posted on December 7, 2000 02:18:37 PM
What do paypal and the titanic have in the same...look good..when they started...but they both are sunk!!!!! This and many other boards are light up with people anoyed with whats going on with paypal...it will not be long and i think they will be gone!!!
posted on December 7, 2000 02:35:04 PM
My mistake...but boy are they starting to pi$$ off most if not all people... This board and many others look like a christmas tree...
posted on December 7, 2000 02:59:36 PM
eastwest...
Most of the lights on the christmas tree are responsible for causing(creating)their own problem/s with PP...Its really simple, if you run your business like a professional and don't attempt to beat the system or re-invent the wheel, you should have little trouble...IMO..most of the complainers brought it on themselves even though they will never admit or for the most part, can't even see where or how they brought it on themselves...
Believe me, the world is full of those people..!!!
(its always someone elses fault...never theirs...in everything they do in life...)
..Life is like email, sometimes 'some people' just don't get it...
posted on December 7, 2000 04:38:14 PM
MrBucks: And I guess murder victims and rape victims have only themselves to blame. And all the folks who had their accounts restricted when someone paid them with a fraudulent credit card and Paypal gave them no way to reject the payment were somehow at fault. And the folks who were hit with charge backs 4 months later for items they had sent out and even had proof of delivery that Paypal never asked for. If this is the right way to do business, then why don't banks freeze entire accounts every time there's one bad check? Why don't credit cards completely shut down the vendor for every charge back?
Why dont you take a look at what American Banker has to say about Paypal? I had to copy the article to my web site because you need a subscription to get to the American Banker site.
posted on December 7, 2000 04:56:23 PM
Do you have an account with a full service brokerage firm? Do you have any cash in their money market account? If you do, you may want to verify that it is FDIC insured. A lot of money market accounts (not generic savings account, the money market accounts pay higher interest) aren't. Even the ones held at a bank. Check it out, you might be surprised!
I tend to agree with you. In our experience with PayPal, which has been considerable, we have never had a problem, and when there was one glitch, it took 1 minute on a phone call to take care of that.
Yisgood:
NOW regarding what American Banker - or someone with them, what they say - that is merely relative to who they are and what their personal agenda is. I recall strong endorsements when PayPal opened by well known, reputable financial institutions, and financial experts, and since I have never had a problem, I and my many customers will continue to use the PayPal service.
Lets face it PayPal is in competition with most American Banks who have their own credit cards, and charge an arm and a leg in interest for Merchant Accounts - which basically explains the "wag the tail" direction of this American Banker article.
When we opened our first business we started to obtain a Merchant Account through a Bank and their interest cost to us was 4+% - what a joke - we went to a private company and got the same and more for 2%!
American Banks are very defensive about intrusions into what they believe is their holy ground.
***
My feeling is that most folks who have had problems or supposed problems are newbies to real business, and tend to panic about movements in the business industry which they don't totally comprehend.
Just think how many scare "the sky is falling" headlines one has seen from time to time about Microsoft - when the government was messing with them - and here is good old Microsoft today - and the sky is still in place.
It would seem in this modern society that most folks would recognize the "sky is falling" syndrome, we have seen the height of spin doctor talk through the last 8 presidential years.
posted on December 7, 2000 05:07:10 PM
jwpc: Once again blame the victim and ignore the question. How would you feel if your bank account was shut down because you received a bad check? The bank holds thousand of your money for months while they "investigate" one $20 bad check? How would you feel if your credit card was denied because of one bad transaction that wasn't your fault? Paypal has frozen people's entire accounts for months over one small transaction that they had no control over. Tell me what an experienced businessman is supposed to do if some foreign crook sends him a Paypal payment? Don't forget - Paypal gives you no way to refuse it. Tell me what an experienced businessman is supposed to do if a client makes a $20 charge back 4 months later without even contacting him? The folks who this happened to were not newbies. They were experienced businessmen with excellent ratings on the auction sites. Paypal destroyed them without so much as an email of warning and never apologized or admitted any wrongdoing. I'm glad you haven't had a problem - yet. But you'll be singing a different tune when it happens and all your experience won't help.
You can't talk of murder and rape victims in the same context as idiots that can't tie their shoes...
I do NOT believe 10% of the stories posted on any of the message boards...Period..!!!
Below:
Quoted from American banker article...
Unfortunately, PayPal also survives. Its customers are apparently willing to let a privately insured, unregulated company - untested by crisis - hold and move their money.
FDIC insurance seems to be irrelevant to these customers. I suspect that most of them had never heard of the Electoral College until Nov. 8. They simply assumed that they directly elect the President - and that any company that holds their money in an account is FDIC-insured.
---------------------------------------------
It seems that AB has the same opinion of some of the Pay Pal users that I do...Can't even tie their shoes...
If anyone reading this is in that catagory, you KNOW it and if your not, I am happy for you...
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..."If you keep doing what you've been doing...
