posted on December 31, 2000 09:58:56 AM new
Happy New Year everyone! I was working my auctions last night & checking Paypal when I saw New Policy update below. I might be one of the few "Personal account"' Holders left. I dont sell enough to make it worth it to sign up for the business account. I had an international bidder send Money using Western Union I need to go pick up the payment at a local office. Supposedly, there are no fees on the receiving end. If this is so, maybe I can replace Paypal with Western Union! Anyone have any experience with Western Union?? Ok, here are Paypal's New policy changes:
Notice Date: December 6, 2000
Effective Date: December 22, 2000
In order to increase the predictability and consistency of our credit card processing costs, the Personal Account $500 limit on receiving credit card payments every six months will be changed to a $100 monthly limit. This change increases the actual limit from $1000 per year to $1200 per year.
Payments funded from the sender's bank account or existing PayPal account balance will not count against the recipient's limit. At the beginning of each monthly cycle, the limit will be reset to $100. Recipients exceeding the $100 limit in a given month will no longer be able to accept credit card payments unless they choose to upgrade to a Premier or Business Account. Credit card payments sent of the limit will be held as "pending" until the recipient chooses to accept the payment by upgrading or to return it to the sender by refusing the payment. Personal Accounts exceeding the limit will still be able to receive payments funded from a bank account or existing PayPal account balance.
posted on December 31, 2000 10:55:17 AM new
For something free, that sounds good to me.
I started using the Business account with PayPal as soon as they offered it because I wanted to add PayPal it to my Website.
It works!
Most of my payments are thru PayPal in the past couple of weeks.
It is interesting the way it goes in spurts - PayPal for a while...PayDirect for a while...Amazon 1-click for a while... It makes me wonder what is going on.
There are folks such as myself, who use the money banked in my PayPal to buy things on the net. I NEVER buy from folks who do not have Paypal. The good news, If I buy from you, it will not count against your $100 limit because it is already in PayPal.
posted on December 31, 2000 11:25:58 AM new
So there are still folks who think that as long as something is free such "options" such as an honest company, customer service, reliability of your account doesn't matter. In case there is anyone who believes that these are important, visit http://www.ygoodman.com/payments.html and see how the payment services stack up.
posted on December 31, 2000 12:59:44 PM new
Yes yisgood, there are those of us who have had no problems with Paypal, and find it a useful tool to conduct our business.
posted on December 31, 2000 01:45:15 PM new
>>Yes yisgood, there are those of us who have had no problems with Paypal<<
As I have stated many times, I haven't had a problem with Paypal either. There are 5 million accounts and I hope no one is stupid enough to wait until every last one has a problem before agreeing that PP is bad. Paypal Damon's own claim is that "only" 4%, or 200,000 people, are dissatisfied. Romanian George also had no problem with PP. Each of the 45 accounts he opened allowed him to cheat a seller of almost $500.
There are also folks who smoked and never got cancer. There are folks who drive 80 on the road and never had an accident. By your logic, these are fine unless every single person who does this gets hurt. If a study came out (by the manufacturer no less) saying that "only" 4% of the folks who used a certain product got hurt, that would not be enough to conclude that such a product is dangerous?
posted on December 31, 2000 02:54:02 PM new
4 % are dissatisfied. How does that relate to dangerous? And no, every last paypal account will not have a problem, because some people use paypal wisely.
posted on December 31, 2000 03:46:45 PM new
>>4 % are dissatisfied. How does that relate to dangerous?<<
4% have had their accounts restricted for no good reason, or payments charged back for no good reason or payments that turned out to be made with fraudulent credit cards. A seller I know with many good ratings and not a single negative had her account restricted without warning over a charge back by a liar who claimed he never got the item. Even though she had delivery confirmation, PP told her that it was not good enough because it didnt have a signature, even though DC is specifically mentioned on their site as proof. In any case, they restricted her account without even asking for proof. It took over a month to reopen her account. During this time, she received thousands of dollars in payments which she could not withdraw, therefore she was unable to buy the expensive items that she had sold, therfore she couldn't deliver and starting getting negs. All the effort that she had put into building up her perfect reputation was shot to hell. So PP was dangerous to her reputation and dangerous to her business.
>>And no, every last paypal account will not have a problem, because some people use paypal wisely.<<
Exactly how do you use PP wisely (other than avoiding its use altogether)? Tell us what the seller should have done in the above situation? A verified buyer I know paid a seller and never received the merchandise. The seller used a false address and phone number to register at the auction site, proving that this was a premeditated fraud. PP told the buyer to wait a month. Then they dragged their feet for another month. Then they said there was nothing they could do. The seller's account was still open, despite having nothing but a string of negatives for non-delivery at the site. The buyer ended up making a charge back through his credit card. Other than foolishly trusting PP, how could he have used PP more wisely? We anxiously await your wisdom.
posted on December 31, 2000 04:02:11 PM new
I too like the ease of paypal. at first I had a buyers account, didn't know I was able to use it for selling because I thought I had to have a business bank account, my husbands union has given us a tax ID to use for Odd jobs such as this so I dont need to have a business account it all works out in the wash it's like a subcontractor type deal.
