As you may have noticed with your PayPal account, the terms of use do not change on a regular basis. The notification is placed on the web site with a last modified date(forum suggestion) and in outgoing emails.
Our terms of use are quite clear on transactions and what will happen in the event of a dispute---as well as the liability for charge backs,etc.Charge backs, fraudulent in nature or customer initiated, can take several months to get notice to us at times. These charge backs are reported by the credit card companies and we begin processing them upon receipt. Buyer claims are processed when they are reported by the individual user and specific information is needed before the claim is filed (you were the one asking for Buyer and Seller Protection the loudest, when most payment services do not offer any protection to the transactions).)
The details on many of the cases you bring forward are lacking important items---the account notes and actual access to information presented by the buyer and the seller in the event of a dispute. The cases you often bring forward are your personal intrepretations of what you seem to think the issue is. A reporter, which you are not, would ask us these questions before accusing us of wrongdoing.
There are some risks of interpretation in the forums by my posting here. I understand that risk and I accept it--- I would be more fearful of any company that does not take customer concerns seriously and that is not proactive in gathering feedback from the people utilizing that service (It also places a fair amount of pressure on me, perhaps more so than an inbound envirornment, because anything I do can be viewed by hundreds of people at the same time
and my job is basically on display for anyone in the company---not just my supervisor). Despite these challenges, and the problems that they could present, I do try my best not to take anything personally (which can happen at times).
I keep pointing to many of the changes in our service because that feedback came from our users (many directly from the forums) on what we could do better at and what users would like to see us develop.Debit cards, transaction logs, dividends on balances in the account---all of these items were developed because of customer feedback.
posted on May 7, 2001 06:31:17 AM new
>>As you may have noticed with your PayPal account, the terms of use do not change on a regular basis. The notification is placed on the web site with a last modified date(forum suggestion) and in outgoing emails. <<
The terms changed many times when you first started out and there were days when it changed several times in one day. Now it has been a while since that happened, but the fact is that it did happen. Your cheerleaders have asked why C2it doesn't post blanket protection policies like Paypal and I have answered maybe because, being a real bank with real regulations, they don't have the luxury of changing their TOS on a whim.
>>Our terms of use are quite clear on transactions and what will happen in the event of a dispute<<
If your terms are so clear, why are there so many questions about them? Why can you call your own CS people and get different answers? Why does your site (and YOUR OWN POST on OTWA) state that Paypal will not get involved in merchandise quality issues and yet we have several posts where you DID get involved in merchandise quality issues?
>>you were the one asking for Buyer and Seller Protection the loudest, when most payment services do not offer any protection to the transactions<<
What Paypal gave and what we asked for are not quite the same. We wanted something where the seller is not automatically penalized when the buyer whines. Paypal allows a buyer to make an unsubstantiated complaint against a seller with great rating and PP will jump right in and freeze the funds. Then they make the seller jump through hoops for weeks in order to get them back. This is WORSE than a merchant account.
>>The details on many of the cases you bring forward are lacking important items---the account notes and actual access to information presented by the buyer and the seller in the event of a dispute. The cases you often bring forward are your personal intrepretations of what you seem to think the issue is. <<
I believe that in most cases there is enough information for the reader to make a judgement.
>>A reporter, which you are not, would ask us these questions before accusing us of wrongdoing.<<
I have asked you to explain but you keep answering "no comment." I don't think you have to be a reporter (which I never claim to be) to realize that "no comment" means "we have no explanation for our screw up."
>>I keep pointing to many of the changes in our service because that feedback came from our users (many directly from the forums) on what we could do better at and what users would like to see us develop.Debit cards, transaction logs, dividends on balances in the account---all of these items were developed because of customer feedback.<<
But what about the main issue, the one that we were promised MONTHS AGO, that the person with authority to look into restricted accounts and fund freezes would get a telephone? How many years is that going to take? You keep trying to pretent that Paypal's problems, including their bad ratings with the BBB, are all due to customer errors. Why aren't these "customer errors" happening at the other services?
You have yet to answer these questions:
Why does Paypal's TOU state that you don't get involved in quality issues and then you do?
Why can't someone with a restricted account or frozen transaction speak to anyone with the authority to actually deal with the problem?
Why does it seem that the only way to get an action from Paypal is to complain to the BBB or post here?
posted on May 7, 2001 07:46:19 AM new
Yisgood, if you're claiming that this thread involves a story with enough information to make a judgement, you are mistaken.
If you're making reference to some other story, let's see the reference.
