that many people who think that PayPal sucks!

If they did pull something like this, it would obviously annoy a lot of people. In that case, I would expect another 'replacement service' from another company to spring up with a different name but similar functionality, and perhaps fewer problems*.

*Note to reader: I have heard your story about how PayPalWarning.com is crap and you have used PayPal without problems for $thousands of transactions. Don't reiterate, please.

If so, you deserve everything you get. losers

> One way for small businesses to deal with the problem would be to avoid it by using Paypal. They're a reputable financial institution

Tell me, what color is sky in your world?
Or Let me ask it like This...
What Color Is The Sky In Your World?

cautious users don't user paypal

I guess I don't understand why the established companies that are under threat by a new way of doing business don't offer those services themselves instead of trying to fight them.

Frankly, I'd rather use MasterCard's "PayPal" rather than PayPal because we all know that PayPal is kinda shady.

WARNING:

Your Paypal account can be frozen at any time, without advance notice leaving you without your money for weeks (if not forever), and there isn't much you can do about it.

Paypal Warning

Paypal has no one to blame but themselves for the current investigation.

It wasn't until PayPalSucks and PayPal Warning became well-known and the horror stories became more abundant that Paypal found itself in the sights.

It should be

http://www.paypalsucks.com or even
http://www.paypalwarning.com/

that waste even more of my bandwidth and screen space will make me more likely to click on them, they're truly delusional. If _you_ believe this, well.....

You're taking square aim at your own foot. The same tiny minority who do the most browsing (and from whom you'l be asking the most money) are the tiny minority who supply your content. Any subscription system which does not provide some subsidy for those providing (perhaps positively moderated) comments will be counterproductive. I generally preview and edit my comments several times before I post. If each of these iterations is going to count as a page load, you'll see use of the "Preview" button fall off to nearly nothing. That can't be A Good Thing(tm).

And PayPal is a complete horror story:
Check this:
and this:

Even if I _do_ choose to buy a subscriptiuon (HIGHLY unlikely), I won't be doing it through PayPal!

Actually, you're right, until we get an option to pay any way other than via PayPal. There're already other comments on this story about how PayPal isn't trustworthy. For any other information try out paypalwarning.com

Here a few more links to anti-PayPal sites:

paypalwarning.com

paypalsuit.com

boycott-paypal.com

And here is Google's return on the query "paypal problems".

I wonder if this class action suit is for US residents only, as there are 13 million members, a good number of whom live outside the borders of the States. I recall the HP/Panasonic CD-R drive class action suit a year or two ago and being Canadian I wasn't able to partake in it.

For those of you who want to sign up for this suit, here is the link to the lawyers registration form.

Oh wait, checking email... .. WHAT? I paid $1000 for a figurine and didn't get it? DAMN!

And I've never trusted PayPal anyway...

I'm amazed you got it unfrozen in under 24 hours as I couldn't even get an email reply in that time, though this site gave me some phone numbers that might lead to better luck. Or at the very least maybe I'll be able to cost them as much money as they've stolen from me.

MSNBC.com has this story on PayPal facing a class action lawsuit.... is it just me or does it seem like /. is skipping this story? Maybe Taco bought a whack of shares in their IPO last week :)

Here a few more links to anti-PayPal sites:

paypalwarning.com

paypalsuit.com

boycott-paypal.com

And here is Google 's return on the query "paypal problems".

I wonder if this class action suit is for US residents only, as there are 13 million members, a good number of whom live outside the borders of the States. I recall the HP/Panasonic CD-R drive class action suit a year or two ago and being Canadian (go Team Canada today and tomorrow in Hockey!) I wasn't able to partake in it.

For those of you who want to sign up for this suit, here is the link to the lawyers registration form.

originally Here

Need I say more?

MSNBC.com has this story on PayPal facing a class action lawsuit.... is it just me or does it seem like /. is skipping this story? Maybe Taco bought a whack of shares in their IPO last week :)

Here a few more links to anti-PayPal sites:

paypalwarning.com

paypalsuit.com

boycott-paypal.com

And here is Google's return on the query "paypal problems".

