gentlegiant
Contributor
Be very careful in any dealings with PayPal and their parent eBay, especially if you are a merchant. My wife had been using PayPal for several years for merchant processing for her website and on March 25th they decided to lock her account With No Notice. She called in to find out why and it seems that they ahve decided they did not like her website content. When she initially began using Paypal she called the company and spoke to several people about her site and made sure it was OK for her to use PayPal. It now appears that after eBay purchased PayPal they decided to change some rules and policies and to NOT notify anyone of this except in the deep reaches of the PayPal website.
My wife is not the only one to feel this either. There are thousands who have been hit the exact same way. PayPal says that they will release the money in 180 days, but their record on doing this is dismal and most people never see theri money again without legal help.
PayPal is also under investigation by the FTC and several states for their busines and banking practices. The fact that they change policies without notifying anyone, do not offer typical credit card protections and the history of seizing money are all factors in this. There are also several pending class action suits against both eBay (PayPal's parent company) and PayPal.
My wife called PayPal and they told her that if she removed every mention of PayPal from her site that they would allow her to pull out the money and transfer it to a new account. The site was scrubbed Thursday. PayPal would not answer my wife's calls yesterday. We are not talking just a few dollars here either, more like at least 3 zeros before the decimal point. My wife is in her home town dealing with a family medical problem and this was the money she was living off of and using to help her family. PayPal does not care.
I had to cancel a dive trip so I could stay home and try to get a new merchant processor set up on her site to try and get the revenue stream flowing again before the bills are due. I am sure the ScubaBoard owners can attest to how expensive hosting gets when you have a busy site. My wife also runs a message board and she has over 50,000 members with an average of 350 members online at any time. This also means that around $1K of programming to integrate PayPal payments into the site is down the tubes as well.
My advice to anyone using PayPal as a merchant processor is to:
A. Don't leave any excess money in your account.
B. Read all the fine print on their website carefully or have an attorney look at it.
C. Look for another merchant service.
D. Read this website http://www.paypalsucks.com for more information
Sorry for the long rant, but I don't want anyone else getting hurt like we have been. We are talking to a couple of lawyers and they are looking at possible legal actions. PayPal seems to be settling quickly because they do not want publicity.
Hope everyone dives safe.
My wife is not the only one to feel this either. There are thousands who have been hit the exact same way. PayPal says that they will release the money in 180 days, but their record on doing this is dismal and most people never see theri money again without legal help.
PayPal is also under investigation by the FTC and several states for their busines and banking practices. The fact that they change policies without notifying anyone, do not offer typical credit card protections and the history of seizing money are all factors in this. There are also several pending class action suits against both eBay (PayPal's parent company) and PayPal.
My wife called PayPal and they told her that if she removed every mention of PayPal from her site that they would allow her to pull out the money and transfer it to a new account. The site was scrubbed Thursday. PayPal would not answer my wife's calls yesterday. We are not talking just a few dollars here either, more like at least 3 zeros before the decimal point. My wife is in her home town dealing with a family medical problem and this was the money she was living off of and using to help her family. PayPal does not care.
I had to cancel a dive trip so I could stay home and try to get a new merchant processor set up on her site to try and get the revenue stream flowing again before the bills are due. I am sure the ScubaBoard owners can attest to how expensive hosting gets when you have a busy site. My wife also runs a message board and she has over 50,000 members with an average of 350 members online at any time. This also means that around $1K of programming to integrate PayPal payments into the site is down the tubes as well.
My advice to anyone using PayPal as a merchant processor is to:
A. Don't leave any excess money in your account.
B. Read all the fine print on their website carefully or have an attorney look at it.
C. Look for another merchant service.
D. Read this website http://www.paypalsucks.com for more information
Sorry for the long rant, but I don't want anyone else getting hurt like we have been. We are talking to a couple of lawyers and they are looking at possible legal actions. PayPal seems to be settling quickly because they do not want publicity.
Hope everyone dives safe.