posted on January 21, 2002 12:05:36 AMLibra, I have questions too. For example, what kind of complaint would cause Paypal to seize $5,000 of a user's money, plus $33,000 in pending transactions? If I read correctly, this isn't about fraud, it's about an outstanding balance. Perhaps Paypal figures the user will simply pay someone else's outstanding bill (as many pragmatists suggested), just to get his account opened again.
posted on January 21, 2002 07:28:35 AM
see what i mean ??
how can you expect anyone watching national tv and working on national tv programs feel sorry for someone who tried his luck in business without knowing anything about control and security??
where is the line between business and pleasure,or is it business and personal??
how many people are allowed to operate a piece of business equipment,companies purchase business equipemnt directly or indirectly to produce revenue for the business.does GM allow employee sons,daughters and wives to carouse after work by their punchpress or assembly line??
does the treasury allow every one to store their small gold holding at fort knox because it is safest storage place for precious metal??
rewrite your business manuals,set up a room for business,keep records and put them in metal file cabinets,lock up the place at nite.
ever wonder why there are offices for rent,so we can separate business from home?
if you are doing this kind of volume ,you can inquire a small office for 200 plus a month with utility and cleanup service.
good luck,you may need a lawyer to speak to paypal for you.
i know when lawyers call,most businesses will come to the phone
posted on January 21, 2002 07:43:41 AM
how can he pay off the deficit in one of the 'related ' accounts if paypal wont tell him how much and which account??
why cant paypal just transfer fund from his accounts to cover deficit of the other account if it is so sure they are related??
then his accounts will be open and available for conductiong his business.(if there is any fund left??)
i hope he learns his lesson,how many business partners does he have,and how many daughters and how many roommates and ex roommates??
unless he appears on a soap opera tv show as a guest,i just dont see how he should be on any show??
posted on January 21, 2002 08:24:56 AM
Someone said:
"Even if some of your customers would prefer to pay through Paypal, you can always explain what happened to you."
Uh-uh. Hasn't worked for us. Our PayPal account was closed two years ago and we have a lengthy documented explanation on our Rules page. Yet we still get indignant email: "Why don't you take PayPal? I'VE NEVER HAD PROBLEMS WITH IT!"
Well, yes. I never had any problems with it when all I was doing was buying, either.
Bidders simply have no comprehension what sellers have to go through. Even the "I'm an eBay seller, too" types don't; they sold a few books of S&H green stamps for Aunt Sadie once...that makes them a seller. Yehrite.
posted on January 21, 2002 08:29:47 AMSW, you continue with your "blame the victim" ideas. The problems at Paypal concern more than a few isolated users. Paypal's antics affect hundreds of thousands of sellers. That is why calling Paypal to task is of general interest.
If you have a problem with your phone bill, you call the phone company and in most cases the charge is removed from the bill. The same with your bank. You call the bank, tell them there's an error on the bill, and the bank removes the charge.
Not so with Paypal. Paypal will attempt to recover the funds in any way they can, no matter who is at fault. Combine that with an utter lack of customer support/contact, and you've got a recipe for disaster.
When I had an issue with Paypal, Paypal grabbed $300 of mine over a $15 dispute. They continued to accept payments in my name, even after I notified them to stop. Paypal informed my customers that I had received their monies. My only choice was to send out product for weeks without payment, while Paypal conducted its "investigation."
Can a high-volume seller, one who moves thousands of dollars per week through Paypal, even afford to dispute Paypal's claim? Any seller with sense will just pay the money, no matter who is at fault. That amounts to extortion. And I believe, from my experience and that of others, that Paypal will simply invent any excuse to grab a seller's funds. When a chargeback is initiated, Paypal will recover the money any way they can, including billing somebody's partner's daughter's ex-roommate.
Let's face it, Paypal has a strangle-hold on auction payments. Paypal can pretty much do what it pleases. You'd have to be blind not the see the pattern of complaints against Paypal by honest businesspeople. It's high time for a public investigation of Paypal's practices.
I'm sorry that your customers are not understanding about you not accepting Paypal payments. I closed my account way back when the Paypal "always free" scheme was revealed to be a lie. I knew then and there that it was not a good company to put too much trust in. I explained to all my customers about the lies Paypal had stated, their poor customer service, their non-federal insured accounts and other various problems I had discovered about Paypal. Almost all of the people I contacted replied thanking me for informing them of how the company really worked. While I still have people asking to accept Paypal... nobody gives me any grief that I don't accept it. There are plenty of other, safer ways to accept and send payment.
Stopwhining,
I would suggest that you read the posts more carefully. It does not appear as though the computer in question that Paypal froze the account was even a computer owned by the business whos funds were frozen. It was simply a computer that members of that company had used at various times to log on to their accounts. With todays internet cafe's, public access terminals, and wired libraries, there is ABSOLUTELY no reason why Paypal should restrict accounts simply because they have been accessed from the same ISP. Think about it... it doesn't make much sense! I really hope that some entity begins to regulate the actions of Paypal.
posted on January 21, 2002 09:56:27 AM
eauctionmgnt-you are correct!!!
The computer which the EX-ROOMMATE used is the daughters computers in her home.
She used it, he used it and recently I and the business partner have used it....
The EXROOMMATE is gone now and now where to be seen and both myself , the business partner and the daughter have checked our accounts on this machine while in the same home and next to each other..
As of today January 21st, 2002 the accounts are restricted and I am receiving threatening emails from those that have funds tied up in the accounts and also from those pending...