I wonder if this class action suit is for US residents only, as there are 13 million members, a good number of whom live outside the borders of the States. I recall the HP/Panasonic CD-R drive class action suit a year or two ago and being Canadian (go Team Canada today and tomorrow in Hockey!) I wasn't able to partake in it.

For those of you who want to sign up for this suit, here is the link to the lawyers registration form.

this link

I got screwed out of money by pay pal too. About $10, but still that is $10 that they STOLE from me. Again, they took my money "pending investigation" and after days of trying to get in touch with a real human I gave up. Don't buy thier stock because they are pending several investigations by the US, and a couple class-action suits.

woof.

Your sig:
Do not send me money via PayPal anymore.

Wow, were you really having a problem with people sending you unsolicited money?

I *nearly* going to open a Paypal account, when I found this website: http://www.paypalwarning.com/.

I know this is seriously OT for this thread, but I would recommend anyone using Paypal to read that website.

I have serious doubts about paypal. I've not used it but the horror stories on these sites are not encouraging. paypalwarning and paypalsucks Most of the stories seem to be vendor is reputable with good history, gets a complaint or chargeback and gets locked from his account for > 3 months. I guess YMMV.

The Genesis original [of Toaplan's Zero Wing] is already portable, with the [handheld Genesis-compatible] Nomad.

• Sega handheld units are notorious for low battery life. Yes, I have enough light in my bedroom to play GBA games (other than the non-gamma-corrected Castlevania).
• I have a GBA. I don't have a Nomad. When I find Nomad units on eBay for $60 plus shipping, how do I pay for eBay items without going through PayPal?
• I've only played the ROM (Toaplan is dead; no plaintiff, no judge), not the cartridge. Where can I get a cartridge? eBay gave zero relevant results when searching for 'zero wing' (lots of MS Gundam "Wing Zero" action figures), 'sega zero wing' (mostly AYBABTU t-shirts), and 'genesis zero wing' (zero results).

When Toaplan died, who bought Toaplan's IP? Perhaps they would be willing to license the Zero Wing franchise for a GBA homebrew Special Edition of the game; I'd be more than willing to write much of the code.

From: Larry Lawrence (12/6/01)

PayPal continues to hold my $600. Illegally.

Several months ago I was offering the general public a free copy of the popular OS called Linux 8.0. This is a freely distributable program under the general license agreement. The customer only had to pay for shipping. ($5.00 US dollars)

I had hundreds of people that responded to the offer and I delivered the program as offered and according to the law. PayPal sent me an e-mail saying that they were going to suspend my account unless I could provide proof that I had permission to distribute this software.

Well, I e-mailed them back several times and explained to them that I did programming on my own and would never consider distributing software that was against any law. PayPal said that I had to prove that I had permission from Microsoft to distribute the software. Microsoft has nothing to do with Linux. Linux has always been to my knowledge, a free OS.

I am e-mailing you first before taking legal action as this is the professional way to do business.

They have closed my account, which is fine accept that they hold my funds without paying me interest on the funds and refuse to return the funds.

From: Larry Lawrence (12/6/01)

PayPal continues to hold my $600. Illegally.

Several months ago I was offering the general public a free copy of the popular OS called Linux 8.0. This is a freely distributable program under the general license agreement. The customer only had to pay for shipping. ($5.00 US dollars)

I had hundreds of people that responded to the offer and I delivered the program as offered and according to the law. PayPal sent me an e-mail saying that they were going to suspend my account unless I could provide proof that I had permission to distribute this software.

Well, I e-mailed them back several times and explained to them that I did programming on my own and would never consider distributing software that was against any law. PayPal said that I had to prove that I had permission from Microsoft to distribute the software. Microsoft has nothing to do with Linux. Linux has always been to my knowledge, a free OS.

I am e-mailing you first before taking legal action as this is the professional way to do business.

