posted on December 29, 2000 09:37:44 AM
I just received a reply to my email to Citizens Bank asking if they accept Paypal transfers. Here is the response:
Dear Mr. Goodman,
Thank you for your inquiry regarding Paypal. At this time, Citizens Bank is not doing business with Paypal. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at 1-800-922-9999, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and a customer service representative will gladly assist you.
Sincerely,
F. Rodriguez
Online Banking Specialist
I called on the phone and was told that there is an investigation of Paypal for ACH fraud and until it is over, Citizen's Bank will not allow Paypal to access any accounts. I'm sure some of you think I am making this up, so you can also call the 800 number and hear it for yourself. Now let's see the Paypal cheerleaders explain why Citizen's Bank is wrong and Paypal is still right.
posted on December 29, 2000 12:17:47 PM
Sounds to me like Citizen bank is doing to Paypal what Paypal does to it's accounts. Freeze them until the investigation is done and everything is sorted out and understood.
Big deal.
If you later post that it was found that Paypal is guilty of ACH fraud then you have something.
Till then I'll keep using it with nary a problem and tons of happy auction customers because their items got to them in time for Christmas.
One question, do you spend your time researching this Paypal EP et all stuff, or do you sell things on auction? Why did you even bother to call the bank unless it directly impacted you? Just wondering
posted on December 29, 2000 12:30:39 PM
>>One question, do you spend your time researching this Paypal EP et all stuff, or do you sell things on auction? Why did you even bother to call the bank unless it directly impacted you? Just wondering<<
Yes, I sell things on auction and on my web site and from my store, as I have done for 20 years.
Why did I bother? Because there are too many hustlers out there fooling folks into joining these rotten companies for their $5 pay off. After several people emailed me about Citizens Bank not accepting Paypal and I posted it on my site, some folks accused them or me of making it up. There are also two reporters about to write a story on payment services and wanted verification. So I took 5 minutes out of my schedule to verify. I am tired of my customers telling me they won't buy online anymore, having been screwed by other sellers or paypal or exchangepath. I am tired of my sellers telling me they will only accept money orders because online payment services are bad. It is for the benefit of all of us to get rid of the scams so that everyone feels safer online. And by scams, I include payment services that lie and act free with other people's money. So I guess it does impact me.
posted on December 29, 2000 01:40:13 PM
Fair enough.
I still have yet to have a problem with PP, and in fact have used both their buyer and seller protection features to recoup money in excess of $500. I know that you will say that if they had better security I wouldn't have had to use these features, but they didn't at the time, though they are painfully learning, so I still consider them a great deal.
I feel that there are many out there who will yell and scream when something goes wrong, and rightfully so they have a vested interest (their money) at stake, but when things work right nobody says a peep. I am here to try and lend some balance that PP is not screwing everyone like some people might be lead to thinking after reading these boards.
ExchangePath however is another matter, they are terrible.
posted on December 30, 2000 08:38:50 PM
I have never had a problem with Paypal or Exchangepath but I know several folks who have who have very high ratings, are very honest are not stupid and did nothing wrong. One, a buyer, was ripped off by a crooked seller, Paypal jerked him around for 60 days and then said tough luck. Fortunately, his credit card allowed him to charge back. Another, a seller, had her account with over a thousand dollars restricted because of one charge back from several months back where they buyer did not contact her or paypal. Though the buyer's action was in direct violation of PP TOS, PP chose to restrict her verified premier account without even contacting her. When she sent them her delivery confirmation, she was told it was no good even though PP TOS specifically states that it is. PP is a company that lies and a company that does not stand by its own TOS.
By the way, the ACH transfer system is a system in place for many years and used by many banks. It is not a trivial move for a bank to block a specific company. Citizen Bank is also not the only bank to do so. A few credit unions have been named on other sites. Recently PP had to announce that they could no longer credit foreign mastercards. It seem that the Banking Industry is slowly discovering what PP is and cutting them off. You are lucky that you have not had any problems but it is only a matter of time until you do.
posted on December 31, 2000 11:12:22 PM
I find it very interesting that this is all about ACH transfers. ACH is a clearing house that handles electronic funds transfers. It's an organization that most banks and financial organization belong to that gives them a common ground and set of rules for doing those transactions. Participation is voluntary, but very common. I have a copy of their rules (albeit a year old) and PayPal is in constant violation of several of their rules - most importantly -
1. that the customer must be clearly informed of exactly what the transaction is doing
2. That a sender of funds can not withdraw those funds for any reason other than a clerical error and the period for that is only a few days. After that, the receiving institution can refuse to allow the withdrawal.
