PayPal Preparing To Address Frozen Funds Policy

First time accepted submitter skywire writes "After years of forcing innocent customers to navigate a Kafkaesque process to unfreeze their funds, PayPal has announced that they are preparing major changes to alleviate the pain. From the article: 'The company routinely freezes funds for 21 days if it thinks there's a fraud risk, and its terms give it the right to extend the freeze for up to 180 days. To get access to their money, users are often asked to provide the kind of documentation that a product seller would have, like several months' worth of sales records. But if you're running a fundraiser or selling tickets to an upcoming conference, you don't have that paperwork. Even for those with extensive paper trails, the appeals process can take months to resolve. The Web is filled with enraged blog posts, websites like paypalsucks.com, and a Tumblr called "Conferences Burned by PayPal."'"

Comments

Reminds me of a funny story

[cualexander]

PayPal once froze my account. I didn't realize how much they take those comments seriously and several years ago I sent some money to my wife with PayPal and put "For Sexual Favors" in the memo box, just kidding around, the way people would do on checks back in the day. Well, apparently PayPal thought I was actually paying for sex with PayPal and froze the funds. After I called them and explained the situation though, they quickly released the funds.

Re:Too Late

[AK Marc]

But the credit card companies don't abuse their policy. Most are banks, and have some regulation. PayPal is a non-bank banking institution, and that's why they are evil (well, one reason of many).

Re:Too Late

[postbigbang]

None of these has really garnered much marketshare, despite Paypal's evils. Although an interesting payments model, its customer service is an oxymoron. When you've got auction funds tied up from eBay, or there's a question to your business model, they shoot their clientele first, look for blood, and allow questions to be asked later.

If the US banking laws were real (I know, another oxymoron), Paypal would have the teeth of a hundred US DAs in their leg, gnawing viciously. But they're seemingly exempt, as are all the big financial houses.