They have closed my account, which is fine accept that they hold my funds without paying me interest on the funds and refuse to return the funds.

After visiting that same site myself, I decided not to use PayPal any longer. I had never lost any money through PayPal, though I've used it only a few times to buy stuff on Ebay. I went to cancel my PayPal account to simply be sure nothing would happen (it had zero, but it could have potentially be used). However, I could not log in on the site, and got an error message saying I did not have cookies enabled, even though I did (and confirmed it by logging in to here and a couple other places that use session tracking with cookies). I sent email to their various support addresses the web site indicated. The reply on those said I needed to submit the request on the website. But I needed to login to do that, which I could not. I called them on the phone but got stuck in menu hell and voice mail hell. No one ever returned my calls.

A few months later I got email from PayPal. It was promotional. Technically it was not spam, since my account was still active, but now I really wanted it canceled. I tried the web site again, and it had not yet been fixed. I tried mail again and got the same stupidity. I tried calling a few phone numbers. I actually got someone on the phone, but it sounded like the phone system redirected incorrectly as they were not expecting an inbound call. As soon as I explained what I wanted, they said I needed customer support, and forwarded me to menu hell. After spending at least $5 for long distance calls I gave up calling.

I then proceeded to "get attention". Since the email was on an automatic bounce, I set up an automatic system to send them email. It was adjusted to send every 2 minutes so as not to cause damage, but perhaps get attention. After a couple hours of this, it did indeed get attention. I got email back from someone with a direct phone number. I cut off the process and called them. Although this person was in the technical area, he did promise to get my account closed out. He was unaware of the technical problems, and I tried to convince him he needed to get them fixed, although I didn't know what the cause was. We tried a few things, but it didn't fix it.

It's a shame that the only way to communicate with a company is by tactics like this, but this is not the first place this kind of thing has had to be done.

I have since found the problem and I know what fix is needed on their server(s) to correct it, although obviously that's not my job to do, so I won't.

My whole point is, this is a company that does not give a damn about customers, only about money. If they cared about customers, they would have much better customer support. If they had better customer support, they might be able to deal with some of the fraud problems people have a little better. Instead, they seem to be trying to cut back on staffing costs by cutting out customer support and trying to discourage customers from calling them. I even read in one of the various news articles that were linked from here that the president of the company had actually said they don't want to deal with people calling in to complain. To me that means they don't want their service to get better.

This is definitely a company that needs to go into bankruptcy. Just be sure your money is out before that happens. And if you have any reason to send me money for anything, please read my /. signature first.

After visiting that same site myself, I decided not to use PayPal any longer. I had never lost any money through PayPal, though I've used it only a few times to buy stuff on Ebay. I went to cancel my PayPal account to simply be sure nothing would happen (it had zero, but it could have potentially be used). However, I could not log in on the site, and got an error message saying I did not have cookies enabled, even though I did (and confirmed it by logging in to here and a couple other places that use session tracking with cookies). I sent email to their various support addresses the web site indicated. The reply on those said I needed to submit the request on the website. But I needed to login to do that, which I could not. I called them on the phone but got stuck in menu hell and voice mail hell. No one ever returned my calls.

A few months later I got email from PayPal. It was promotional. Technically it was not spam, since my account was still active, but now I really wanted it canceled. I tried the web site again, and it had not yet been fixed. I tried mail again and got the same stupidity. I tried calling a few phone numbers. I actually got someone on the phone, but it sounded like the phone system redirected incorrectly as they were not expecting an inbound call. As soon as I explained what I wanted, they said I needed customer support, and forwarded me to menu hell. After spending at least $5 for long distance calls I gave up calling.

I then proceeded to "get attention". Since the email was on an automatic bounce, I set up an automatic system to send them email. It was adjusted to send every 2 minutes so as not to cause damage, but perhaps get attention. After a couple hours of this, it did indeed get attention. I got email back from someone with a direct phone number. I cut off the process and called them. Although this person was in the technical area, he did promise to get my account closed out. He was unaware of the technical problems, and I tried to convince him he needed to get them fixed, although I didn't know what the cause was. We tried a few things, but it didn't fix it.