The subject of this thread has continued to decline to provide the rest of the story. We're left to wonder why.
Was he accessing the account primarily from Indonesia?
Was he transferring money TO accounts which were shown fraudulent?
Did he deliberatly act strangely, intending to get locked up in furtherance with his stated goal of joining a lawsuit against Paypal? Is his income historically been primarily from lawsuits, and this is a new setup?
Or something else which may or may not be itself wrong, but which creates a cloud of suspicion which is the rest of the story.
posted on May 7, 2001 08:05:04 AM new
Roofguy" are you deliberately being obtuse? If you have questions, you can email the guy yourself. He has posted his email here to show he is not some annonymous complainer. He states that 1) he uses his account for buying, not selling. 2) he pays with cash from his bank account, not even a credit card 3) paypal restricted his account without explaining why 4) he has called and emailed repeatedly and has yet to get an answer. It is not the user's job to explain what happened, it is Paypal's job to explain why THEY chose to restrict this account. And while they're at it, they can also explain why the guy who has the authority to correct this can not be reached and doesnt return calls.
How difficult is it for Damon to say "there is a problem with the account that we are working on" or "this was a mistake and we appologize"? But it is easier to avoid the issue, be mysterious, blame the poster, claim that anyone with a problem is a thief (by the way, you still havent explained how someone with 576 positives and zero negatives is a thief).
I also want to know why, if this is not a Paypal problem, we don't see the same problems with any of the other services.
posted on May 7, 2001 08:24:31 AM new
Take your pick:
1.Paypal locked an account for no reason.
2.Paypal locked an account for some
reason, but the accountholder can't
even think of any reason to tell us.
3.Paypal locked an account for some
reason, and the accountholder knows full
well what attracted attention to the
account, but is declining to explain.
I (and most readers) believe 3, because 1 or 2 seem very unlikely.
What I read here comes down to "even if it is 3, we have no proof, so we must assume 2". Once we assume 2, we can complain about Paypal not explaining. Now that's obtuse.
posted on May 7, 2001 09:29:11 AM new
>>I (and most readers) believe 3, because 1 or 2 seem very unlikely.<<
Then I'm glad the BBB isn't included in your category of "most readers." How do you know what "most readers" believe?
And no one has yet explained why it is only paypal that seems to have stupid or crooked users. Where are all the similar complaints with the other services?
posted on May 7, 2001 12:32:06 PM new
Yisgood, is there documentation that PayPal tells people that an individual in their company does "not have a phone."
I believe you, but I just think such an absurd claim by PayPal should be posted somewhere if there is documentation. If someone calls, is this what they are told? Can you make a tape of this?
posted on May 7, 2001 12:56:41 PM new
>>Yisgood, is there documentation that PayPal tells people that an individual in their company does "not have a phone." <<
For documentation I can offer the following:
1) at least 50 people have posted this on AW and OTWA, that when they call Paypal to question their restricted account or frozen funds, they are told that the person who makes the decision is in another building an doesn't have a phone
2) I have asked repeatedly why the guy in charge of charge backs and restrictions doesn't have a phone. Damon repeats that they are "working on it." I take this as an admission by their rep that this is indeed the case.
3) If anyone wants to argue the point, all they have to do is post the phone number for the department that handles charge backs (not the number for the trainee CS people who say there is nothing they can do) so that all the folks who are being told there is no phone will have someone to call.
posted on May 7, 2001 01:14:35 PM new
As I said, I believe you. My point was that obviously the person has a phone. If PayPal tells customers an employee "does not have a phone" that is pretty indicative of the regard they have for their users.
If you had a tape of this and posted a link it would go a long way in showcasing the way PayPal handles its customers.
Damon, does PayPal actually tell people an employee who investigates account problems does not have a phone? Obviously, a phone would be needed to do that job and it would be unbelievably specious and rude to tell someone that.
posted on May 7, 2001 01:40:34 PM new
That is not true. They could do it all by us mail or smoke signals. Why do you think it takes 60, 90, 120 days or never to get problems resolved.
posted on May 7, 2001 01:42:10 PM new
Yisgood, near as we can tell, you know of exactly one locked account at the moment which isn't perfectly well explained.
The phone number story is part common sense and part old news. The old news was Paypal's rapid growth overshot their ability to answer the phone in the past. The common sense is that NO company allows the public to decide who to call regarding some issue. That's a company decision. Sometimes the company decides to offer a name and number, sometimes they don't.
