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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."'"
After over ten years of destroying businesses and hurting people while hiding behind a blank gray wall of "policy", Paypal are kidding themselves if they think that they can ever recover the goodwill that they've burned.
Maybe they're feeling the heat of competition from square and feel the need to do something to stop the exodus.
Our little business finds square a lot easier to deal with.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
It's pretty mind-boggling that nobody has come along and eaten Paypal's lunch yet. For all the internet-era services (most?) that based their business model on merely having the most active accounts and got burned, there are a couple for which that strategy seems to be a winner. Facebook is another one. There's no reason to use either of these services other than the fact that everyone else does - and in fact, there are lots of reasons not to (i.e. the services themselves are ass, and are run in a way that's at times abusive to their userbase).
And yet, despite the fact that there's nothing preventing competitors from springing up (unlike, say, Ticketmaster - which actively uses payola to monopolize the market) - and despite the fact that some with very deep pockets (Google) have tried - Paypal & Facebook still dominate.
Maybe it's luck? At some point someone will set up a competing service that just happens to ensnare the particular, unmarked, and unrelated 5% group of "tastemakers" who are sufficient to catalyze a shift away to a new service?
They're (Paypal) probably noticing the flood of payment alternatives. Stripe et al. come to mind...
Until recently, I was on the board of directors for a local homeless shelter here in town. RIght now, we're in the middle of planning a major fundraiser. When it was suggested that we get a paypal account so that people could purchase tickets on-line, I went ballistic - I've heard way too many horror stories over the years. I'm not sure others on the fundraising committee quite believed everything I said, but my reaction was so strong it spooked them, and they backed off the idea completly. Paypal's changes will have to be effective, and in place for a very long, long time before they even have a *chance* of having people like me deal with them. That's a very large part of the market they've never had, and quite possibly never will.
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.
Yep, don't care. They lost me 2 years ago and short of their entire executive team kissing my bare ass on national TV, there's no way in hell I'm ever going back. Doing business with them was exactly like being raped.
Deja Moo: The distinct feeling that you've heard this bull before.
Paypal does not get much news coverage in Germany, it is just not as useful since the bank transfer system is pretty fine. But a while ago they managed to get onto the news when they tried to force a company to stop selling Cuban cigars. The company decided to stop offering paypal transfers instead of stopping to sell the cigars.
But really, how is that their bussiness? And why is that stupid Cuba embargo still in place? Some people said that this embargo has always been about turning Cuba into a colony.
Indeed; PayPal is not a bank yet I'm betting most of its customers think they are. They don't have to follow the same set of rules and so they get to make their own. Customers only learn of this after they've been burned, unfortunately. That's why I don't use PayPal.
They are in Europe and have been since 2007. Not that it stops them acting like dicks, of course, they are just (in principle) well-regulated dicks over here.
The only nice thing about PayPal being a non-bank is that someone in the US can pay someone in the UK relatively easily. I moved out of the US, and for me to send myself money from my US accounts requires I show up in my bank, in person, to order the international transfer. They don't even honor their own terms of sending based on a fax. Banks are afraid of being the next HSBC.
Learn to love Alaska
I am involved with organizing a sporting event. This last year was our seventh running of the event. In previous years, the sanctioning body would collect the entry fee and send the events their portion. Because of some issues with the sanctioning body (not really set-up for credit card payment and slow payment to events), the system was switched to where events collected the entry fee.
We decided to go with PayPal for most of the normal reasons folks go with PayPal. I had the PayPal-based payment system up on the event web site in a couple of hours. The first month of getting entry fee payments went fine and we could transfer the funds into the event's bank accounts (to cover pre-event costs like venue deposits and insurance).
The trouble started at the end of the early entry period for the event (when entry fees increased). To avoid the increase in entry fees, almost everyone entered in the event who had not already done so, paid their entry fee on the same day. This triggered PayPal's fraud system and the event's PayPal account was locked. Although we had successfully run the event for the six prior years (with outside media coverage to prove it) and our paperwork was in order, PayPal decided that they would not give us access to the funds until after the event had run, "just in case the event was cancelled and the entry fees needed to be refunded".
PayPal's actions were almost a self-fulfilling prophesy. Without access to the funds to cover pre-event costs, the event was almost cancelled. Luckily, between the entry fees collected before the PayPal account was locked, the entry fees that we collected directly after the account was locked and understanding vendors, we were able to cover the pre-event costs and the event was held.
After successfully running the event, we contacted PayPal to get the account unlocked. At first, they wanted to make us wait six weeks. However, we pressed the point that we had bills that had to be paid and needed access to the funds ASAP. After an hour on the phone, they unlocked the funds and gave us access to the funds.
Compared to some people that I have spoken with, we got off easy.
I don't care what PayPal's new policy is. We are not putting our event at risk again by accepting payment via PayPal.
Indeed. With CC merchant accounts they don't automatically freeze an account full of funds based on automated heuristics. It's possible they do it rarely, but working closely with thousands of businesses, and having my own merchant accounts, I've never heard of it happening. I've had my Paypal account frozen before and I know at least a dozen other people who have.
The chargeback process is still slanted toward the buyer, but the buyer has to fill out and mail or fax paperwork, not just click a button on a web page. That reduces BS chargebacks. More importantly, that chargeback affects only the one transaction; they don't freeze thousands of dollars of unrelated funds. CC processors only freeze the account after MANY complaints from buyers. Partly, that's because they do the anti-fraud work upfront, when you apply to open the account. That takes a couple of weeks.