It's a shame that the only way to communicate with a company is by tactics like this, but this is not the first place this kind of thing has had to be done.

I have since found the problem and I know what fix is needed on their server(s) to correct it, although obviously that's not my job to do, so I won't.

My whole point is, this is a company that does not give a damn about customers, only about money. If they cared about customers, they would have much better customer support. If they had better customer support, they might be able to deal with some of the fraud problems people have a little better. Instead, they seem to be trying to cut back on staffing costs by cutting out customer support and trying to discourage customers from calling them. I even read in one of the various news articles that were linked from here that the president of the company had actually said they don't want to deal with people calling in to complain. To me that means they don't want their service to get better.

This is definitely a company that needs to go into bankruptcy. Just be sure your money is out before that happens. And if you have any reason to send me money for anything, please read my /. signature first.

After reading www.paypalwarning.com, then i went to www.paypalsucks.com.

I've yet to be burned, but hey, why take the chance.

• Several months ago I was offering the general public a free copy of the popular OS called Linux 8.0. This is a freely distributable program under the general license agreement. The customer only had to pay for shipping. ($5.00 US dollars)

  I had hundreds of people that responded to the offer and I delivered the program as offered and according to the law. PayPal sent me an e-mail saying that they were going to suspend my account unless I could provide proof that I had permission to distribute this software.

  Well, I e-mailed them back several times and explained to them that I did programming on my own and would never consider distributing software that was against any law. PayPal said that I had to prove that I had permission from Microsoft to distribute the software. Microsoft has nothing to do with Linux. Linux has always been to my knowledge, a free OS.

I have sold a couple of things, and requested payment via Paypal. No problems, but then paypalwarning.com did say that Paypal was seller friendly. Has anyone used the recommended billpoint.com with success?

Here is a list of some past slashdot discussion on PayPal. Do keep in mind that these discussions, as well as the site references, are anecdotal evidence, I.E. not something I'd make a real business decision based on.

FWIW, the site now has a disclaimer on the front page that they had nothing to do with the spam.

Damnit, wrong slashes... I hate it when I forget to preview!

PayPal Warning

Before you accept PayPal as a success story, please take a look at this warning.

Some people have had nightmarish times getting money, and some peopl ehave had their businesses and good names destroyed by PayPal.

It's nice to hear you had a good experience with PayPal. I've only rarely used it, but I was recently pointed to Paypal Warning.

The page lists all sorts of articles with negative comments about Paypal. Apparently it has gotten a 3 out of 7 on Reseller Ratings (where everything is scored by customers). They also have a Paypal Wall of Shame with "unedited horror stories".

The thing that grabbed my attention the most, however, was the following on the front page:

WARNING:

Your Paypal account can be frozen at any time, without advance notice leaving you without your money for weeks (if not forever), and there isn't much you can do about it.

Any thoughts, folks?

I personally have had nothing but good experiences with Paypal, but I was shocked to learn that there was a dark side to it that many, many people have been burned by. It seems the fact that I've had no problems with Paypal is the exception rather than the rule -- many people haven't been so fortunate.

Some of the problems can just be attributed to "shit happens," but in many cases, Paypal is guilty of out-and-out theft: when they receive a complaint about a single transaction, they often freeze the accounts of everyone involved, and then do everything possible to make themselves inaccessible by phone or e-mail so that the accounts can never be unfrozen. They've just walked away with someone's money. Good job.

Anyway, here are some useful links that have many, many testimonials of bad experiences:

Paypal Warning

Testimonials from above site.

PaypalSucks.com

Based on the testimonials I've read, here are a few ways I can think of to make the Paypal experience as safe as possible.