We could check back to see that Yisgood himself has reported many phone calls to Paypal. However, this doesn't prevent yet another phoney challenge: Yisgood proposes a "test": a person having no business with Paypal could call Yahoo and ask for some functionality, and when turned down, such would be presented here as some Paypal failure.
Again, if you have no business with Paypal, it would be EXPECTED that such a request would be reacted to somwhat curtly.
posted on May 7, 2001 02:29:00 PM new
The issue is they allegedly tell people the person "does not have a phone" instead of truthfully indicating PayPal will not allow you to speak to the person(s).
Roofguy, I find Yisgood's postings quite detailed and even more thorough when I went to his site. I just don't see any basis for your criticism.
posted on May 7, 2001 02:59:30 PM newThe issue is they allegedly tell people the person "does not have a phone" instead of truthfully indicating PayPal will not allow you to speak to the person(s).
When this has become the hot issue of the day, I think we can declare Paypal's success complete.
I WISH I could claim that Paypal has no problems worse than this one. Soon.
[ edited by roofguy on May 7, 2001 03:00 PM ]
posted on May 8, 2001 08:06:26 AM new
Have you ever served on a jury? I once had a case where someone was charged with multiple
muggings. His victims identified him. His attorney could not shake them. He put on no
defense. Then in the jury room, some of the jurors said, "Remember the judge said that just because he put on no defense does not allow us to declare him guilty. So we have to acquit."
I and other jurors kept reminding them that this is NOT what the judge said. What he said was that if there was insufficient evidence, the fact that he put on no defense should not be held against him. Once there were believable witnesses, he HAS to put on a defense or we HAVE to believe the witnesses.
A few jurors began coming up with elaborate scenarios ala Perry Mason, trying to come up
with an explanation that fit the facts without leading to the defendant's guilt. At that point, the rest of us protested that he had a defense attorney and it was not the jury's job to come up with a defense. Our only decision was: do we believe that ALL the witnesses are lying or do we accept that at least SOME of them are telling the truth, in which case, he was guilty. I think these jurors just couldn't conceive of a situation where a person was so guilty that he didn't even bother to respond to the charges.
We did find him guilty. Afterward we met with the attorneys and discovered that there were many more witnesses who were afraid to come forward and two witnesses who had been murdered before the trial. The crimes with which he was charged were just the tip of the iceberg. He was sentence to 12 years, much too harsh for simple mugging. The judge took into account the other crimes he had committed, for which he could not be tried.
Here we have many, many people claiming that Paypal screwed them. Every time I pick a case to "feature," the cheerleaders and Damon claim I am only telling one side of the story. So I invite Damon to present the other side and he is either uncharacteristically silent or says "I am not allowed to comment." Some of the cheerleaders just can't conceive that Paypal can be so guilty, that they have no explanation. So these cheerleaders dream up "explanations." "Anyone who has a problem with Paypal must be a thief." "The user probably accepted a payment from Indonesia."
Paypal has a spokesman. It is not YOUR job to explain their problems. So, in order for Paypal to be innocent, we must believe that ALL the posters are liars. If even SOME of them are telling the truth, then Paypal has a lot to answer for.
Again, the complaints are only the tip of the iceberg. For every poster who has found
Auctionwatch, there are at least a dozen others who don't know it exists.
The Wall Street Journal was uncomplimentary. So was Salon Magazine. So was Bankrate. The
Better Business Bureau gave them a bad rating months ago. Paypal promised to fix it. Months later, it has not changed. Incidentally, the BBB is funded through money they charge companies to get listed with them. By refusing the give Paypal a good rating, they are LOSING MONEY. So I have yet to hear an explanation for what "agenda" the BBB has to
deliberately lose money just to give Paypal a bad rating.
posted on May 8, 2001 08:11:46 AM new
I don't assume the best or the worst. I simply claim that accountholders who get their entire account locked know why it got locked, and when they leave that part out of the story, we're entitled to assume that they did so deliberately.
The alternatives defy common sense.
Does ANYONE belive that Paypal locks random accounts for no reason? I didn't think so. Now apply that common sense to this thread.
posted on May 8, 2001 08:15:13 AM new
Yisgood, if you know of a single recent case where all of the facts are known, and it demonstrates that Paypal locks entire accounts for no reason or capriciously, let's see it.
posted on May 8, 2001 08:28:36 AM new
roofguy: Do you know of a single case where many, many people accuse someone of a crime and the accused doesn't even bother to respond and yet is innocent? I bet you can't find a single case.
posted on May 8, 2001 08:37:29 AM new
Thousands of people claim to have seen men from outer space. They'll tell you all the details.
