Hey ain't the only one this has happened to...
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| Author | Content |
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| thenixedreport Oct 18, 2007 1:06 PM EDT |
Similar situations have happened to other people, which is why I caution anyone who is a vendor online. Be careful, and if you do use PayPal for accepting credit cards, make sure that it is linked to a sole bank account with PayPal as the sole purpose. When you get a payment, send it to the account in question, then move it to another account that they don't have access to. |
| jdixon Oct 18, 2007 2:29 PM EDT |
> When you get a payment, send it to the account in question, then move it to another account that they don't have access to. Well, duh. I'm sorry, but this is standard practice. Anyone who doesn't do it is just asking for problems. I'd go so far as to recommend folks use one such account for all of their automated transfers, for everyone from Pay Pal to their employer, and transfer funds out of it as soon as possible. In addition to outright fraud, legitimate mistakes can happen. You need to make sure they don't make it impossible for you to operate when they do. |
| vainrveenr Oct 18, 2007 4:35 PM EDT |
What really gets to one from that Live Recording is the supervisor's audible claim that eBay and PayPal are two separate companies!
Yet clearly right there on the last line of PayPal's 'About PayPal' page is
Quoting:Located in San Jose, California, PayPal was founded in 1998 and was acquired by eBay in 2002.(from http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/about-outside) Just how stupid does this supervisor expect PayPal's current customers to be??? Although the recent news story 'Phishers ease up on eBay, Paypal but move on to other sites' at http://technology.inquirer.net/infotech/infotech/view_articl... may be somewhat comforting for current PayPal customers, Barron's Online report 'Bidding Up eBay's Price' at http://online.barrons.com/article/SB119265470605762440.html?... shows just how _financially_ reliant eBay is on its PayPal division for sustainable revenue. Should a secure, lower-cost, and more viable competitor to the eBay-PayPal racket arise -- such as perhaps Google Checkout https://checkout.google.com/support/ (?) -- then eBay's board members and the appropriate members of eBay's executive team overseeing PayPal would be more conducive to possibly re-evaluating their division's questionable policies..... such as those claimed here by the thenixedreport. |
| tuxchick Oct 18, 2007 4:41 PM EDT |
That's the problem, right now they're the only game in town, except for Google checkout. Having an ordinary merchant's credit card account with an institution that actually protects its customers is the safest, but it's expensive for small-timers. This is amusing: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m07/i06/s02 "eBay's Safe Payments policy states that a payment service must have a "substantial historical track record of providing safe and reliable financial and/or banking related services." Ahem. Except PayPal. |
| tracyanne Oct 18, 2007 8:00 PM EDT |
I simply refuse to purchase anything that requires Paypal. |
| flufferbeer Oct 18, 2007 9:32 PM EDT |
Like you all, I too have had a bad experience over the last couple of years with PayPal. In retrospect, it would have been much better to take tuxchick's advice first, and if failing this I just HAD to purchase something with PayPal, then afterwards take jdixon's.advice. Unfortunately, you hit some of the current problems surrounding PayPal dead-on vainrveenr and tuxchick. Either/both of you, thenixedreport, and others (me too!) should seriously consider contributing updates to the Criticism section of the widely-read PayPal Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal The no-holds-barred online advocacy group for those like ourselves negatively affected by PayPal, the Screw-PayPal site at http://www.screw-paypal.com/, really ought to also be mentioned within this PayPal Wikipedia as well. 2c here, but burned by Paypal for orders of magnitude greater than 2c :angry: |
| vainrveenr Oct 19, 2007 8:29 AM EDT |
Just to be clear, the eBay-PayPal racket that is causing you all so much grief worked, and still does work like this : 1. eBay was among the first company to successfully start and effectively sell its online auction service with its unique and proprietary feedback system. Pierre Omidyar's eBay AuctionWeb was touted as among the first to use this Feedback system, via "feedback profiles" to greatly enhance trust and confidence on the part of the online buyer toward online sellers. BTW, this proprietary Feedback system is patented, essentially meaning that no other auction site can easily duplicate this trust mechanism. 2. The eBay trusted purchase system has generally worked! Since few other online auction sites could or can effectively compete with eBay's Feedback and Buyer Protection system (thinking of Yahoo's failed auction site as well as several others lesser known), the eBay _BUYER_ could arguably trust this system for online purchases. Note that this feedback system has predominately applied since its inception specifically for the benefit of the eBay _BUYER_ , and not necessarily for the benefit of the seller. AAMOF, sellers have seen their transaction fees and percentage costs paid to eBay continually increase in past years even before eBay acquired PayPal. 