I believe that the average Joe can now accept credit payments using 2CO https://www.2checkout.com/
We'll never make it.......oh! we made it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWf3iJjqYCM&list=FL7kKrE4eTs17mQl7eyvJIOg
What better word would you use for cases where people follow rather than thinking for themselves, like a sheep circle or an ant mill?
For commercial seller Amazon seems to be the vastly superior service.
This is true for commercial sellers. But for sellers who don't pay $40 per month for a store, Amazon hits them with a $1 per item commission in addition to the final value fee. And items without a UPC/EAN or ISBN can't be sold at all.
Honestly, I've given up on Paypal. Back in 2009, I've had my account frozen due to using many credit cards. Since I didn't have a job, I (thought I) couldn't get an actual credit card, and used a service in my country that generates temporary credit card numbers, valid for a month and with a set credit limit*. Well, Paypal didn't like that I used more than (IIRC) 15 credit cards in X time, so they blocked my account. I've since learned that Paypal e-mail support is where messages go to die, and, through site revisions, has become almost impossible to find. So, to resolve my problem, I had to call an Irish number, where this lady basically told me "No credit card, no dice". So then silly me goes and gets an actual credit card and calls again. "Looks good. It should be OK, now" - someone else says. It isn't. The next call: "OK, reset the password from your main computer". a) My main computer was a laptop which died in the middle of this process, and I've told them this, and b) What's the point of being on the web if you're requiring people to do something from a set computer? I've reset the password and the account is still blocked, so I've given up. Luckily, I only lost a little money in this process, but I've been finding that living without PayPal is easier than I thought.
* For the curious, https://www.mbnet.pt/
I transferred a good bit of money to my wife in Paris in 2007. It had worked twice previously. On the third time, Paypal "froze" the funds, IE took them out of our joint account in the USA, but not putting them into our account in France. Several weeks went by, I was calling constantly. One particular guy taking my calls will live in my memory forever. I learned to just say "escalate" "escalate" "escalate", as we reached a point when my wife in France's internet account would be cut off for non-payment. We had to keep faxing documents all showing both our names on both the accounts. It was an absolute horror show. I don't understand why there is not a class action suit against them for the interest Paypal earned from all of the people like me who had all of their money in Paypal limbo. I'm way too busy to worry about this now, but if I had time to, I'd hate their guts.
Gently reply
Indeed. With CC merchant accounts they don't automatically freeze an account full of funds based on automated heuristics. It's possible they do it rarely, but working closely with thousands of businesses, and having my own merchant accounts, I've never heard of it happening. I've had my Paypal account frozen before and I know at least a dozen other people who have.
You are obviously a merchant, not buyer, but buyer accounts are frozen quite often by automated heuristics. An international traveler would be silly to rely on a single credit card for a trip without at least looking up the local toll-free number for when the "unusual" activity locks their card (the consumer equivalent of freezing an account).
The chargeback process is still slanted toward the buyer, but the buyer has to fill out and mail or fax paperwork, not just click a button on a web page.
It's how it should be. I had an argument with a seller on eBay once. He said he sent it. I never got it. I did a chargeback. He complained that I didn't buy insurance.
Legally, the transaction is not completed until the item is delivered. The item was never delivered. I was due my money back. My options are to go to court and prove I never got it, or just do a chargeback. Chargeback done. Insurance protects me, delivery receipt protects him. I don't buy insurance. If you can't pack it right, you get a chargeback. If you don't ship it, you get a chargeback. And no, I don't pay your insurance for you (like mortgage insurance, where it's default insurance you pay that covers the bank, not you). If you don't want to buy insurance to cover yourself, then you deserve the chargeback. Most eBay sellers take that into account. $0.01 items with $15 delivery weren't uncommon for a while, but I heard eBay was cracking down on it, but I haven't been back in a while to see.
Learn to love Alaska
None of this would be a problem if PayPal had serious competition. There should have been half a dozen companies doing exactly what PayPal was doing which were started in the past five years.
Recently, the local bank where we keep our family's and our business accounts has started offering a QuickPay service which apparently hooks into Chase Bank and allows for sending and receiving money to and from email accounts. It's still in its infancy compared to PayPal, but I've been using it more and more because of how much I loathe PayPal. It works just as well and hopefully it will become more widely used. I'd switch away from PayPal in a minute if there were good alternatives (I'm in the US).
You are welcome on my lawn.
Now about time for someone to actually challenge eBay. eBid, uBid etc. never gain steam. We need an auction site that takes all sorts of payment methods, including enabling established sellers to accept non-recoursable payment methods like Western Union, Bitcoins etc. to increase liquidity.
New Economic Perspectives
Well, when there is the weight of the government squeaking about, both Mastercard/Mastercharge and Visa/Bankamericard will do something "without even being asked": they cut off all transaction processing for wikileaks.
.
This was combined with a response from the financial industry world-wide which was the equivalent of a global financial blockade. How do you like them apples?
eBay only cracked down on high delivery charges when shipping and handling were exempt from their final value fees. Now that final value fees are charged on the total payment price including all attendant s&h charges, they don't enforce their excessive s&h policy anymore. It was only ever put into place to protect eBay's bottom line, not to protect buyers.
The problem with Paypal is that they are heavily linked into ebay, certainly in France and the UK where Paypal has to be accepted and is very hard to avoid using.
I've looked hard at ways to use ebay without Paypal but can see no way even for someone such as myself who would sacrifice 50% less sales in order to use a competitor to Paypal. Ebay in turn is very dominant for goods in the UK, a first port of call for any cheap goods from HongKong or used goods especially.
A blog I run for the wealth