posted on May 21, 2000 06:42:59 PM new
So you’ve had a problem with PayPal? See if you can beat this one… My PayPal "saga" is as follows:
I was a "winner" on a Yahoo Dutch Auction which ended on February 1st, 2000. The "seller" required that the buyers make payment only through PayPal (which was brand new at that time, and was giving a $10 bonus for each referral). I, along with many other people, bought into what quickly turned out to be a scam. When you first sign up with PayPal, your electronic payments are limited to $200 until such time as you receive mailed confirmation of your account (coincidentally, the amount due on the auction was exactly $200). I registered my credit card to open my PayPal account and immediately "beamed" my payment. Five days later, I followed up to make sure that my payment was acknowledged, only to find that the "seller's" email address was no longer valid, and that his Yahoo ID had been dropped! Within a matter of hours it was known to all of the auction "winners" that we had been scammed.
I immediately called PayPal to notify them of the problem. They were already aware of the apparent scam, and had "frozen" (their term) the seller's account. I was assured by two different people at PayPal that the seller could in no way gain access to the money that had been charged to my credit card. I was told directly by both a customer service rep and her supervisor that I should contact my credit card issuer and let them make arrangements for the refund. I did as instructed; my credit card company issued a "provisional" credit to my account while they sorted out the details, and I figured that was that. I continued to use PayPal to accept auction payments.
I received a letter from my credit card company on 5/8 informing me that the provisional credit situation had been resolved in my favor. Wonderful!-- I assumed that everything was great and that all parties were satisfied-- with the exception of the original "scammer". On 5/9 I received an email from PayPal telling me that I had violated their Terms of Use, which strictly forbids having a credit card company issue a chargeback on a PayPal account. To violate their Terms of Use results in having the account placed on "restriction" ("frozen", and although the account can be used to accept payments, the funds in the account may not be transferred or withdrawn! PayPal also reserves the right to charge my credit card back for the original amount of the scam, deduct the amount from my PayPal balance, OR ELECTRONICALLY WITHDRAW THE MONEY FROM MY CHECKING ACCOUNT (if I had been foolish enough to provide them with that information at the time that I registered)!
Please bear in mind that I was simply following the directions that were given to me by two people at PayPal, and the result is that these people are holding my money "captive"! This must be illegal!
PayPal says that to remove your restriction, you must file an appeal with PayPal management, and they will review your appeal at their convenience. During the appeal period you may use PayPal to accept additional payments, but you are totally powerless to retrieve as much as one penny of your own money!
Yes, I filed an "appeal", and I was very direct in telling all of the facts of the case, with special emphasis on the fact that I was only doing as I was told by their own people, and suggesting strongly that they needed to get their own house in order before they began to lay claim to other people's money.
The moral of the story? I guess it would be to trust no one with access to your credit card account, especially a company promising to provide a "free" service. Yes, I am irate over this, and feel strongly that I have been treated extremely unfairly. I'm not quite sure what my next step will be, but I can tell you that I plan on hosting a few thousand online auctions in the next couple of years, and I intend to continue spreading the PayPal Warning for a long time to come. Sooner or later, the word will get around. I am amazed at how many people have taken note of my warning on my auctions and have inquired about the details, and I note with some satisfaction that quite a few, after reading this story, have emailed me back again to say that they have cancelled their PayPal account. I say we drop these guys like a hot rock!
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone you know who is a PayPal member.
[ edited by kramerfamily on May 21, 2000 06:44 PM ]
posted on May 21, 2000 11:51:52 PM new
Did they ever answer your appeal? They have me locked out for a simular situation. I called my credit card company about charges that I didn't know who they were and they told me it was a software company and we both tried the number given and it was disconnected.The name was confinity inc. I told them I didn't purchase any software and the charges were different and over and over. I think 4 of them. Well they put these charges in dispute. The next month I had two more charges but it said Confinity/paypal. well I had just gotten the letter wanting me to fill out for the dispute on the charges and I filled it out telling them it was all right to pay the charges I knew who it was. Well someone didn't do something. But, instead of paypal contacting me they locked my account and my payments that were in there with an error message and email address to email appeals. I did over a week ago and I have heard nothing from them. I looked at my credit card statement online and they haven't paid the charges yet but they have paid every other one to Paypal since those charges. If they would have just contacted me or would just answer the 5 emails I have sent them in the last week and a half we could probably straighten it out. All though my last few emails were getting kinda .... But, I just told them if it wasn't important to them then I would just wait on them to contact me. How can they expect to do business like that? I agree. Everyone should drop them like a lead balloon and see how they like that. I should email everyone I have paid or has paid me through paypal and warn them not to use them anymore that if they have a problem they will get the bad end of it and paypal will not communicate.
posted on May 23, 2000 11:25:31 PM new
As of 5/23, I still have not received a reply to my "appeal", and my account is till being held captive while my money languishes in their "jail". It would appear quite clear that they just don't give a darn about anybody. The more people I can turn away from PayPal, the better!
posted on May 24, 2000 11:43:47 AM new
Hi kramerfamily,
I apologize for the frustration and inconvenience you've been experiencing. Please forward the email address you used to sign up for PayPal to me at [email protected], and I'll follow up on the issue for you.
, and although the account can be used to accept payments, the funds in the account may not be transferred or withdrawn! PayPal also reserves the right to charge my credit card back for the original amount of the scam, deduct the amount from my PayPal balance, OR ELECTRONICALLY WITHDRAW THE MONEY FROM MY CHECKING ACCOUNT (if I had been foolish enough to provide them with that information at the time that I registered)!