More to the point, when posters do come here, we find some patterns.
1. The complainer is mistaken.
This has been the case with the vast majority of recent claims of "locked account". The account wasn't locked at all. Rather, a transaction is in dispute, and the amount of that transaction has been held.
2. The complainer has left out an important part of the story.
Accounts which are accessed from some parts of the world are highly suspicious. Getting one's account locked but not reporting such a fact in a complaint seems par for this course.
3. The complainer is telling a story from long ago.
Paypal did for a time find itself confronted by a lot of thievery, and with limited resources to battle back, they reacted by locking accounts with a hair trigger. This was necessary at the time, but is no longer the case, so such stories are irrelevant to today's discussion.
(Such stories form the basis of the various hit pieces commonly referenced by Yisgood. Hit pieces sell.)
posted on May 8, 2001 08:48:51 AM new
We have seen three posts here in the past few days. They were all current. They were all from users with very high feedback. Within a few days of my posting them, all three problems were solved. This indicates to me that:
-the posters are not thieves. (by the way roofguy, what does your feedback look like? Do YOU have 576 postives and no negatives? If there were a rating system for payment services, how many negatives do you think Paypal would get?)
-the posters were telling the truth. THEY did nothing wrong and the problem was with Paypal.
It takes twisted logic to compare these posters to folks claiming to see little green men. These posters had PROOF of what happened and the end result further PROVES their claim.
The only one we have yet to hear from is Paypal. They have yet to explain why it happened in the first place.
posted on May 8, 2001 09:11:13 AM newMore to the point, when posters do come here, we find some patterns.
Roofguy, you've only been on these forums a few weeks and perhaps as you see more postings you will see the pattern that many of us observe.
As far as why PayPal would act capriciously or randomly, I'm not sure that's quite the way to put it. They are trying to make money and are an unregulated company. Customer service is not priority and, IMHO, it will not significantly improve until person-to-person payments are regulated.
As for the eBay user complaints, [PayPal spokesperson] Sollitto said the company reads them, but takes them with a grain of salt, believing many of the complaints to come from a vocal minority of squeaky wheels. - MSNBC, Don’t Bank On E-payments Yet
posted on May 8, 2001 09:40:46 AM new
I'm not sure you've proven your case.
It's rather compelling, for example, that the BBB has rated PayPal with an unsatisfactory rating. I have never known them to act capriciously. They, in fact, go to great lengths to not give a company such a rating, i.e. advising the company of issues to avoid such a rebuke.
How do you explain this in light of your unwillingness to give countenance to any criticisms posted here?
As far as your reply, I believe what I wrote is different than your paraphrase.
posted on May 8, 2001 09:42:36 AM new
It has become obvious that a certain party here has taken the induhvidual course on debating. As it appeared in the Dilbert newsletter, the Induhvidual debating technique involves four steps:
1. Exaggerate your opponent's statement into an absurd absolute.
2. Make an inappropriate analogy.
3. Change the topic to something easier to defend.
4. Claim victory.
For example:
Me: Vegetables are good for you.
Induhvidual: That's ridiculous. If you ate a truckload of vegetables all at once you would die.
Me: No one eats a truckload all at once.
Induhvidual: Let me give you an analogy. If you tried to swim across the ocean, and you didn't know how to swim, and you had no arms or legs, you'd never make it. Surely you can agree with that.
Me: Um...that's different.
Induhvidual: Ha! So now you agree with me that swimming is good exercise!
The worst part is that not only will you be frustrated at your inability to make your point, you will be branded as the person who thinks swimming is bad exercise.
or as in this thread:
Me: Many, many people have posted about Paypal's heavy-handed tactics, account restrictions without explanation, freezing funds and refusing to respond to the customer. The BBB have given them a bad rating. A number of publications have reported these problems. Are they all lying?
Induvidual: Lots of people have seen little green men. Since we can't believe them, we can't believe any newspapers or the BBB.
This leaves me with one question for this induhvidual: Is there anyone other than Paypal who you do believe? (and what exactly do you believe from them, since they haven't even responded?) Do you believe your own words, for example?
posted on May 8, 2001 09:46:52 AM new
Well yisgood, we're still waiting for a single case which illustrates your accusation of locked accounts with no reason.
And we'll likely wait a long time, unless we lose interest first.
Edited to make it clear: Yisgood goes around making accusations about LOCKED ACCOUNTS, and then trots out complaints not involving locked accounts as if they might be relevant.
