Bad experience with PayPal - take heed

Howard Wallace

Howard Wallace

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Feb 23, 1999
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I logged onto PayPal from China to send some money to Yangdu for a couple of the Medical Fund sheaths. I immediately got a message that my PayPal account had been restricted due to suspicious activity and I should go to the resolution center to straighten things out. I did so and they had me input my credit card number, a new password, and some security questions. Then there was a notice that they would review the information and take action in a few days.

I did get a note a day or so later that the account restriction was lifted. However, when I again tried to send money to Yangdu I was still locked out. I called PayPal and was informed that the account restriction had been lifted but it might take a few days till my account would work, and to keep trying. She said that there was no way to just turn on my account and the only thing to do was to wait.

I continued to try sending money to Yangdu from my account every few days and was always locked out.

When I returned to the states I tried to send the money to Yangdu again. Still locked out so I called PayPal again. This time I was informed that although my account restriction had been lifted, a lock had been placed preventing me from sending money to Yangdu's e-mail account. I asked them to lift the lock but they said that could not be done and suggested I contact Yangdu and have her provide another e-mail account for me to send the funds to. The PayPal representative did say that I was free to pay other entities through PayPal but that there was just no way I was going to be able to send money to Yangdu's address which I had tried to send money to from China.

I figured I would just take care of that business with a paper check and snail mail, and logged onto e-bay to try to make a purchase from another vendor. I used the buy-it-now option to buy something, and everything worked fine. However, 15 seconds after my purchase I got another e-mail from PayPal saying that my account had been restricted again, and again directing me to the resolution center. There I was instructed to again change my password and input new security questions, however this time when I tried it said I took too long and the page had expired, so try again. I tried again a couple of times, typing fast, but still got the same error message.

At this point, rather than call PayPal for a third time, I decided to Google “PayPal account restriction”. When I did I got page after page of horror stories of people having their accounts locked down and being unable to access their funds for long periods of time. Many of these people had been asked to provide multiple sensitive financial documents like bank statements, credit card statements, etc., and after doing all that told that their accounts would still be in lockdown.

Fortunately I had never linked my PayPal account to my bank account, and I never keep a balance in PayPal so they don’t have any of my money under their lockdown. I’ve already spent enough hours trying to straighten this out. Now I will simply cease doing business through PayPal until such time as they can get their act together. I’ve been using PayPal for a long time and had no idea of such problems. I post this here as a warning to my friends here of the possible hazards of using PayPal, especially if you maintain a balance of funds in your account.
 
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I would be fuming!

Thats beyond unethical.

Maybe I will call them and cancel my account before it happens to me.
 
I wonder if it actually has anything to do with the homeland security restrictions on transferring funds from or to certain countries.

I notice a lot of places that won't take international PayPal payments, perhaps for this reason.
 
Paypal can be real problem sometime,
Welcome back home, Howard and Red flower
 
They have no customer service. Period. I've spent dozens of hours trying to contact and get a response from paypal and nada. They ate almost 500 dollars of my money and blew me off like it was nothing. They can afford to get away with it because they're a monopoly and people need the service.
 
definitely how things should be happening. I have gotten emails "from paypal" that said that I had had restrictions put on my account. Luckily, I realized them as fraudulent emails, and forwarded them to paypal (via there fraud report email thing).

definitely is possible that its some homeland security restrictions. Really couldn't say without hearing some of the other stories.
 
Homeland Security? Sending a few bucks? I doubt this was tens of thousands of dollars he was sending. Any other business would hold the payment, contact the sender, verify the intent, and then release it when everything was clear -- that's how credit cards do it when they see an unusually large transaction from a regular customer.
 
I brought it up because he said he sent it from China.

MOST of the complaints I've read around the net about PP were from those doing international business, especially with payments going to the US.
 
So why doesn't PayPal just make it clear that they don't want overseas business, instead of putting customers at risk of having their money impounded?
 
Paypal is sort of out of control in my opinion. They tell you what you can buy and from whom and if you try to work a way around their rules, they lock your account and reach into you bank account and credit card sometimes and lock those down too pending the result of their "investigation." This is why a lot of folks, like me, have special "Paypal Only" bank accounts that have only what is needed to pay for things and has money transferred to it as needed only. This is the only account they can touch so the majority of my money is safe from their clutches.

Sad thing is whenever someone tries to open a way to pay that is more like the way it should be, no one supports them. The banks even do things to make the new payment system impossible to use which makes the users mad at exactly the wrong people, the new payment people. Where the anger should be directed is towards the banks and clearing houses that are so in cahoots with paypal that they feel the need to obstruct anyone else from trying to oppose them.. Gearpay had an unreasonable amount of trouble with banks whenever it was learned that they would allow payments for firearms and the same is now happening to Gpal, formerly Gunpal.

I have to believe there is a way to oppose this juggernaut but how to do it so far eludes not only me but everyone who has tried.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
So why doesn't PayPal just make it clear that they don't want overseas business, instead of putting customers at risk of having their money impounded?
Click to expand...

Because they are greedy, usurious, ruby-red posterior orifices. :D

warty said:
I have to believe there is a way to oppose this juggernaut but how to do it so far eludes not only me but everyone who has tried.
Click to expand...

