posted on January 4, 2002 10:19:45 PM new
Paypal Wall of Shame
Unedited Horror Stories from People Like You
From: Justin Clark (12/24/01) <http://www.paypalwarning.com/images/smallnew.gif>
I setup my website to use paypal as payment for custom software on my website, mydesktophelp.com with my existing verified paypal account that I have been using for ebay payments etc for years. The story begins when someone apparently got into someone's paypal account and purchased software from me for $40. The real owner of the account emailed me and said that he never purchased this so I just refunded him the money and everything was fine, no accounts were restricted.
The about a week later I wake up and check my email and learn that I just purchased a video camera for $350.00 and in the notes of the purchase told the seller to ship it to somewhere in Macedonia, Although I am in the US. So i called paypal and told them that I hadn't made the purchase and was told that they would pur my account on restriction for "My Protection" Well because I only had $4.00 in my paypal account the remainder of the $350 was auto drafted out of my checking account. I contacted paypal and told them to reverse the transaction because the money wasnt there. They told me that they couldn't, once it was put into place it couldn't be stopped. I told them that I would not authorize them to remove any money from my account and that I was placing a stop payment on my account so they wouldn't get the money. In the meantime, they had contacted the seller and told him the purchase was fraudulent and returned the money to my paypal account. The stop payment worked on the ACH transfer but when it did, i received an email that said payment was denied, we will be charging your credit card instead. My credit card is my check card drawing on the same checking account, and stop payments don't work for that. I was then told to fill out an affidavit, send them my bank statement and complete a IFCC claim. I did all of this and was told to mail it to them. I mailed all of this to them. A week later they said that they recieved my mailings but it was missing my bank statement. I was a little irritated at this but they said that I could fax my bank statement in because they had my signed affidavit. Again another week later of trying to find out if they had received the fax they said that they had my bank statement but needed me to fill out an affidavit and an IFCC claim. I told them to look back in the notes of my account and they would see that I had already sent that in. A week later they located all of the material and then said that I needed to mail them a police report from my home town. I told them that was useless because there was no way that my hometown police department was going to track some guy down in another country, not to mention the fact that the whole world is looking for Bin Laden, do you really think anyone cares about my measly $350.00. After another couple weeks of them loosing my information etc, I refilled out the IFCC report, completed another affidavit, got an original bank statement mailed to me from the bank, even went to the local PD and filled a report. I packaged all of that up and re-mailed it to them. After another month of waiting they have yet to receive and process my claims. $350.00 is still sitting in my restricted paypal account. Finally I just had to go to the bank and file an affidavit with them stating that i didn't authorize paypal to take the money from my account and filled the email where i stated that multiple times to paypal. About a week later the bank just credited my account with the money that was STOLEN from me and I email paypal and told them to keep the money in my account, I never wanted to hear from them again although I'm sure a representative from my bank will be contacting them soon.
Since telling my story to friends and family I have found at least 1 out of 5 people that say that the same thing has happened to them. Someone needs to shut this company down and bury the owners. This is a great site, I only hope that you are able to get the word out before anyone else is robbed. And I will be linking to you from my website.
posted on January 5, 2002 09:31:36 AM new
Most companies that are losing millions will resort to stealing from its customers. They will do whatever it takes to stay in business.
This party sounds like someone accessed their PayPal account. There is a claims process that the user has to go through (affidavit, police report,etc.) so that a claim can be filed to cover the payment. The process takes approximately 30 days, and it does require providing all of the documentation requested.
These claims are taken very seriously, and an exact procedure has to be followed. As always, there are several tips that a party needs to follow to protect their password:
a) do not share it with anyone
b) do not make it intuitive
c) do not use the same password/email combination you use at another site
d) do not click on links that bring you to a site other than www.paypal.com
e) do not give your PayPal email/password combination to any party--report any sites asking for the information to us immediately
