pay pal problems

[jason lollar]

I have had a merchant account from way back- back before paypal was even around and back far enough you had to hire a company to set up your shopping cart which actually all they did was tell you the html code to use and you had to do it yourself. Even the banks didnt know how to do electronic deposits from a shopping cart- it was a mess. I had to pay a few grand to get the account and i had to show that I actually had a buisness and show sales records and credti reports- it was a big deal to get a merchant account back then.
So paypal comes along and makes it so anyone can take credit cards- great for the small upstart that has no track record, pretty soon everyones asking if I take paypal which i have resisted all this time.
Why? The fees are much higher and its a cluster $%$^ to get your money sometimes.
I just sold a book on ebay and paypal says- "we are putting a hold on your money for up to 21 days. during the hold you will not be able to access the funds, after 21 days if the buyer has not reported a problem we will release the funds"
I have a spotless buying and selling record- why would they do this?
Anyone had problems with paypal before?
I found several sites about the evils of paypal like this PayPal - Horror Stories, Lawsuits, PayPal Problems & Information - PayPal Account
and this Paypal Problems, Information, Issues, Class Action Lawsuits - PayPal
and PayPal Alternative - Pay Pal Lawsuits, PayPal Complaints & Fraud
and Consumer Alert: PayPal's Problems
and TemplateMonster Battles Paypal Problems - Hosting Articles

i have heard of thier security measures being hacked through- for a shopping cart we had to hire a place to take care of hundreds of security threats that the credit card companies test your site for- it was really expensive and its only been in the last few years the card companies started doiing this testing to the merchants- its so new and complicated- it was a huge worry when it happened.
I am pissed- this is BS, apparently they can screw with you at any time for no reason. I wont be using them anymore thats for sure.
Bunch of )*(

[NightWinder]

Hum

Yes. That has been in play for some time- At least a few months which makes it kinda senseless to use if you have to wait 3 weeks to get funds. I guess it is a buyers market. This system messes a lot of things up for people who rely on it for funds. Fuck'em for getting paid off everyone too with high fee's.....

[Stan H]

I'm not positive but I think they only do that for ebay sales. Apparently so many scammers on the auction sites. I've had a PayPal account for about 10 years and never had a problem...but I no longer sell on ebay.

[salvarsan]

Alternatives

This gets to the point immediately:
PayPal Alternative - Pay Pal Lawsuits, PayPal Complaints & Fraud


They suggest alternatives, such as a merchant credit card account
and transaction software to go with it.
PayPal Alternative, Alternatives To PayPal, Merchant Account, Accept Credit Cards Online - Home


Hope this helps.


-drh

[Possum]

....

Jason did you call them? I've been using them from the start and the only problem I ever had was when some guy got hold of my paypal Mastercard number and ransacked my account. Fortunately almost all but one merchant recognized the charges were fraudulent and never processed the orders. Took about 3 weeks and I got all my money back, but had to call every merchant the fraudulent charges were made. I rarely sell on Ebay. Call them and find out why this happened and just tell them if they don't release your funds immediately you'll cancel your useage of their service. There's no reason they should put a hold on your total balance of available funds just for one suspiscious auction payment....

[David King]

Costco merchant accounts used to be around 1.9% +$35 month + a $170 one time fee. Where paypal really helps me out is overseas sales. Unless your transactions are in the thousands or you have a currency trader in the family, their 4% ain't too bad...

[Possum]

...

That Bancard company is referred to on the Paypalsucks.com website. That raises a red flag itself. I"ve been using paypal for as long as they've been in business and never had a problem other than someone getting my Mastercard Paypal number somewhere off some stolen list.

I did some reading and the ones who get their account frozen is from someone on Ebay using a stolen credit card number to buy your product. That doesn't seem fair, but there must be some reason behind it? I rarely sell on EBay and have never had anyone use stolen info to buy from me because I don't take blind sales by someone pushing a button on the internet. Everyone I sell to can only buy once they contact me personally and tell me what they want to buy. So thats a real good way to use Paypal safely as possible. I wouldn't blindly sign up for that Bancard site as I found someone who got screwed over bad by that company as well. If you're looking for an alternative, make sure you google around for "scam" reports about any company wanting access to your money. When I had my card number stolen I looked hard at other companies to use and I think Bidpay or some name like came up and seemed legitimate. Jason I hope you will call them and try to get an American paypal rep to talk to instead of one of the offshore phone techs. Let us know what happens if you will. I don't even use a bank anymore, just paypal, so what you're going through scares me. I can't live for 3 weeks without access to my funds and I use the Paypal Mastercard debit card every single day at the grocery store.....