What I didn't like about PayPal is before I was verified there were no fee's, now that I am verified there are(big deal being verified proof of address/bank account). That's okay the fact that I can keep money in paypal, collect interest and use it to pay for other items is very nice since most the online sellers we buy from only accept paypal, have to keep them happy.
I am also seeing that Amazon's one click states that it can be used for anything, anywhere? Amazon's one click has HIGH'r fee's especially if you state p&h, they take a percentage of that too. So if I sell something in Yahoo I can create a take it price auction in Amazon for that person they can take it and pay thru one click?
WATAFIND, please help me here, the concept would be nice, sell in yahoo or ebay,the buyer only is signed up for Amazon's one click, doesn't want to give anyone else their info,create a take it price auction in Amazon with a weird name so only the buyer will know it? have them use one click in Amazon to pay since they dont want to sign up anywhere else? It would be nice because one click is so easy, I would think asking for a few cents more to accomadate the buyer wouldn't be unreasonable since you have the added cost and Amazon's A-z guantee would be in effect?
The other plus would be you can get feedback in both Amazon and Yahoo? Amazon states that one click can be used anywhere, just dont know how it would work outside of Amazon.
If this is true, I will contact all our former buyers in Amazon and tell them to come on over to yahoo!
P.S> if yahoo is watching=) PayDirect is great too, unfortunately it doesn't accomadate international buyers yet. Hopefully when they do, the added fee's will be on the buyers end not the sellers for a change!
posted on January 1, 2001 06:33:39 AM new
Yisgood, don't know what I would do in those situations. I follow the obvious wisdom of not sending things to Indonesia and Romania, for instance, and not forgetting my password to avoid getting my account frozen.
Just because 4% of people are dissatisfied with Paypal does not mean that 4% have had their accounts frozen, etc. They could be dissatisfied with having to pay fees, or the limits on the free accounts, etc. Not a good inference.
posted on January 1, 2001 07:54:30 AM new
Yankeejoe: You implied that folks having problems with Paypal are only those who use it unwisely. I just gave you two examples of folks who followed Paypal's rules and still got screwed by PP. Your responded: "don't know what I would do in those situations." Are you then ready to admit that you can follow PP's rules and still get screwed by PP? And if so, doesn't this indicate a serious problem of reliability?
posted on January 1, 2001 08:06:06 AM new
Like I said, I've never had a problem with them, and I'm pretty sure I'm not in the minority. Have you ever heard of a company that hasn't had a problem, ever? Are you always 100% happy with every company you have ever used? I'm not denying that they've had problems, that's for sure. I just take exception to your comment that you can't believe people still use the service despite all their problems. You've cited a few valid examples of their problems. Now what percentage of paypal's total transactions does that represent? Is that percentage enough to be considered serious? Depends who you are, I guess.
posted on January 1, 2001 10:29:10 AM new
The only problem with leaving money in your PayPal account is that you can lose it at any time and have no recourse to recover it. As long as you are happy with that level of risk - go for it. PayPal and their ilk are completely unregulated and you have absolutely no protection at all if they go belly up or some other catastrophe hits.
We also strongly recommend that you link your PayPal account with an online bank account, or an analog bank account that has NO OTHER connections to any of your analog accounts. Don't put your entire financal world at risk - isolate, and provide yourself a level of security. It is free, easy to do and SMART!!!!! -Rosalinda
TAGnotes - daily email synopsis about the Online Auction Industry http://www.topica.com/lists/tagnotes
posted on January 1, 2001 11:11:39 AM new
>>Have you ever heard of a company that hasn't had a problem, ever? <<
I agree that every business has had problems. I define problems as mistakes. But there is a difference when a business admits that they made a mistake, acts quickly to solve it, apologizes and takes steps to see that it doesnt happen again. But if a business denies it happened or just says "screw you," it is not a "problem," it is a deliberate bad act. That is a company that you should not deal with.
PP has frozen accounts for no good reason. They have taken money from people's bank accounts without justification. They don't apologize. They continue to do it. They send Damon to the boards to deny that it is happening. PP doesnt seem to consider these mistakes. They do this deliberately and will continue to do this in direct violation of their own TOS. If you point it out, they will either deny it happened or change the TOS. If you like to deal with companies like this, you might as well ship as soon as a bidder says "the check is in the mail."
posted on January 1, 2001 11:27:31 AM new
In my humble opinion, PP got too big too fast and developed the "ebay attitude syndrome" of Take it or leave it.
posted on January 1, 2001 02:13:38 PM new
yankeejoe
The figures that PayPal is spouting: 5 million members, 4% dis-satisfaction rate, etc, is a bunch of hogwash.
4% of 5 million would be 200,000 people are dis-satisfied with their service. Now throw out 3 or so million people who use their accounts very little, if at all, (they would probably not have a reason to be dis-satisfied). That changes things slightly.
If you don't take some precautions, you will probably run into a problem buyer who will report you to PayPal, or someone with a stolen credit card. Then your account will probably be frozen and you will have to deal with their wonderfully helpful customer service department.
[ edited by outoftheblue on Jan 1, 2001 02:26 PM ]
