Online e-Commerce Issues w/ PayPal?

A concerned entrepreneur submitted this question for your consideration: "I run a very small online company and the main method we obtain payments for products is via PayPal. In this digital age having an easy way to accept payments for goods is critical to small business survival. Have you had problems with PayPal freezing your accounts, have you had any issues with PayPal harming any of your credit? Neither has happened to me but it it still is a concern. Recently, I was sent this site, became concerned and wanted to ask Slashdot readers for their input on security and any problems they may have had with this service." If you send your money to a website for safekeeping, you expect it to be safe, and a large part of this perception is based on dependable customer support. According the warning site, it sounds like PayPal might be a bit deficient on this end. Have any of you experienced similar problems?

"I don't necessarily trust the website I linked to, nor PayPal's statements. PayPal requires you to register your credit card AND your checking account and could conceivably and legally(?) remove any and all funds and stop you from withdrawing a dime from your PayPal account as well as your own checking account at their whim. What is a small business to do?"

Just an aside, if you are signing up for a personal account, you only need your credit card. It's merchants who want to use PayPal's premium features who have to specify banking information as well.

Comments

I *HATE* PAYPAL...

[Telek]

I am a Canadian... I went through their stupid process, and it decided to "reject" both of my credit cards, one saying that it was "locked" and the other one just didn't give me a reason. So I sent them an email and got a canned response back in return:

Thank you for contacting PayPal. We apologize for the delay in responding
to your service request.

I apologize for not being able to add this card to your PayPal account.
Unfortunately, this card was not accepted by our verification system. This
does impact valid cards occasionally and is not reflective of your credit
worthiness. For our security, we cannot register any cards that cannot be
verified by our system. Sorry for this inconvenience.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.


However, to my surprise, BOTH CARDS were billed for their $1 fee... So I wrote them back saying "here's the code from my credit car statement proving that I own it, would you like a copy of my drivers license as well?" (well, I went on for more than that, asking them about how come their credit card verification system is so flawed), and what did I get back in return?

The same goddamed response.

So I replied again.

The same goddamed response.

I gave up. They get a bigass F- for customer service, and a A+ for incompetence.

Gotta love this one...

[Chagrin]

From paypalwarning.com's Wall of Shame:

• 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.

Run my business using Paypal for 2 years, no probs

[idealego]

I've run my online business for over 2 years mostly using PayPal and I've never had a problem. In fact >95% of the transactions have used PayPal in the last year.

A friend did have problems will Billpoint a while ago. Someone fraudulently used a credit card to pay for something using Billpoint and Billpoint at first did the transaction showing the funds where there but days later stole the money from my friends account after they determined the payment was done fraudulently. This is called a "chargeback" for those in the know and Paypal *does not* do this.

My only advice is don't leave large ammounts of money in your PayPal account and don't use Billpoint.

a conflict of interest

[javaaddikt]

That PayPal horror stories website is running ads for a PayPal competitor -- c2it.com

So this website has a good deal of interest in shocking and horrifying its visitors.