Skip to comments.

Posted on 12/11/2001 5:05:17 AM PST by struwwelpeter

First I was a Paypal cheerleader. Personally, I never had a problem with their service. But others, and even people I knew personally, did. As the complaints mounted and the stories became more egregious, I started seeing the other side. After all, basing my opinion on only my personal experience wouldn't be accurate. I never had a problem with Billpoint, Paydirect, Exchangepath and even the infamous Paymentalt. I know people who smoke and don't have lung cancer (yet). Does that mean I should recommend smoking?

So I set up my payment service ratings to present a more balance picture of what a payment service user can expect. I frequented the bulletin boards where people reported their experiences. I chimed in where I could, at times blaming Paypal and at times blaming the poster for contributing to his own problem. I discovered that posting on the boards was a waste of time. The Paypal bashers blamed everything on Paypal and anyone who suggested PP wasn't at fault was branded a cheerleader. The cheerleaders blamed everything on the poster and anyone who suggested that PP's own policies were at fault was a basher. I tried to stay "middle of the road," judging each case on its own merits. When Paypal has numerous customer service issues, I recommended against using them. When it appeared that they were working to resolve these issues, I changed the rating to "recommended with caution." At this point I can only conclude: "recommended for sellers with personal accounts where credit cards will not be used. recommended for buyers only if a credit card is used."

The problem is the Paypal's "protection plan," though probably set up with the best of intentions, has the exact opposite result than what was intended. It protects the guilty and harms the innocent. Because Paypal is run by a bunch of young and arrogant managers, they refuse to admit that there is a problem. So the fraud continues and the number of scammed buyers and sellers continues to mount. Many have found that there are ways to leave Paypal stuck with the bill. So Paypal now has millions in losses to recover. Could this be the reason for the new trend that I am seeing?

I used to get one or two complaint letters a day. In the past week, I am getting a dozen a day. The letters used to be "run-of-the-mill." Someone paid a seller and got cheated. Someone sold an item and the buyer charged it back for no good reason. They were issues between buyer and seller with Paypal bearing only tangential responsibility. But these current problems are far more serious and has Paypal taking an active hand in creating the problem. There has been an increase in accounts restricted by Paypal due to the possibility of fraud. This would be fine if there was a mechanism by which the account holder could contact Paypal and have the matter quickly resolved. But it appears that once Paypal has decided to restrict an account, it takes nothing short of an act of Congress to get them to change their mind. But even as the account stays restricted, Paypal continues to accept money into it. In my eyes this is theft. If the money does not belong to the seller, then it belongs to the buyer. We know for a FACT it does NOT belong to Paypal. There have been a few complaints of possible hacked accounts or credit cards where the writer says he contacted Paypal numerous times about transactions on his account that he did not make and they have refused to do anything about it. We saw a post on Auctionwatch where a buyer says three transactions of over $6,000 each were made from his account in under one minute, hitting his credit card and two bank accounts and we saw Paypal's rep answer that somehow the buyer must have done this accidentally. I defy any of the cheerleaders to enter three transactions into Paypal, have them funded from three different sources and complete the entry in under a minute. You can't do this deliberately but we are supposed to believe that someone did this accidentally?

There have been complaints about Paypal retrieving money from a seller's account that was paid from existing paypal funds because the payer received a fraudulent payment from another party. What kind of nonsense is this? Someone receiving a credit card payment will be careful to validate the source of the payment, but how vigilant can you be when receiving the equivalent of cash? Paypal won't even reveal a scammer's name and address to another party. How can the seller know where the buyer got his money? Can you imagine depositing a money order into your bank account and having your bank confiscate it, telling you "the guy who gave you that money order got cheated by someone else so we're taking it from you"?

What's amazing is that when a buyer gets scammed and files a complaint, Paypal's usual response is, "Yes, you were cheated but the seller emptied his Paypal account so there is nothing we can do." Yet when it is Paypal who gets scammed, they manage to track that money across several accounts and find a way to recover, even if it is from an innocent third party.

There are many policies at Paypal that I believe will not stand up to legal scrutiny. There are currently lawsuits in process which will test these policies. Until the courts speak, the only guarantee with Paypal is that there is a good protection plan in place to protect Paypal and no one else.

The definition of a Paypal cheerleader is someone who hasn't been scammed yet.

A bump to you my lady!

Did I ever tell you what I want for Christmas?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.