...you'll just keep getting what you've been getting"...
posted on December 7, 2000 05:34:59 PM
>>You can't talk of murder and rape victims in the same context as idiots that can't tie their shoes...
I do NOT believe 10% of the stories posted on any of the message boards...Period..!!! <<
I can't believe 90% of what's on these boards, but even the 10% that remains that I believe are true is enough to scare me away from Paypal.
>>It seems that AB has the same opinion of some of the Pay Pal users that I do...Can't even tie their shoes... <<
No, AB has that opinion of ALL paypal users. They equate being a Paypal user with being an idiot. Why? Probably for the same reasons I gave - that Paypal can do anything to anyone without reason. All your business experience won't help.
But I don't think that all paypal users are idiots. I think the Internet is still relatively new and people haven't realized that a lie on the Net is not the same as a lie in print. If Paypal were to advertise in a magazine, folks would have a copy of their promises in writing. But since they do it on the Web, they can change their lies daily and believe that what they said Monday no longer applies on Tuesday. This is what I warn folks about. And it is not just Paypal that does this. I have come across this phenomenom on many other sites.
Using Paypal doesn't make you an idiot any more than riding the subway makes you a corpse. It just makes you a potential victim. But with the subway, there are some things you can do. Don't ride it when it isn't safe. Stay near the motorman's car, if you're nervous. Unfortunately, with Paypal there are no warning signs, no activity to avoid, nothing you can do to increase your safety. One credit card scammer, one nasty customer and bang - they got you. Even if you can tie your shoes.
posted on December 7, 2000 07:08:12 PM
Hello EastWest,
I'm a mathematician by education; a software developer by vocation; and among other avocations I have is cryptology which demands a thorough grounding in statistics.
Those are my bona fides for the comments I'm about to make.
Message boards like AW's (and eBay's) tend to attract two types of poster. The first type is what I would call a "regular". Someone who posts regularly out of familiarity with the situations that the other type of poster (the "occasional" poster) encounters and then brings to the boards.
"Occasional" posters tend to come to the boards with problems. The "regulars" tend to post on the boards with help or advice or for some personal agenda.
What you have in these boards, statistically speaking, is a biased sample. The fact that the boards light up with complaints does not mean that the end is imminent for whoever the complaints are made about.
Folks have been complaining about eBay since its very inception. As have people been complaining about AOL, PayPal, etc.
This might happen a little sooner than people think. According to one Mastercard company, Paypal is being reviewed for "revocation of merchant status". I can't confirm that this is true or not but PayPal Damon seemed a bit concerned.
posted on December 7, 2000 07:33:03 PM
code, I hear what you're saying, and until recent weeks might have begrudgingly agreed with you. However, in recent weeks (since PP's implementation of their "verification" scheme), I've felt a responsibility to my customers (many of whom I had sent to PP originally) to inform them that there IS a downside to using the service.
As I've said before, I have no problem with an informed user choosing to do business with them. I deplore that many users are unaware of the risks and cannot thus make an informed decision.
Anyway, I immediately started hearing back from my customers. Most expressed their surprise and intention to be very circumspect in their future dealings. But I ended up being surprised, too. A few customers related their own tales of frozen accounts. None of these people had ever heard of AW.
Even if you discount my personal anecdotal evidence, though, let me ask you this: if the "occasional posters" you refer to are just an infinitesimal percentage of PP users, how many total users do you suppose have had problems with PP?
posted on December 7, 2000 08:02:35 PM
PayPal has developed some powerful allies in the last few weeks. Intuit is offering PayPal as a way for small businesses to accept credit card payments with Quickbooks 2001. ING (a major league company) has joined with PayPal to open the Euro version of PayPal. I guess those companies fail get their news off message boards.
MyPersonal.com just signed an agreement yesterday with PayPal to offer it to their customers too.
The business community doesn't seem to support your view.
posted on December 7, 2000 08:11:32 PM
small note .. quickbooksjust lost 50% of it's value on the stock market this quarter...i think you should know that they quickbooks went to paypal not the other way..quickbooks is looking to regain the market ...
posted on December 7, 2000 11:23:55 PM
I had a run in with one buyer that could have cost me a frozen account, but I knew the rules and it didn't happen. Unfortunately, I heard from other sellers ripped off by the same Indonesian who lost big money. I really couldn't feel too bad for them, though. It is real carelessness to take up something like accepting payments through a credit card service without reading the agreement and knowing where you can mail items to! The real problem with PayPal is that they don't make money. It can't continue forever. I'd rather pay a reasonable amount to have a stable service going on indefinitely, than to have an unstable one that could crash one of these days. All the Internet businesses have foolishly tended toward free/cheap services and they can't raise up the prices to something reasonable or they'll lose out to the free competition.
As uaru mentioned, we have just gone through some period with some high-level deals and we are in a solid position.
In addition, a survey recently went out to a random sampling of our users (buyers/sellers). The dissatisfaction rate, if memory serves correct, was in the 4% range.