3. Enter PayPal three years after Pierre Omidyar's eBay AuctionWeb startup. Now the eBay buyer and seller could more quickly facilitate their online payment system. Trust on the _SELLER'S_ side of eBay transactions could be increased -- sellers could now essentially be guaranteed of payment through this up-front, instead of having to endure deadbeats with bounced personal checks/MO's, stolen/unsecured credit-card info, ... etc. IIRC, soon following this time period a) eBay started expanding its operations to Canada and the UK, and b) PayPal highly touted its services as being predominately designed for the benefit of the Consumer. 4. eBay acquired PayPal in 2002. Beyond just trust for the buyer and the seller, now the eBay-PayPal racket can OWN much of the transaction between the buyer and the seller. Since the 2002 M&A, there are now few online places to go to in order to buy or sell items so effectively auction-style or locally (okay, okay, so maybe Craigslist and some others lesser known). AAMOF, every eBay seller just about HAS to accept a payment account via PayPal, and some such sellers will now ONLY accept PayPal payment and nothing else. Since 2002, eBay has expanded worldwide to countries such as the one in Southeast Asia that thenixedreport reports on here. 5. As thenixedreport and tuxchick so avidly illustrate above, a huge drawback of this eBay-PayPal racket is that eBay and PayPal can change and refine their Terms and Conditions (TOS) and adjust fees exactly as they see fit. Oh, they might term such impending actions as "adjustments" to market conditions, but being unregulated entities, little is preventing the eBay-PayPal racket from actually carrying out such TOS-revisions and increased fees/percentages. These actions are purportedly alleged by eBay-PayPal to increase trust and protect both the buyer _AND_ the seller, but in effect such actions may reduce such trust there being notably absent effective recourse, as thenixedreport has found out. eBay's PayPal is predominantly protecting itself. 6. There is a major point worth emphasizing in the Barron's Online report brought above. Lacking any serious competition in its online business during the impending Holiday Retail Shopping Season, the eBay-PayPal teams could be less apt during this time to limit TOS agreements which could potentially hurt sales volume. As a jdixon "Well, duh'ism", PayPal does not want so many persons to realize the details of their more-limiting consumer service agreements (their TOS), nor do they wish to have negative incidents such as thenixedreport's widely reported in the news. Key factors that Increase revenue for ANY company are a combination of a higher sale's volume, higher costs passed on to the customer, reduced costs of producing the service or item, lowered legal costs ... etc. eBay's sales volume has been currently increasing as expressed in "higher [eBay] listings", and much of eBay's revenue comes from PayPal, as Barron's quotes Quoting:The higher listings led to $51 million of revenue upside, mainly in marketplace revenue and corresponding PayPal revenueBarron's Online thus estimates that the eBay-PayPal racket is currently focusing upon increasing sale's volume ("listings") worldwide rather than hiking up costs to its consumers. This has already all been documented online in areas besides the aforementioned Wikipedia and Screw-PayPal sites. |
| tuxchick Oct 19, 2007 9:19 AM EDT |
I'm surprised that Ebay's ownership of PayPal hasn't attracted the interest of government regulators somewheres- it's so obviously a recipe for abuse. Oh wait, duh, not in the US. What was I thinking. But maybe in civilized countries, but then I guess it's a question of jurisdiction. There are three things I can think of to get the attention of an abusive monopoly: 1. mass customer revolt 2. government intervention 3. some real competition Other than that, about all you can do is keep yourself out of harm's way. |
| usacomputertec Oct 21, 2007 4:45 PM EDT |
I know I have a case here because they admitted on the phone that they didn't expect me to read the agreement, they stated that I'm 100% protected from fraud threw FDIC insurance, and they were negligent in trying to protect me in any way such as trying to retrieve my stolen laptop, or getting me my money back from their government in Indonesia. Countries like Indonesia, Nigeria, and other scam countries should be charged every time that someone in their country is caught scamming someone outside their country. If they decided not to comply then all other countries should shut off their internet access. So what do you think? Small claims court: I get my money back and keep quiet. OR Big time court where I ask for them to admit they made a mistake to everyone, get everyone's money back that has been wrongly charged or deceived, and make sure that people know that Pay Pal is a liability to their business and personal life? |