[ edited by roofguy on May 8, 2001 09:51 AM ]
While you may downplay your signing NDA's with particular companies...I do not. I find it hard for you to offer an unbiased opinion on any payment service given this fact. I don't think that many posters are away of this and you have admitted it publicly.
Your feedback has been valuable in many, many ways. We have actually come through on many of the items you have suggested (while not always in the manner you wanted). The Seller Protection Program was designed with input from you---as was Buyer Protection. Address release on credit cards was also a suggestion of yours. I can name several items that you suggested that we have implemented and you continue to draw attention to customer cases without knowing all of the details on the case (you accused us of restricting an account when the customer only had a pending reversal placed on the transaction, which was an item you suggested).
You recommend services on your web site that you claim you haven't used and you complain about PayPal on a regular basis---even though you have never had an issue with the service.
I think that some users in the forums should use a little more discretion in reading the information that you distribute, as it is often lacking all of the facts in any customer case.
posted on May 8, 2001 10:10:01 AM new
Hello Damon, glad you could finally join us.
Why do you keep bringing up the NDAs? I would sign one with paypal too if they asked. All these services wanted was that I should not reveal any sensitive information they may reveal in speaking with me. I haven't received a dime from any of them, as I have repeated often, so what makes me biased? The only service that has given me anything of financial value is Paypal. I got some t-shirts and quite a few bucks in referral fees back when they paid them. So if I am biased toward anyone, it would be paypal.
Now you asked me to present both sides. I gave you three cases. I am still waiting for your explanation. [email protected] had his very active Paypal account restricted without explanation. He uses it almost entirely for buying, not selling. He uses his bank account, not credit card. His account was restricted after he bought $1300 in goods from a number of folks. The money was taken from his bank account but not sent out to the sellers. So now he has a number of negs for not paying and his reputation has been ruined for reasons paypal won't explain. He spent weeks calling and emailing to find out why. He posted here, you got involved and within days his account is unrestricted, still without explanation or apology.
1) Why was his account restricted?
2) Why did it take weeks to resolve?
3) Why was he asked to fax in driver's license, bank statements, etc and then when he did so, no action took place?
4) Why did it take posting on a public forum and getting you involved to correct what customer service should have done in the first place?
5) Why do we find no such stories about any of the other services?
6) Why does Paypal still have a bad rating with the BBB months after the article came out and Paypal promised it would be fixed?
7) Why do you ignore direct questions and try to redirect attention elsewhere with innuendo against me or answers to different questions, just like defense attorneys of guilty clients do?
You asked me to present the other side. I am still waiting to hear it.
posted on May 8, 2001 11:18:38 AM new
Roofguy, you don’t assume the worst from negative posters about Paypal?
You made a statement that began, “I don't assume the best or the worst. “
Then you go on and say, “I simply claim that accountholders who get their entire account locked know why it got locked, and when they leave that part out of the story, we're entitled to assume that they did so deliberately.”
In one paragraph you begin by stating that I am wrong and finish by demonstrating that I am right. Since you won’t believe anything without documentation, here are a few statements from just this thread:
=================
“We do not know what happened in this story, but we do know it didn't happen as innocently as described. We may never know exactly what happened…”
=================
“The only way a whole account gets locked by Paypal is because there is some valid suspicion of the accountholder being a threat to Paypal.”
=================
“Does anyone think that the holders of locked accounts have no idea as to WHY their account got locked?”
=================
“Was he accessing the account primarily from Indonesia?
Was he transferring money TO accounts which were shown fraudulent?
Did he deliberatly act strangely, intending to get locked up in furtherance with his stated goal of joining a lawsuit against Paypal? Is his income historically been primarily from lawsuits, and this is a new setup?
Or something else which may or may not be itself wrong, but which creates a cloud of suspicion which is the rest of the story.”
=================
“…3.Paypal locked an account for some reason, and the accountholder knows full well what attracted attention to the account, but is declining to explain.
I (and most readers) believe 3….”
=================
You’re probably right. Most of the people posting complaints do know why they had their accounts frozen. Basically we all have a hidden agenda. Any problems with Paypal are old news or due to rapid growth. Besides, Paypal says that they’re working on it. And yes, it is a private company and can set any rules they want. Any article critical of Paypal is either outdated or a slam piece, because that’s what sells. And the Better Business Bureau listens to a bunch of complainers that don’t know how to use the service or haven’t even tried it. I'm sure your only interest is fair play.