[the great waldo]

I have had a merchant account from way back- back before paypal was even around and back far enough you had to hire a company to set up your shopping cart which actually all they did was tell you the html code to use and you had to do it yourself. Even the banks didnt know how to do electronic deposits from a shopping cart- it was a mess. I had to pay a few grand to get the account and i had to show that I actually had a buisness and show sales records and credti reports- it was a big deal to get a merchant account back then.
So paypal comes along and makes it so anyone can take credit cards- great for the small upstart that has no track record, pretty soon everyones asking if I take paypal which i have resisted all this time.
Why? The fees are much higher and its a cluster $%$^ to get your money sometimes.
I just sold a book on ebay and paypal says- "we are putting a hold on your money for up to 21 days. during the hold you will not be able to access the funds, after 21 days if the buyer has not reported a problem we will release the funds"
I have a spotless buying and selling record- why would they do this?
Anyone had problems with paypal before?
I found several sites about the evils of paypal like this PayPal - Horror Stories, Lawsuits, PayPal Problems & Information - PayPal Account
and this Paypal Problems, Information, Issues, Class Action Lawsuits - PayPal
and PayPal Alternative - Pay Pal Lawsuits, PayPal Complaints & Fraud
and Consumer Alert: PayPal's Problems
and TemplateMonster Battles Paypal Problems - Hosting Articles

i have heard of thier security measures being hacked through- for a shopping cart we had to hire a place to take care of hundreds of security threats that the credit card companies test your site for- it was really expensive and its only been in the last few years the card companies started doiing this testing to the merchants- its so new and complicated- it was a huge worry when it happened.
I am pissed- this is BS, apparently they can screw with you at any time for no reason. I wont be using them anymore thats for sure.
Bunch of )*(

Hi Jason

I had the same problem with a customer that was trying to buy a guitar from me, they stopped his payment completly although they had previously notified me that payment had gone through, then they told me that they were holding the payment until the payee had emailed them authorizing the payment again, although they did not inform him of this, I had to let him know about their cockup, at no point had the payee or I done anything wrong in the transaction, and then they had the nerve to send me an email asking what I thought of their service. Needless to say I told them what I thought of their service F******ing useless. I resolved the payment with a standard bank transfer using bic/swift and Iban numbers which cost 5 euros. In Europe mainland the banking system works very well although the English banking system screws everything up with ludicrous exchange and transfer costs, we brits still have´nt figured out the benfits of the Euro banking system. I look forward to recieving the book and hope all goes well.

Cheers

Andrew

[Possum]

...

I did some looking around at legitimate alternatives to Paypal, basically there aren't any. Paypal's rates are low compared to merchant accounts, then you have to get a DBA which means then you have to get a merchant bank account and a business license. There really isn't a headache free cheap alternative that I've found. In searching for alternatives I found recommendations for business that quickly went out of business and dead links and stories of companies folding and taking customer's money with them. What to do, what to do....

[cryptozoo]

Yikes, I'll share my PayPal story with you all. I sold a fairly hard-to-find pedal on PayPal while I was on tour in Dec. 2007 for $267.55. Got it shipped out w/ Delivery Confirmation to the confirmed PayPal address that I received with the buyer's payment notification. Fast forward to May 2008, almost six full months later, also on tour at this time, and I get a notification from PayPal that I have have a 'chargeback reversal' case. The buyer claims they never got the pedal I sent. No worries, I have a break in a week and with a little luck I'll be able to dig out the Delivery Confirmation slip and reciept, scan it and e-mail it in time to meet the 10-day deadline that PayPal has set for me to prove my innocence. Unfortunately, PayPal said that anything over $250 required SIGNATURE confirmation, and Delivery Confirmation simply wasn't good enough proof. So they yanked $267.55 out of my account. I didn't actually have the full amount in there, so I went negative.

Here's the rub -- with a little help from some forum pals, I was able to locate the pedal. It was being sold in listings on both Craigslist and Harmony Central by the same guy who filed the dispute and claimed he never got it. I screenshotted everything, sent it to PayPal -- "sorry, nothing we can do." I'm ad-libbing here, because all corresspondence I got from them seemed to be auto-response e-mails. So I e-mailed the crook and pretended to be interested in buying the pedal. Asked some questions about it, told him I was local (he was in AZ) and that I'd be interested in just meeting him and paying him cash if he'd send me his phone number. From that and a few other posts and clues, I was able to find out a lot of information about the guy, enough to open a case with the local AZ cops. Or so I thought. Nope, they don't f**k with internet crimes over transactions. I'd have to file a case with a different organization, and they'd investigate it. So I did. 2010, and I've never heard back from them. I had this crook's name, address, phone number -- hell, I even had his father's address. But no one would do anything about it, LEAST of all PayPal.

So I guess the moral of the story is E-bay / PayPal sucks, and you've got to read every eetsy-bitsy fine-print word in their TOS and follow it to a "T" as a seller. They're set up to side with the buyer in most cases. But there's no other game in town. They control the market in what they do, and they know it. They can freeze your account for months at a time and provide you with NO REASON for doing so. During that time they'll do an 'investigation' at their leisure, and they won't open your account again until they've finished. I know of people who've had THOUSANDS frozen by PayPal. This is why it's always a good policy to never let money sit in your PayPal account, transfer it ASAP.