| NoDough Oct 22, 2007 5:15 AM EDT |
Quoting:Small claims court...Unless you have a few million dollars to throw at this, big time court is out of the question. eBay/PayPal will pull out all the stops to avoid a media event. Also, I don't think you have an open and shut case, but that's just my personal opinion and, as always, IANAL. |
| usacomputertec Oct 22, 2007 12:44 PM EDT |
Thanks NoDough. My question to you is if I could get some lawyers that would defend me and get commission off of the settlement and charge PayPal for their lawyer fees as well would they not want to try for the big time court? Also I don't think I can get lawyers for a small claims case because the only lawyers who will defend me are big time lawyers and they won't make any money off of it unless I give them about 100% of what I get from PayPal and PayPal probably won't end up paying for my lawyer fees in this kind of case any way will they? |
| NoDough Oct 22, 2007 1:25 PM EDT |
I'm venturing off into an arena in which I have a little experience, but not much. So, keep in mind that I may be full of it.Quoting:My question to you is if I could get some lawyers that would defend me and get commission off of the settlement and charge PayPal for their lawyer fees as well would they not want to try for the big time court?The answer, of course, is, "Yes." However, that's an awfully big 'IF'. In order to defend you they are probably going to want a percentage of a large award. It's not likely that they will want to take the case for legal fees chargeable to the defense because that would end up in dispute and then they would have to file yet another suit against the defense to receive their pay. Also, they will want an open-and-shut case because they won't want to risk doing all that work and receiving absolutely nothing for it. Quoting:Also I don't think I can get lawyers for a small claims case...The states that I am familiar with do not allow professional representation in small claims court. YMMV. As always, IANAL. You may want to get dinotrac and/or jdixon to chime in here as they are both imminently more qualified on legal matters. |
| flufferbeer Oct 22, 2007 1:54 PM EDT |
The no-holds-barred online advocacy group for those like ourselves negatively affected by PayPal, is the Screw-PayPal site at http://www.screw-paypal.com
My using the LXer tags with punctuation just after the url may have caused this not to appear correctly before. The appropriate section of the Screw-PayPal site worth perusing before further considering legal action might very well be the Resources: Problems and Complaints section at http://www.screw-paypal.com/resources/resources.html 4c |
| jdixon Oct 22, 2007 4:02 PM EDT |
> You may want to get dinotrac and/or jdixon to chime in here as they are both imminently more qualified on legal matters. Dino is more qualified on legal matters. I am at best a semi-informed layman. In court, nothing I say should be taken seriously without a lawyer's confirmation. Which doesn't keep me from having strong opinions on matters. :) |
| usacomputertec Oct 23, 2007 6:02 PM EDT |
I like screw-paypal.com. It seems they are knowledgeable about the subject. I think the small claims court is the way to go. I need time to gather all my evedence and find a way to properly submit it and supena the BBB for the 5200 complaints against PayPal in the last 3 years. |
| dinotrac Oct 24, 2007 6:14 AM EDT |
> I think the small claims court is the way to go. Speaking as somebody with nearly NO knowledge of this case, I would add the following: 1. The court you go into is determined by the level of damages sought in most (if not all) jurisdictions. Where I live, if the claim is less than $5,000 US, it goes to small claims. There are some asterisks and exceptions, but, by and large, you can safely presume that small claims court is, umm, where you'll take your small claim. 2. One can, of course, pump up the complaint and seek damages sufficient to get out of small claims court, but you'll need some reasonable -- not necessarily correct, but legally defensible -- basis for doing that. 3. Class actions are one way to get out of small claims and to get the attention of a big player -- not to mention attract a high-powered law firm smelling big money. You have to fit the parameters of a class action (I'll bet this would) and there has to be serious money on the other side (Hey! We're talking ebay. I'll bet there's some serious money rolling around). The downside to class actions is that they tend to deliver more psychic gain than real. They take a long time and they make the lawyers rich. The actual victims get a coupon or a discount or some ridiculous token while the lawyers pick out which Pacific island they are going to buy with their cut of the fees. |
| usacomputertec Oct 26, 2007 1:08 PM EDT |
Well I’m getting help and support. I got some nice replys to my posts here http://screw-paypal.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=461#461 and here http://screw-paypal.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=459#459 . |
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