You know what? I know a lot of businesses and people in general that are so sick of the banks, clearing houses and PayPal, that either won't accept them (especially PayPal), or offer cash discounts for people using cash instead of plastic (it's illegal to charge more to credit card users, but legal to offer cash discounts.).

So, if you want to scr** the credit card companies and banks, use cash. If ordering off the net or you just want to scr** PayPal, use Postal Money Orders.

I have a feeling that the more out of control things get, the more people will simply use cash and money orders.



For the record, to Yangdu or anyone I buy from, I'm perfectly willing to use Postal Money orders rather than PayPal. For those buying from me, I prefer Postal Money Orders, as I don't have to eat the PayPal fees (I don't punish buyers like some do for using PP by charging them more -- and in fact, that's a violation of the PP terms of service).
 
A while back I got a thing that said I had reached my Paypal sending limit and that in order to keep using paypal I had to become verified which as I understand it is you have to give them your bank account info.

Considering I had made hundreds of purchases via Paypal the idea that I had to somehow give them access to my bank account # in addition to the credit card which I had already done to sign up was unacceptable.

Later on I noticed a paypal payment from my account and I didn't understand if I had reached my sending limit and could not send money without giving them my bank account number how it was that money could be taken.

I contacted paypal and apparently I had paid for a service and unknowingly had allowed them to automatically bill my paypal account.

I got the auto billing thing shut off and haven't used Paypal since.

It really galled me that I couldn't send money anymore because despite being a good customer and making money off me I wouldn't give them any more of my personal info. It ESPECIALLY galled me that "I" wasn't allowed to send money but they were more than happy to let a fellow business take money from my account.:mad:

Anyway really they lost out and aren't making money off of me anymore. The only bad thing is since DEAL OF THE DAY is now paypal only I can't play:(
 
Hollowdweller, check that last statement with Yangdu, its more of a notification issue than a paypal issue. I continue to pay cash and have never used Paypal for HI Khuks. Which reminds me I need another Bilton:D
 
I stopped using paypal last year. Horrible company. First it wanted my bank account information, but before I gave it to paypal it charged my credit card for orders I never made. After two months of fighting with them and my credit card company, my credit card company ate it. Months later, some scam artist used paypal to place two different fraudulent adds in auto trader with the information I provided to paypal. I had the get the state police computer crimes unit involved in that one. In both instances, the customer service at paypal was substandard. Horrible company.
 
Howard Wallace said:
I logged onto PayPal from China to send some money to Yangdu for a couple of the Medical Fund sheaths. I immediately got a message that my PayPal account had been restricted due to suspicious activity and I should go to the resolution center to straighten things out. I did so and they had me input my credit card number, a new password, and some security questions. Then there was a notice that they would review the information and take action in a few days.

I did get a note a day or so later that the account restriction was lifted. However, when I again tried to send money to Yangdu I was still locked out. I called PayPal and was informed that the account restriction had been lifted but it might take a few days till my account would work, and to keep trying. She said that there was no way to just turn on my account and the only thing to do was to wait.

I continued to try sending money to Yangdu from my account every few days and was always locked out.

When I returned to the states I tried to send the money to Yangdu again. Still locked out so I called PayPal again. This time I was informed that although my account restriction had been lifted, a lock had been placed preventing me from sending money to Yangdu's e-mail account. I asked them to lift the lock but they said that could not be done and suggested I contact Yangdu and have her provide another e-mail account for me to send the funds to. The PayPal representative did say that I was free to pay other entities through PayPal but that there was just no way I was going to be able to send money to Yangdu's address which I had tried to send money to from China.

I figured I would just take care of that business with a paper check and snail mail, and logged onto e-bay to try to make a purchase from another vendor. I used the buy-it-now option to buy something, and everything worked fine. However, 15 seconds after my purchase I got another e-mail from PayPal saying that my account had been restricted again, and again directing me to the resolution center. There I was instructed to again change my password and input new security questions, however this time when I tried it said I took too long and the page had expired, so try again. I tried again a couple of times, typing fast, but still got the same error message.

At this point, rather than call PayPal for a third time, I decided to Google “PayPal account restriction”. When I did I got page after page of horror stories of people having their accounts locked down and being unable to access their funds for long periods of time. Many of these people had been asked to provide multiple sensitive financial documents like bank statements, credit card statements, etc., and after doing all that told that their accounts would still be in lockdown.

Fortunately I had never linked my PayPal account to my bank account, and I never keep a balance in PayPal so they don’t have any of my money under their lockdown. I’ve already spent enough hours trying to straighten this out. Now I will simply cease doing business through PayPal until such time as they can get their act together. I’ve been using PayPal for a long time and had no idea of such problems. I post this here as a warning to my friends here of the possible hazards of using PayPal, especially if you maintain a balance of funds in your account.
Click to expand...

You need to sign up with the revolution money exchange. They are a bank out of Jacksonville fl. to send or receive money through them is free
 
PayetteRucker said:
They have no customer service. Period. I've spent dozens of hours trying to contact and get a response from paypal and nada. They ate almost 500 dollars of my money and blew me off like it was nothing. They can afford to get away with it because they're a monopoly and people need the service.
Click to expand...

no they dont just try the revolution money exchange. there is no fees to send or receve money. they are a usa bank
 
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