posted on March 27, 2001 07:49:00 PM new
Hey guys, I forgot to say this: EVERYBODY copy the website address of this page or anyone of the six plus pages and add it to your email signature so that everyone you touch has an opportunity to show this to everyone. Urge the people you deal with to do the same. You ought to see the reaction I get from some long time PayPal users, they'd had no idea all this was going on! Your email signature is the most effective way to let everyone you touch what PayPal is up to, and it's easy! Once you've set it up you don't remember to have to do it anymore your email will automatically do it for you. People as one we are unheard, but TOGETHER we can NOT be IGNORED!!!!
posted on March 27, 2001 09:31:51 PM new
THIS COUNTRIES BIGGEST "PONZI" AND YOU AS CUSTOMERS ARE
UNPROTECTED
March,2001
Dear friend:
On September 14.2000, I opened an account with Paypal. At that time it was for the purpose of transferring moneys to people or business programs I wanted to get into on the Internet. Somewhere around Oct. 15.2000 an Internet friend suggested that people were having trouble funding there egold accounts and it might be a business I might think about. As a semiretired businessman, because of a heart condition, I researched this and found that many of the people needing there gold accounts funded had paypal accounts also. Subsequently I opened an egold account and funded it with a thousand dollars. I started advertising on my web page that I could help people change their dollars into gold. Business started to move slowly until people realized that I made fast transactions through Paypal and was honest. My reputation grew rapidly and soon I was doing $200,000.00 a month in transactions with Paypal alone. Somewhere around Christmas I got a charge back notice saying that I was in receipt of potentially fraudulent funds. They "Paypal" asked for certain information in regard to the account named, which I provided. When I called they said it was under investigation. As time went on day by day these transactions kept coming in to the tune of over $20,000.00 worth of so-called fraudulent funds "stolen credit cards." My calls to Paypal only resulted in being passed from one clerk to another with no results. When I did finally get to middle management personnel all I received was a canned speech but no help.They"Paypal" accepted the credit cards and in return sent me a confirmation e-mail stating "you've got cash." The money was in their accounts and three to six weeks later Paypal is saying the accounts were no good. I checked some accounts and found this to be wrong. These people proved that Paypal had debited their accounts and had their monies.
In late January they gave me another support number to call saying I had a "red carpet" account, that way I could speak with management people, a week later they froze my account. This did not allow me to make any transactions but allowed people to make deposits into my account, which I requested be stopped until our problem was resolved. They refused to do this and took other peoples money to satisfy the negative balance in my account. I requested this by email and phone on February 5. My account became positive and they opened it. I started transferring gold into my customers accounts again trying to catch up and then they "locked" my account. As of today they have me +$20,000.00 out of pocket money and a negative balance of somewhere in the $9,000.00 range.
Now they are e-mailing my customers saying they should file fraud charges against me. Also telling them that they have had many complaints against my account and basically that I'm the crook. My customers are behind me and now send me monies in other ways. This I have proof of. see attachment
My point is Paypal is not what they say they are. As a supposed financial institution or so, the only thing they are concerned with is getting accounts which adds up to transaction fees regardless of whether they are legitimate or not. I now see that their policies are strictly set up to protect themselves not there legitimate customers. Their security is at best nonexistent.
1. I did not accept the accounts THEY DID
2. I did not have access to there bank accounts or credit cards. THEY DID
3. I kept my commitment to my customers THEY DIDN'T
4. I researched what accounts I could and proved them wrong THEY DIDN'T
In conclusion I believe they are a young company with growing pains and I believe they should be responsible for their mistakes. If they do not wish to come to satisfactory terms then my only recourse will be to take legal action against them and vigorously inform those on the Internet as to my situation so this does not happen to them.
March 10.2001
UPDATE:
After many hours of telephone conversations with a Mr. Sandeep Lal Paypal's representative my ACCT now is $31,083.45 in arrears and my negative balance has grown to $12,022.63. Each time paypal sends monies back to a customer that sent me money after I asked that they block my account from accepting monies they raise the negative balance. Mr. Sandeep tells me that paypals board of directors would like to have me as a customer and would agree to let me payoff the negative $12,000.00 over a 6 month period. WOW THAT'S MIGHTY NICE OF THEM. They also tell me that as in the past I would be responsible for those accounts that wanted to claim a charge back anytime within a 3-6 month period, and as I was before charge backs from an account that received funds through 2-3 other accounts that were charged back.
WHEW they have some system of accounting and here are some examples
In February I received these contacts from my customers
One customer sent me a fax showing his credit card statement showing 2 transactions charging him for monies he sent me PAYPAL CHARGED THEM BACK ON ME
Another told me her husband made the transfer and she called paypal. NOW SHE DOESN'T HAVE THE MONEY AND I DON'T, THAT LEAVES ONLY ONE PLACE THE MONEY IS AT "PAYPAL"
Another called me from Alaska to tell me his funds were "legit".-----It was only $56.50 from his "VERIFIED" account and a verified shipping address.
Another called to tell me that his was made by credit card but paypal debited his checking account creating a negative balance in his account which cost him $25.00 service charge.
Another customer emailed me to tell me that when he inquired as to why they deemed his funds to be "fraudulent" they closed it and would not answer emails to them as to why it was closed.
They "PAYPAL" have consistently took other peoples money to payback supposedly "FRAUDULENT FUNDS" and then charged me for them when I told them I would file theft of funds charges against them.
By the way, in one of the conversations I had with Paypal's representative I was actually asked to help them in investigating these accounts.
What I can't believe is that in this day and age of government regulations they are seemingly unregulated and can change their "terms of service" as they see fit to protect themselves, with total disregard to their customers.
I guess I have no other choice at this time but to seek the help of my attorney generals office as well as my lawyer. In the mean time I will diligently use my time to try and notify my fellow Internet friends and their friends of the possibilities of doing business with this unregulated Internet entity.
FROM Damien Cave's article FEB.23,2001 (salon.com)
Ultimately, no company that processes $7 million in transactions every day, as PayPal claims to do, deserves a free ride, says Ken Thomas, a finance professor at the Wharton School of Business. Because PayPal essentially works like a bank -- thriving in an industry where "any type of activity involving payments is heavily regulated simply because issues of public confidence are involved," he says -- they should be treated as a bank. Changing the laws, or persuading PayPal to buy a bank charter may be difficult, slow and expensive but until then, Thiel and his 575 employees aren't just asking that users endure a few technical difficulties. They're asking for nothing less than blind, pre-Depression trust.
"This is banking circa 1928," says Tom McGrath, managing partner of Bank Earnings International (BEI), a banking consulting company. "It's backwards. They could take all these customers' dollars and misapply them, so the money isn't available when the person wants it. They could be insolvent and no one would ever know."
As one FTC lawyer put it, "if they filed for bankruptcy tomorrow, no one knows what would happen to their accounts."
