posted on September 13, 2000 04:56:07 PM new
I want to respond to the accusation that PayPal somehow lied about its policy. This is untrue and unfair.
The login reminder page restates a policy that has been in place for months. The facts:
1. Below, in full, is the email that we sent to users in July. The relevant portion clearly states that "businesses using PayPal are required by our terms of use to create a Business Account."
2. A clear "Rules" box on our "Personal vs. Premier/Business Account" page (which highlights the differences between account types) states the requirement that businesses must sign up for a business account. This box has been on our site since June.
3. Our terms of use have also stated for weeks that if you are using PayPal to conduct "e-commerce on a regular basis," you need to sign up for, or upgrade to, a Premier or Business account.
We have always said that PayPal is free for personal use. That remains true today. We have also always said that business use requires a Premier or Business account.
I realize that there are a number of occasional sellers who want clarification on what constitutes business use. Obviously, there is a big difference between the occasional seller who sells one beanie babie a month, and a seller who sells dozens of items per month. Today's reminder was only directed at sellers who conduct e-commerce on a regular basis.
It is not possible for PayPal to subsidize these businesses and continue to provide this service for all.
From: PayPal News [[email protected]]
Date: Saturday, July 8, 2000
Subject: Important news about your PayPal account
Dear [FIRSTNAME],
Last month we wrote to tell you about the launch of
PayPal’s new Premier and Business Accounts. These
accounts included premium features such as 24/7 customer
service support and an automatic daily sweep of funds into
your bank account. And we also promised you that many
more premium tools were still to come. Now, we at X.com are
pleased to deliver PAYPAL'S LATEST SET OF FEATURES for
Premier and Business users:
· Web Accept: accept payments directly on your website
· Auction Tools: new ways to manage your online auctions
with ease
· Batch Pay: send affiliate payments to thousands of
people at once
· Downloadable Transaction Log
· Unlimited Credit Card Payments
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
ACCEPT MONEY ON YOUR HOMEPAGE
Our new Web Accept tool lets you accept payments directly
on your website. By posting Web Accept buttons on your
web pages, BUYERS CAN PAY YOU FOR PURCHASES WITH PAYPAL
INSTANTLY -- without leaving your site. Accepting
payments online has never been easier! (Pricing for this
feature is only a modest 1.9% on payments received, with
no flat fee.) Learn more about Web Accept by going to
our website:
https://secure.paypal.x.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/web/index-outside
Also, our Business Account users now will have NO LIMIT ON
CREDIT CARD FUNDS RECEIVED. Buyers who have reached their
PayPal $2,000 credit card spending limit can still charge
their card when sending a payment to Premier and
Business users.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
AUCTION MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Collect auction payments quickly and easily with INSTANT
PURCHASE FOR AUCTIONS. This feature lets buyers pay you
simply by clicking on a logo in your auction listing; this
generates a pop-up form where buyers can enter their PayPal
username and password to pay you without even having to
login to our website. Also new, our AUTOMATED PAYMENT
REQUEST creates online invoices that you can distribute to
your winning bidders. It's fast -- you can send out 100
invoices in just 10 minutes! Visit our website to learn
more about our new auction tools for Premier and Business
Account users: http://www.paypal.x.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/auc/auction-business-tools-outside
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
SEND PAYMENTS THROUGH BATCH PAY
Now pay hundreds -- even thousands -- of people all at
once with X.com’s new Batch Pay tool. If you run an
AFFILIATE PROGRAM, A COUPON/REBATE PROMOTION, OR A
"PAY-TO-SURF" COMPANY, you no longer have to depend on
expensive and slow check runs to pay your customers --
Batch Pay can do it for you. (Batch payment transactions
cost the lesser of 2% or $0.25 per payment, far below
the cost of printing and mailing a check.) For more
information on X.com's Batch Pay, go to:
http://www.paypal.x.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/batch-outside.
And for those of you who participate in a "pay-to-surf"
or affiliate program, be sure to tell your administrator
you'd like to BE PAID WITH PAYPAL!
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
PREMIUM FUNCTIONALITY
In addition to all the features available on PayPal
personal accounts, Premier and Business users can take
advantage of these other special features and services:
· A DOWNLOADABLE TRANSACTION HISTORY available in
Quicken, QuickBooks, and comma-delimited text formats.
· Automatic sweep of your PayPal balance into your bank
account at the end of each day. (This feature is optional
and carries a modest 0.6% fee.)
· A 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week exclusive customer service
hotline.
· Frequent special promotions, such as last month’s "Free
Listing Week."
· Automatic eligibility for X.com's AFFILIATE PROGRAM.
· Many Business Account users will be eligible to be
featured in our upcoming SHOPPING TAB, where over 2.5
million PayPal users will be able to make instant, online
purchases directly from you.
For more information on all the features vailable to Business
and Premier users, please visit our site:
https://secure.paypal.x.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/personal_vs_business-outside
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
It’s fast and simple to upgrade your personal account in
order to take advantage of these premium features. Please keep
in mind that businesses using PayPal are required by our terms
of use to create a Business Account. To upgrade, just login to
your PayPal account and click on the "Upgrade Now" button. The
upgrade process only takes a couple of minutes, and you’ll be
able to use our new payment tools immediately.
We appreciate your choice to use X.com’s PayPal service to send
and receive money, and thanks for helping to make PayPal the #1
payment service on the Web!
posted on September 13, 2000 05:07:29 PM new
Hi, Damon..