I also have another 11 payment to process but the merchant account I have applied for is not completely set up yet!!
I have looked into 12 different similar services to paypal but they are all limited to $500-$1000 transactions per months.
If anyone has another suggestion or remedy please advise.
posted on January 21, 2002 10:46:10 AM
Did you try Anypay.com -- I posted the following earlier.
....
It is different from Paypal because they don't store your money (like a bank). They are more like a clearing house. It is just like making and receiving payments with checks -- reduces fraud. If you already have a merchant account, you can also configure anypay to use it. Signup is easy, and the site is smooth. Customer service number in USA & Germany is displayed on your account page. Go over there and read more -- email them any questions before signing up if you have doubts.
Right now they are waiving their setup fee of $99.00 until March. There are no other fees for business accounts, except of course transaction fees. It is free for private accounts, but I think there might be limits.
posted on January 21, 2002 12:17:19 PM
your best bet is to stay away from those bidpay,propay forms of accepting payment and go with merchant account,there is no limit and you are in control.
you said it is being set up ,so it should be the best for you.
paypal is not a bank,it is also not a telephone company,there is a lot more room for mischief in cyberspace as one does not know who is behind the user id or email address.
you open a bank account by first talking face to face with a banker ,they can always ask you to come into the bank if needs to.some folks do have more than one bank account with the same bank,but it has to be done one at a time and be funded.
you would be surprised how much they know about you-whom do you write checks to and how much you make and spend,how often you come to the safe deposit box,ever wonder where those bank lifos go??they sit in front of the safe deposit box area and watch folks go and get their jewelry out to attend a wedding,put more in,take some out,they know what is going on??take a look at your checking account-how big is your mortgage payment,do you go to race tracks??buy a lot of clothes etc etc/
live beyond your means????
but paypal does have lousy csutomer service,new staff,overwhelmed with work.
it does not matter whose computer they use,whose daughters and whose roommates or boy friends,the fact is that they are footloose in running a sizable business,75k a month.
i bet most of us do not have this kind of volume,at that level ,you need to put some procedures in place,dont feel sorry for them,it is part of the painful learning curve!!
there is always BANK WIRETRANSFER,it goes right into your bank account.
posted on January 23, 2002 08:51:52 PM
If you're handling that kind of $$$ I don't understand why you don't have your own credit card processing machine and let your customers fax or call in their card info to you directly for purchases. I use this in my end of auction messages and most people will fax the card info believe it or not. I do use pay pal, but try to limit it as much as possible because I pay a cheaper rate using my bank's credit card processing and it is a lot less hassle too.
Good luck!
posted on January 24, 2002 08:40:42 AM
paypal has many fans who just want to troop up to paypal site and make payments.
they dont want to give their cc data to anyone,they could have bot several items from different sellers and it is easy for them to make payments to different sellers without giving away cc data.
some of them have their own system of making payments,they do this once a day .
but vertogoonline 's problem is not paypal exclusive,his operations is the problem here-partners in usa and canada,partner's daughters,duaghters room mate and ex roommate who got evicted becasue he did not pay rent,anyone can use the pc ,the time he is going to talk show to complain,he should hire a consultant and review his operations,75k per month is 900,000 per year.
thats close to 1 million in sales,many brick and mortar shops do not have this kind of sales/
posted on January 25, 2002 10:13:14 AM
Well they have done nothing and kept all the monies...
We have offically left paypal an will keep those up to date with our airing 60 minutes show coming up in march regarding this issue and other peoples stories,,,
They have sent this last letter to me and all the envolved persons, they actually expected us to ship something when they kept the money an restricted the account less then 24 hours after it was opened and funded...
BADMOVE DAMON YOU DID NOT REPLY OR HELP AT ALL...
Dear PayPal User,
We have recently received several complaints regarding your PayPal account
for non-delivery of products that have been paid for through our service.
Please be aware that this type of behavior may be illegal, and it is also
in violation of our Terms of Use and is not tolerated by PayPal. As we
have stated previously, your account has been locked and will not be
reopened for future use. Please reply to this email in order to facilitate
the disbursement of any funds remaining in your PayPal account.
Disbursement can be handled in one of two ways:
1. Your remaining account balance can be used to refund the buyers, or,
2. Your remaining account balance will be held within your PayPal account
for 180 days in order to minimize chargeback risks. Once the 180-day
period is completed, a check will be sent to your home address.
If you do not respond to this notification, option number two will be
selected for disbursement of any remaining balance.
PayPal reserves the right to close any account reported to be involved in
possible fraudulent behavior. In the event of a dispute, PayPal will seek
to recover the funds from you by debiting your PayPal balance and, if there
are not sufficient funds in your PayPal balance, PayPal reserves the right
to collect your debt to PayPal by any other legal means.
Sincerely,
Charles
PayPal Merchant Fraud Department
posted on January 25, 2002 10:23:28 AM
vertigoonline,
there is no mention in this paypal memo of the account which belonged to ex room mate of your business partner's daughter and no mention that you are liable to cover the deficit.
if they cannot prove the deficit account is related to your account and there is no chargeback in 180 days from YOUR CUSTOMERS,then the money will be released.
BUT 180 Days is a long time.
good luck
(cant you find this trouble maker,if he had roomed with someone you know,there must be a way to locate that person.
do they take application of new room mates?
is there a cancelled check from him?how about some statements??or phone numbers of someone he called from the house