1. NEVER leave money sitting in your Paypal account. Withdraw it IMMEDIATELY. They will freeze it, or steal it, if they get an excuse to do so -- any excuse will do. Don't be tempted by their "Paypal Money Market Fund". That 1.2% APR isn't going to make you rich. You'd be better transfering your money to your bank where it can't be stolen. They can't steal what isn't there.

2. Try to avoid setting up a bank account on Paypal or giving them your checking account number for any reason. They do everything in their power to convince/force you to set up a bank account, which should give you cause for suspicion. If you give them your checking account number, they can (and will) withdraw the money from your bank account at any time without permissions.

3. If you must set up a bank account with Paypal, contact your bank and tell them NOT to allow Electronic Funds Transfers from Paypal without your approval. Unlike with a credit card, there's no way to dispute EFT charges. Get this in writing from your bank.

4. Check your credit card statement carefully each month, and chargeback any mysterious charges immediately -- but not if you have money sitting in your Paypal account or they have your bank account number, because they will take your money away from you if you do a chargeback. Get your money safe first, then call the credit card company to do a chargeback.

5. Try to avoid using a debit card -- you have no fraud protection, and if the debit card draws from the same account as the bank account you have set up in Paypal, you might run into some problems because of the way Paypal does things. If you have $600 in your bank account, and you try to make a $500 Paypal payment from your bank account, it'll bounce! Why? Since bank transfers take 3 days, Paypal wants to avoid finding out 3 days later that there's no money in the account, so they use your credit/debit card to "secure" the transaction by "locking" $500 on the card and then releasing it after the bank transfer clears. So now, when you've tried to pay $500 from your bank account, Paypal has locked $500 of the $600 in the account, leaving only $100 in the account which will make the $500 bank transfer bounce. The bank will charge you a bounced transfer fee, Paypal will charge you a fee, and you'll be unhappy with the whole situation. Sometimes even when the transaction DOES complete, they still don't release the "hold" on the card for days, weeks, months, or ever.

6. Do not use Paypal for large transactions. Use some sort of escrow service. With the incredible fees Paypal is charging now, it wouldn't be much more expensive.

7. As an alternative to Paypal, consider using E-Gold instead. Instead of dealing in a national currency like Dollars or Pounds, it uses actual physical gold as currency: you actually own a stake in the vault of gold that the company owns, and you can send/receive electronic gold from others as payment. It's very expensive to get involved, though: getting money into an E-Gold account requires you to go through a currency exchange service (E-Gold does not offer this service directly) which generally charge a 15% conversion fee, and 1% of your balance is deducted per year.

The cool thing about E-Gold, though, is that if you buy 5 ounces of gold, you'll always have that 5 ounces of gold in your account no matter what happens to the value of gold or to your national currency. If you spend (for example) $200 on 2 ounces of gold, but six months later the price of gold has risen from $100/ounce to $300/ounce, you'll still have that 2 ounces of gold -- but it'll now be worth $600. Pretty nice, eh? A lot nicer than Paypal's 1.2% APR mutal fund.

Anyway, use Paypal if you have to, but be safe. Minimize the opportunities for them to steal your money. Don't use them as a bank. They're not a bank; they're not regulated as a bank, but they want you to use them as a bank so that they'll have more chances to take your money.

Play it safe, and you should be okay.

I personally have had nothing but good experiences with Paypal, but I was shocked to learn that there was a dark side to it that many, many people have been burned by. It seems the fact that I've had no problems with Paypal is the exception rather than the rule -- many people haven't been so fortunate.

Some of the problems can just be attributed to "shit happens," but in many cases, Paypal is guilty of out-and-out theft: when they receive a complaint about a single transaction, they often freeze the accounts of everyone involved, and then do everything possible to make themselves inaccessible by phone or e-mail so that the accounts can never be unfrozen. They've just walked away with someone's money. Good job.

Anyway, here are some useful links that have many, many testimonials of bad experiences:

Paypal Warning

Testimonials from above site.

PaypalSucks.com

Based on the testimonials I've read, here are a few ways I can think of to make the Paypal experience as safe as possible.