Customers contact customer service or go to a public forum when they have a problem nearly 9.9 times out of ten. When I was a representative on the phones some time ago (another company), I never received a phone call where a user stated ," I just called to tell you how much I love your service". This was over a three year period at 80-120 calls per day.
Customer service receives 6-14,000 emails per day. Compared to a user base of nearly 5 million this is a relatively small number of users writing in (as a side note, some users take to sending 50 emails about the same subject, which actually causes a backlog in their case getting resolved in a timely manner or they spam every email address possible). At least 80-90% of emails received are responded within a 24 hour period if they are of a general nature. Account specific problems (fraud or buyer/seller protection claims take longer because of the investigation that is needed).
The reasons a user's account can be restricted are on the web site. We are not going to restrict an account without reason and emails are sent to the users when an account is restricted advising as to what the problem is. We also have the ability to reverse a single transaction if it comes about as the result of fraud.
We realize that changes in policy can cause confusion and that is why we are out here looking and listening to what the issues are...to make a stronger service.
Sorry if this email seems long or convoluted, but I thought I would share some of the information with you.
posted on December 8, 2000 04:31:52 AM
I've never had a problem with PayPal until yesterday, and I suppose you could say it was my fault, but I really think that the new format for sending money is to blame. It does lead me to question exactly what the agenda of the bigwigs at PayPal is. PayPal was presented as a means to pay online using your credit card. You provided bank information to "verify" your identity. Now it's set up to automatically debit your bank account by default, rather than your credit card. The change was made with no announcement, and the source of funds is set by default, without expressly asking the user if that is what s/he wants to do. I think this may be the kicker for me. I've had no problem receiving money via PayPal, so I'll continue to do so. However, I won't be paying for anymore big ticket items with it.
always pickersangel everywhere
posted on December 8, 2000 05:34:58 AM
"Pay Pal has been verdy verdy good to me." I've got no problem with the fees or the service. I had one problem early on, that they took care of immediately. I'm in business and to have the payment made quickly is worth the minor costs. Besides it's a write off. If you don't like it don't use it. I don't understand the traid of crap about Pay Pal. It's like some people just don't have enough to #*!@ about.
posted on December 8, 2000 07:41:48 AM
Paypaldaeman,
Thanks for posting. I for one really like the service Paypal provides. As a business member it makes it easy for my customers which makes it easy for me. I LOVE THE SERVICE!!!
posted on December 8, 2000 02:50:25 PM
Quicken/Intuit and the Paypal X.com connection:
Before you get a warm fuzzy feeling of Paypal being accepted on the Intuit site,consider this:
The former head of Intuit was the one that launched (I believe I've read this SEVERAL times) X.com and First Western Nat'l.Bank.You know,that X.com bank that tried to scam you out of all of your funds by shutting down in less than a month.
So,don't consider the tie in to be much more than 2 board room buddies exchanging links.
posted on December 8, 2000 02:57:14 PM
Quicken/Intuit and the Paypal X.com connection:
Before you get a warm fuzzy feeling of Paypal being accepted on the Intuit site,consider this:
The former head of Intuit was the one that launched (I believe I've read this SEVERAL times) X.com and First Western Nat'l.Bank.You know,that X.com bank that tried to scam you out of all of your funds by shutting down in less than a month.
So,don't consider the tie in to be much more than 2 board room buddies exchanging links.
I agree with you. I'm sure this deal was in the works before Bill Harris' and Elon Musk's head-butting lead to Harris' sudden departure from X.com.
It also was after Harris' departure that PayPal started heading down this nasty path.
There's a REASON PayPal is offering MUCH LOWER e-check fees to users of Quickbooks than the rest of its users are paying.
At the same time, Quickbooks is offering TWO merchant account deals, including a newly inked deal with Chase.
Also, consider the timing of the ING/PayPal deal... it was announced soon AFTER one of ING's competitors in Europe announced a new
mobile payment service.
posted on December 8, 2000 05:00:03 PM
If all you people with ALL the 'inside' info on these companies, put just half of the energy you expend here in to investing in the companies you know so much about, you for sure would be multi-millionaires hob knobbing with Bill Gates,,,,
Are you sure you're not Democrats..???
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Perspective...
The 10 Commandments: 179 words.
The Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words.
US Government regs on the sale of cabbage: 26,911 words.
Visit http://mrbucks.com
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posted on December 8, 2000 05:24:49 PM
MrBucks:
Perhaps you should pay attention to the news more.
The Intuit/X/Paypal CEO alliance was never "inside info" but public record and FACT from the scores of interviews he did as well as the numerous press releases sent to the wire services in the early part of last year.
Hope your luck with Paypal/X is better than many on these boards(and those who have rated those services on epinions.com and other consumer service boards).
And....may all of your children grow up to be honest hard working democrats!
Perhaps it's the fact that we spend time studying companies before we invest that we have this "inside" information -- which, by the way, is widely available in the news media and in press releases.
Successful investors dig a little deeper than reading press releases alone.
And make no assumptions about the net worth of the posters here. I know some who are worth millions.
