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PayPal Settles NY Probe, But Faces Others
Coneasfast writes "PayPal, which is owned by eBay, has admitted misleading shoppers into believing it offered credit-card-style protection and has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle charges. There are many sites out there which are dedicated to the problems of paypal, including PayPalSucks and PaypalWarning."
Reader ipandithurts links to this related Reuters story, pointing out that the New York investigation isn't the only PalPal probe: "PayPal's practice of suspending users accounts while investigating suspicious transactions continues to be review by the FTC. While the rate of fraudulent PayPal transactions is less than one-half of one percent, the volume of more than $12.2 billion last year keeps Paypal caught in the middle of many disputes."
People I know have told be about nightmares with PayPal, but until this post I didn't realize it was so prevalent. I just closed my account, I really dislike the idea that PayPal can simply choose at will to freeze assets in any associated account.
How about terrorists using PayPal to transfer money? The feds don't have the right to monitor those kinds of transactions as it is a private bussiness.
My big problem with paypal... forced upgrades.
I have a big problem with the fact that after using paypal to pay some set dollar amount that the account is suspended until I give them a checking account number. I don't want to give them this information... I just want to use the service to pay for something. I don't want to use it for a checking account or anything like that. And you can't use a credit card for more than account... so basically if you don't want to send them information that credit card becomes useless. If I was a regular user with just one e-mail address, there would be no way around this at all, even with other credit cards.
Their practices leave a hell of a lot be desired... give us your info or we'll make you jump through hoops or just not service you at all. Gee.. I wonder if they sell or use that info in questionable ways.. ya think?
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
You're right, paypal is a very useful utility for sending money to and receiving money from parties that you might not entirely trust.
Unless, of course, the untrusted utility is paypal itself, as appears to be the case.
I don't agree that PayPal should be freezing accounts so liberally, but they do need some better control and tracking. Last year about this time I had a transfer in my account from somebody I didn't know. The amount? $2,000. I could have withdrawn the money immediately and let PayPal figure it out. Instead, I e-mailed both the sender and PayPal. Neither e-mailed me back, but the money was gone in 5 or 6 days. I wasn't peeved with the mistake, they happen in real banks too, but I was peeved that I e-mailed PayPal about something that could have gotten ugly had I been cut from a lesser moral fabric, and they didn't even acknowledge they received the e-mail. Not even an auto response. I didn't even want a thank-you, just wanted to know it was being taken care of. But I digress
Coming from another point of view - if you're a merchant accepting credit card, any complaints by customers will almost always result in immediate charge-back. This is actually very bad from businesses as it can take weeks to prove/disprove things.
PayPal is under fire because it's so common nowadays that when you buy things online via some sort of money-service, you are entitled to such privilege, ie auto charge back should you complain about it.
PayPal in this case is wrong for misleading customers, they should have come clean and stated clearly that they don't do charge back.
Imagine if we didn't have this 'charge-back' facility in the world as we know it, and suddenly Visa charged back a merchant's account without stating it clearly in its T&C, I'm sure Visa will be in deep water too.
There's a trade-off to be taken into consideration before credit card companies freeze your card. If you are legitimately using your credit card in an "abnormal" manner, you can be stuck with a frozen card. This has happened to me twice. The day after I received a new AMEX card, I went out of state on business travel. Naturally, AMEX thought it was suspicious that a card mailed to AZ on a Monday was being used in CA on a Thursday. It took me a long time to convince them that I was on the level.
Later, after not using my AMEX card for months, I charged a lot of money in CA. Next thing you know, my card is being declined and I can't even fill up my gas tank anymore.
Be thankful you can still even access your account. A similar thing happened to me -- and I was a long-time Paypal user (since their X.com days) with hundereds of successful transactions.
After waiting eight months they finally released the frozen funds, told me that my account was no longer "limited", and that I was once again free to use the system. Unfortunately, despite telling me otherwise, they forgot to actually take the limit off.
At that point, I was so disgusted with their mistakes and the countless hoops they had made me needlessly jump through, I decided I just wanted to get rid of my personal information from their system. I just wanted to close my account, and move on.
However, because they had forgotten to take the limit off, I couldn't even close my account.
So I emailed their customer support. I forwarded them my previous correspondence, and their resposne stating that I was in the clear. I asked them to either take the limit off as they had originally stated (so I could close my account myself), or just close the account for me and remove my personal information from their system.
PayPal's response?
Thank you for contacting PayPal.
We have terminated your further use of PayPal. This termination is per PayPal's User Agreement, Acceptable Use Policy.
PayPal, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to terminate this Agreement, access to its website, or access to Service without notice for any reason and at any time."
Your account will remain locked indefinitely, and we ask that you not attempt to open a duplicate account, as any additional accounts will be locked from use as well.
We thank you for your business with PayPal.
Sincerely,
Josh
PayPal Account Review Department
PayPal, an eBay Company
Gee, thanks PayPal! And sadly I'm by no means alone in this. So keep in mind, your personal information is by no means safe in the hands of PayPal.
It's worth pointing out that European PayPal users (myself included) are now actually users/customers of PayPal (Europe) Ltd which has a physical presence over here (company offices in England as far as I can tell, possibly an extra customer service centre in Ireland).
There is a specific heap of EU legislation relating to Electronic Cash Issuers (not banks, just e-money services such as PayPal) - PayPal have now created this EU company and obtained the relevant license in order to do what they do in compliance with the European rules.
The revised ToS for affected users include:
*) that PayPal can only lock the funds related to a specific disputed transaction - not your entire account balance
*) a clear explanation of your financial position in relation to them (that your account balance represents an unsecured debt from them to you - if they tank, you might potentially be stuffed)
*) Jurisdictional stuff setting the venue for any suing of them by "us" to be England, and pointing out our right to go to the UK's Financial Ombudsman Service or the Courts for relief in the event of a dispute with them - no attempts at all at a "you cannot sue us" clause.
As a UK-based occasional PayPal user, I'm pretty pleased with this new arrangement. This move into the UK also means I could invoke the Data Protection Act to obtain any "hidden" information on my account in the event of a dispute.
These changes haven't been hidden - all EU-based members have been emailed about this and the information is on the "updates" column on the left on your main account overview page.