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Class Action Lawsuit Says PayPal Restricted Funds
trenton writes: "CNET News.com reports a class-action law suit was filed Wednesday in California Superior Court in Santa Clara County. The suit charges PayPal with illegitimately restricting customers' access to their money. The suit asks for an unspecified amount of damages. Have you been ripped off or locked out?"
this is not fair. Same would happen if you
paid with personal checks or money order.
That way, if they do try to retrieve money from a chargeback or because of an error, at least you only have a problem with them and a bank that isn't the primary holder of your money.
And, as you pointed out, you'd have to be freaking insane to carry a balance on PayPal.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
If an auction seller screws you over one way or the other, eBay's complaint process is rather lame and PayPal literally can't do a damn thing for you (speaking from experience here).
However, if you spare a little more money to mail them a money order instead, what they did magically turns into something called "mail fraud." Federal agents wearing dark suits and carrying badges begin looking for this person to throw them into pound-you-up-the-ass penetentiary for up to five years (multiplied by however many other people he's ripped off through the mail).
Of course, if this is the first and last time they defrauded someone through the mail, there's a chance the Postal Inspectors might not have the time to really give it much attention. But just because they're not activley seeking the person doesn't mean there's not a felony warrant issued for the culprit, which will make employment background checks, driver's license renewals and plane ticket purchases a whole lot more interesting. And that's before we wonder how often he gets pulled over for traffic violations...
I ask you: If you don't wholly trust who you're buying from, where can you get more entertainment for $1.24? Certainly not PayPal!
FWIW, using a credit card for most purchases is actually good advice, because it avoids all sorts of frauds and other problems....
That is, of course, unless your credit card company belongs in the same detention hall as PayPal. This is slightly off topic, but consumers should remember not only to do their homework about online payment mechanisms, but their credit cards as well. There are some (IMHO) excellent, consumer-focused companies, and there are some (documented and documented) dishonest companies that suck rocks. If your credit card company tries to push off all of its fraud onto the end consumer, then using it is about as good as using cash.
A quick search online will give you volumes of complaints from customers on various different banks. The trick is to interpret them and pick the least evil.
One thing that consumers can do to protect themselves (beside reading their cardholder's agreement, but I'll assume everybody does that) is to call customer service of your bank before making a risky transaction and ask the representative to spell out your rights. Record the conversation and inform them you are doing so from the outset. That way if they renege, you have something to fight back with.
Another good thing to do is to find and read the Visa or MasterCard regulations (I would post a link, but they seem to be hard to come by) with which issuing banks must comply. Many banks will play upon the ignorance of the consumer and attempt to push responsibility for fraudulent charges onto the cardholder knowing that if they get lucky even 10% of the time, that's a whole lotta $$$ in their pockets.
Caveat cardholder.
moto411.com
I definately second this advice. Either pay with cash and cary the merchandise out or pay with a credit card. The key is to make sure that you have a good card issuer that is looking out for you.
I do have a Visa debit card with a local bank. I had the unforunate experience of having a roommate in college "borrow" my card and purcahse some qustionable material online. I discovered it on my bank statement and immediately called the bank. They helped my track down what the charges were for and when we discovered they were unauthorized, I contested them and got my money back. My bank was very helpful. However, as with everything, your mileage may (and probablly will) vary.
One thing that everyone that uses a credit card should remember is the criteria for a merchant to "prove" that a charge is legit. First, they MUST have your signature. Second, they must prove that the credit card was actually presented to them, wither with an imprint of the card or by recording the full magnetic stripe data. If they don't have both of these, they don't have a legit charge and, if you contest the charge, they automatically lose. Accepting credit cards online is very risky for this reason because they will lack both requirements for a legit charge. Of course, this doesn't mean you should go buying stuff online and contest all the charges; that is fraud.
which has a wall of shame full of horror stories.
.1% have a problem, that is 13K people with only 400 Customer Service Reps. So the hold time is 30 minutes and often they just rudely say "You violated terms or conditions", or "Fax us all your identity papers - bank account, utility bill, driver's license", then they seem to have a part-time fax, and they constantly lose the faxes (apparently they haven't thought about things like case numbers).
The problem is that with 13M users, if
Meanwhile your account is locked without anything you can do about it, often for reasons you don't know or know to be false (a buyer pays, but PYPL thinks something is wrong with it and/or the seller and locks both).
When it works, it's fine. But if they ever lock an account (and you don't have to do anything) it is a nightmare.
For those of you who want to sign up for this suit, here is the link [jacobylawyers.com] to the lawyers registration form.
:)
Okay, since I'm talking about lawyers here, I'll qualify this by saying that I'm about to state an opinion. So don't sue me, okay?
This law firm, who is handling this class action suit, is little more than a bunch of ambulance-chasers. These guys have advertised here on KTLA and KCAL since I was a little kid. They always seemed creepy and slimy to me, like that Larry H. Parker guy...even as a kid, I wondered why good lawyers would need to advertise on TV.
Someone else said it here, someplace...doesn't it strike anyone else as strange that this suit was filed right after the IPO? That just sort of stinks to me.
Also, I've been using PayPal for a few months, to accept payment for some eBay auctions, and I've never had a single problem with them. Of course, I think I've had a grand total of 6 or so transactions, so YMMV.
After reading all of this, however, I'm getting my 50 bucks out tonight.
Or spending it on my own copy of GTA 3.