1. NEVER leave money sitting in your Paypal account. Withdraw it IMMEDIATELY. They will freeze it, or steal it, if they get an excuse to do so -- any excuse will do. Don't be tempted by their "Paypal Money Market Fund". That 1.2% APR isn't going to make you rich. You'd be better transfering your money to your bank where it can't be stolen. They can't steal what isn't there.

2. Try to avoid setting up a bank account on Paypal or giving them your checking account number for any reason. They do everything in their power to convince/force you to set up a bank account, which should give you cause for suspicion. If you give them your checking account number, they can (and will) withdraw the money from your bank account at any time without permissions.

3. If you must set up a bank account with Paypal, contact your bank and tell them NOT to allow Electronic Funds Transfers from Paypal without your approval. Unlike with a credit card, there's no way to dispute EFT charges. Get this in writing from your bank.

4. Check your credit card statement carefully each month, and chargeback any mysterious charges immediately -- but not if you have money sitting in your Paypal account or they have your bank account number, because they will take your money away from you if you do a chargeback. Get your money safe first, then call the credit card company to do a chargeback.

5. Try to avoid using a debit card -- you have no fraud protection, and if the debit card draws from the same account as the bank account you have set up in Paypal, you might run into some problems because of the way Paypal does things. If you have $600 in your bank account, and you try to make a $500 Paypal payment from your bank account, it'll bounce! Why? Since bank transfers take 3 days, Paypal wants to avoid finding out 3 days later that there's no money in the account, so they use your credit/debit card to "secure" the transaction by "locking" $500 on the card and then releasing it after the bank transfer clears. So now, when you've tried to pay $500 from your bank account, Paypal has locked $500 of the $600 in the account, leaving only $100 in the account which will make the $500 bank transfer bounce. The bank will charge you a bounced transfer fee, Paypal will charge you a fee, and you'll be unhappy with the whole situation. Sometimes even when the transaction DOES complete, they still don't release the "hold" on the card for days, weeks, months, or ever.

6. Do not use Paypal for large transactions. Use some sort of escrow service. With the incredible fees Paypal is charging now, it wouldn't be much more expensive.

7. As an alternative to Paypal, consider using E-Gold instead. Instead of dealing in a national currency like Dollars or Pounds, it uses actual physical gold as currency: you actually own a stake in the vault of gold that the company owns, and you can send/receive electronic gold from others as payment. It's very expensive to get involved, though: getting money into an E-Gold account requires you to go through a currency exchange service (E-Gold does not offer this service directly) which generally charge a 15% conversion fee, and 1% of your balance is deducted per year.

The cool thing about E-Gold, though, is that if you buy 5 ounces of gold, you'll always have that 5 ounces of gold in your account no matter what happens to the value of gold or to your national currency. If you spend (for example) $200 on 2 ounces of gold, but six months later the price of gold has risen from $100/ounce to $300/ounce, you'll still have that 2 ounces of gold -- but it'll now be worth $600. Pretty nice, eh? A lot nicer than Paypal's 1.2% APR mutal fund.

Anyway, use Paypal if you have to, but be safe. Minimize the opportunities for them to steal your money. Don't use them as a bank. They're not a bank; they're not regulated as a bank, but they want you to use them as a bank so that they'll have more chances to take your money.

Play it safe, and you should be okay.

Paypal has lately tried more and more to discourage complainers from contacting them. It seems they are suffering the same financial problems of other dot.coms and the first thing to go is customer service. If you're unhappy, they just don't want to deal with you. Of course if you are happy, there won't be any issue they have to deal with. So the simple way to save money is to just not give a damn. This is why I now no longer use Paypay, and why it's in my signature. Be sure to read here

OTOH, my stepson has just fractured his leg in a dirtbike accident, and on selling his YZ-250, his deal was for cash and carry (or)delivery within ~50 miles.

Obviously that won't add to the convenience of online auctions, but for a $3000 motorcycle, which would be difficult to ship, it made sense. Your mileage may vary.