I had assumed that since PayPal had totally ignored these very basic customer rights, that they had set up some other kind of agreement with the banks or that another looser organization was now competing with ACH for handling these transactions. If PayPal is indeed doing ACH transactions, then people have to start hitting their own banks with pointed questions if they get hit by PayPal doing a late withdrawal. If your bank says it's PayPal thats doing it, tell them to read the regulations again - that they have no business letting PayPal pull money without your approval and that they could lose their ACH accredition for allowing it.
posted on January 1, 2001 09:57:57 AMIf your bank says it's PayPal thats doing it, tell them to read the regulations again - that they have no business letting PayPal pull money without your approval and that they could lose their ACH accredition for allowing it.
The banking system largely lets institutions do what they want regardless of the rules or the law. The rules and laws come into play when a customer complains, but if no one complains, life goes on as usual.
Thus, what a bank can do to protect its customers is seldom if ever what the bank does do. The customer has to be assertive each time. If enough customers complain to create real work for the bank, then the bank might become more proactive.
posted on January 1, 2001 08:49:27 PM
Mastercard no longer allows Paypal CREDIT transfers on International accounts. (That's how we withdrew money-not to a bank account- to a CC)
They are not set-up to accept non-refund credits. Paypal was crediting Canadian accounts without asking MC if it was OK. MC then pulled the plug.
As a result Canadians no longer have any place to withdraw deposits made to Paypal(except by Visa).
posted on January 9, 2001 10:46:56 AM
Thanks for the update on Citizen's Bank. I haven't been able to add my Citizen's cards over the past month (I keep getting error messages about being verified, billing address problems, credit card expired, blah blah blah) and PayPal has not been able to explain WHY to me.
As for Citizen's "doing what PayPal is doing," I believe that they are liable for charges or unauthrorized withdrawls over $50 that are reported to them. I think I read it in those little booklets the government makes them give out to you when you open account (yes I read everything)
The other folks who have had their account frozen or have angry customers may want to have them contact their local bank or the credit card company that they used to pay with to see if they are eligible for fraud protection. Just a thought.
posted on January 9, 2001 11:42:04 AM
I have my funds uploaded to my cictzens bank account with a debit card number.
What I think this guy was reffering to is that citizens bank no longer allows paypal to just randomly take that money back out of my account without my knowledge.
So if citizens bank is going to stop paypal from doing that without notifying me first then I am glad.
Luckily I have not had a single problem with any transactions through them. But then again all my transactions are under $30 and I don't sell computers and expensive stuff.
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posted on January 9, 2001 07:11:12 PM
What I was referring to when I posted the message was the ACH system, which is used by banks to transfer funds between accounts and other seem to enjoy ignoring regulations. Citizen's Bank told me that they do not allow Paypal to deposit or withdraw funds from their accounts through the ACH system. It is a regulated system, which may explain why Paypal has problems with it, since they seem to make up the rules as they go. For a bank to block a specific company from this system is not a trivial move. Citizens Bank told me over the phone that this decision was made because of fraud complaints from their customers. Damon said that the decision with Citizens Bank was "mutual." To me that sounds like someone getting fired and telling everyone "it was mutual."
Debit cards work on a different system and if your Mastercard or Visa is tied to your bank account it will work even if it is Citizens Bank.
posted on January 11, 2001 06:00:59 PM
Damon: I emailed them and I called them and if you recall, you emailed me to state that the decision of Citizens Bank to not accept Paypal was mutual (sort of like the decision of thousands of sellers to stop accepting Paypal is mutual). So we all agree that Citizens Bank did stop accepting Paypal. Are you implying that they have changed their minds since December 29th, when I called them?
By the way, Sunday nite I had a long conversation with someone who claimed to be representing a major investor of PP. He was very concerned about my site and the number of complaints here, on OTWA and elsewhere. I guess he wasn't mollified by the explanation that it's "only 4%" or he was only seeing one side of the story. Today I had a long conversation with a reporter for a major financial publication. Maybe it's time to see the other side of the story.