[Possum]

....

Thats probably the best advice, transfer it out. I always send pickups signature confirmation. If you don't the driver for whatever mail service you can check it off as delivered and take it home himself. Thats one reason I don't use UPS anymore...

[Chris Klein]

I have had a merchant account from way back- back before paypal was even around and back far enough you had to hire a company to set up your shopping cart which actually all they did was tell you the html code to use and you had to do it yourself. Even the banks didnt know how to do electronic deposits from a shopping cart- it was a mess. I had to pay a few grand to get the account and i had to show that I actually had a buisness and show sales records and credti reports- it was a big deal to get a merchant account back then.
So paypal comes along and makes it so anyone can take credit cards- great for the small upstart that has no track record, pretty soon everyones asking if I take paypal which i have resisted all this time.
Why? The fees are much higher and its a cluster $%$^ to get your money sometimes.
I just sold a book on ebay and paypal says- "we are putting a hold on your money for up to 21 days. during the hold you will not be able to access the funds, after 21 days if the buyer has not reported a problem we will release the funds"
I have a spotless buying and selling record- why would they do this?
Anyone had problems with paypal before?
I found several sites about the evils of paypal like this PayPal - Horror Stories, Lawsuits, PayPal Problems & Information - PayPal Account
and this Paypal Problems, Information, Issues, Class Action Lawsuits - PayPal
and PayPal Alternative - Pay Pal Lawsuits, PayPal Complaints & Fraud
and Consumer Alert: PayPal's Problems
and TemplateMonster Battles Paypal Problems - Hosting Articles

i have heard of thier security measures being hacked through- for a shopping cart we had to hire a place to take care of hundreds of security threats that the credit card companies test your site for- it was really expensive and its only been in the last few years the card companies started doiing this testing to the merchants- its so new and complicated- it was a huge worry when it happened.
I am pissed- this is BS, apparently they can screw with you at any time for no reason. I wont be using them anymore thats for sure.
Bunch of )*(

The amount of activity, amount of $$ in your balance, amount that you sell may inhibit how PayPal runs your account. I sell pickups on eBay that didn't come out to spec and they never hold any of my funds. I have a friend in NC that sold some items and they put a 10 day hold or something like that, he doesn't really sell much either. I can only make an association with this.


Possum - Merchant processing is the only way to go. 2.08% is my rate, $19/month, International rates are only about 0.5% higher. Business checking accounts are free, no strings attached. Paypal is also very good for winders who are only selling a few thousand $$$ a month. If you are pulling $3k or more you are just throwing money away.

Jason - I get players who request to pay with PayPal. Put a disclosure on your website, I charge 4% more to cover the higher cost of fees. Say you want to charge them 6%, or just a flat $20. If you are going out of your way to accommodate them then make it worth your time. I find that International customers prefer to use PayPal for the protection. International customers can not dispute a transaction with you if you ship the product, however PayPal in most countries protect & cover the shipping of the product. If it arrives damaged or not at all they can still get a refund of the money and it's not a ding on your account. Pros v Cons. Bottom line, make it worth your time.

* I have nothing against PayPal, it's very useful and powerful, and I still have one, I just don't run 100% of my transactions through it.

[automan]

Paypal sucks so much. I know many MANY people that have had major issues with them.

I use google checkout on the website and a cc terminal in the shop. Once in a while someone ass me about paypal, but I just refer them to my current payment options. If you can't get it done with Cash, Check, Visa, Mastercard, or Google Checkout....

[David Schwab]

I just sold a book on ebay and paypal says- "we are putting a hold on your money for up to 21 days. during the hold you will not be able to access the funds, after 21 days if the buyer has not reported a problem we will release the funds"

I got this notice, but they never put a hold on any of my money, and then they removed that and sent me an email saying the hold was removed a week or so later.

I think it's something they are doing for eBay.

[jason lollar]

i will see if I have time to call them today and i will let you know what happens- I do have a merchant account- I have had one since around 1995 and in the last few years we went through a service NAMM provides which has save a sitload of money in fees- of course I have a business license though - and with the amount of work i do using paypal is just not an option for that but when I make a personal sale on ebay- which is very rare -I have used paypal. I have people ask if we take paypal at lollar guitars and we dont but I have never had someone not order something- they just get out a credit card.
We did check into using paypal but the fees were alot higher than what we pay on a mastercard or visa sale. I do know overseas people ask about paypal almost every time- I thought it was because the currency exchange fees were alot less.
If someone got ahold of your credit card info through paypal they must not have to adhere to the security protocols you have to have for a merchant account- its insane, when we got tested there were pages and pages of things we had to fix on the server.