When X.COM first offered a BUSINESS ACCOUNT, the terms were very losely defined. So many wrote you, and many PHONED Paypal. Correct me if I am wrong, because, unfortunatly I did not save that particular post, but I seem to recall that Paypal/x,com answered someone that if one sells less than 30 items per month was NOT a seller. Now, based on your new post someone selling a one beanie baby is obviously not a business....What happened to the EARLIER GUIDELINES????
Sellers can LIST HUNDREDS OF ITEMS and only generate ONE SALE..does THAT make them a BUSINESS? I sincerely, truly am confused...
posted on September 13, 2000 05:50:21 PM new
[Hey -- if Damon can post his message 17 times, I can post my response to it 17 times as well, right?]
Oh, THERE it is, buried waaaaaaay down at the very bottom of a lengthy e-mail that few people would ever bother reading in full:
"Please keep in mind that businesses using PayPal are required by our terms of use to create a Business Account."
OK, so maybe PayPal DIDN'T lie after all. Well, except for the fact that they originally said that their services would be "free forever" and then changed their "terms of service" to require anybody who sells anything to sign up for a NEWLY CREATED fee-based business account. But that's not really a lie, right? More of a broken promise, I guess....
Unfortunately, Damon, you most certainly DID lie. After that e-mail was sent out you were asked point blank whether any users would be forced to sign up for a business account and you said "no". And that directly contradicts PayPal's own [albeit unobtrusively buried where nobody would notice] terms.
You had a chance back in July to come clean and say yes, people who sell on eBay and use Paypal will be required to upgrade to a business account and pay the associated fees. Instead, however, you chose to lie.
My only question now is what, exactly, is your relation to PayPal, and is there really a difference between you telling us a lie and "PayPal" lying to us?
Barry
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on September 13, 2000 05:59:27 PM new
My only remaining question is this:
Once I get my money out of the PayPal account - how do I UNverify myself, and close the damn account?
You know, this is so stupid. I refuse to shop online auctions with my credit card. I'm irresponsible, not stupid. Basically, PayPal is saying to us that we can only be personal account holders if we only have money going out. Or if we can prove that the money coming in isn't from an auction.
posted on September 13, 2000 05:59:30 PM new
I posted this elsewhere but guess it should be here on your thread PPD .. so copy and paste:
PayPal lied a long time ago .. at the beginning .. before anything except personal accounts existed. Their target market was AUCTION SELLERS. What were they selling to auction sellers? FREE ACCEPTANCE of credit card payments! Make it easy for your customers.. yada yada....
QUESTIONS I WOULD LIKE ANSWERED PLEASE:
1) If personal accounts are not for sellers, then why are we allowed to post links in our auctions? Why do our accounts have instructions on how to post links?
2) If personal accounts are not for sellers, then why are we offered basic logos? (Business & premier can use instant purchase logos.) They're there but we're not supposed to use them?
3) If personal accounts are not for sellers, why do we have instructions for sending a manual request for payment? (Business & premier have automatic payment requests). The manual request for personal accounts even has a box for 'auction'?
You offer ALL your account members varying levels of auction services ... what, pray tell, is the purpose of the auction services for personal accounts? A consumer/buyer doesn't need a link or logo or payment request form ~ seller does!?!?!
PayPal .. you must think your customers are idiots!! Nothings changed? Right .. and 2 + 2 = 5!
ALSO .. I did NOT recieve any notification that even suggested to me that I might be required to upgrade to a business account!
CLEAR DEFINITION OF A BUSINESS PLEASE??? I saw 30 items auctioned per month mentioned somewhere. So 29 items at $100 each is not a business but 50 items at $1 is?? HUH??
~~~~~~~~
I have a memory like a steel trap .. unfortunately it's rusted shut!
posted on September 13, 2000 06:12:29 PM new
I retrieved a post from June 12...
*********************************************
PayPalPaul
posted on June 12, 2000 09:54:09 AM
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Shelly,
[b]Yes, you can use PayPal to make sales from your web site right now. But soon
we will be adding a feature for our business accounts that will allow your
customers to make the purchase without leaving your site to go to
PayPal.com.[/b]
*********************************************
NOWHERE in that post, was it ever intimated, implied or otherwise stated that a PAYPAL ACCOUNT should ONLY be used for PERSONAL USE.
posted on September 13, 2000 06:15:14 PM new
Damon -- Your repetitious posts are starting to look like spam, and smell like spam that's been sitting in the sun for a week.
No one is questioning that lengthy e-mail you keep on re-posting.
Why don't you respond to the other e-mail that has been quoted here -- the one that says "No one will ever be forced to upgrade". That's the lie that Paypal told, and the one that we're angry about, Damon.
Address that e-mail, Damon, and stop posting the lengthy e-mail. We're sick of it. We're sick of being lied to. And we're sick of your evading the question.
posted on September 13, 2000 09:42:16 PM new
Hello? Are you reading your own threads? There should be more than one person from PP here answering questions!
I have a memory like a steel trap .. unfortunately it's rusted shut!
posted on September 13, 2000 09:54:43 PM new
What I really would like to see happen is for one of the big shots to show up on this board, and start taking some of the heat. We seem to all be jumping on Damon back, when, really, his only sin is to be working for X.CON...He may have a family to support, whatever. And X.CON is using Damon as the fall-guy, which makes me very sad.
Damon always dished out whatever info he was given...and now, those mis-informations from his bosses are used to lash out at him. That is unfair. Remember, he only WORKS for the company.
I, too, am terribly desappointed with the new turn of events; but I would never take it out on the employee...
When I leave PayPal, it will NOT be because of Damon, but because of X.CON's deceipt.
