Since Oct 22, I've not been able to receive donations on my site because PayPal arbitrarily restricted access to my account. Now, a full 22 days later, I'm still unable to receive donations -- thank you very much PayPal.
So I decided to simply make a new PayPal account under a different email address and leave it unverified. So the donations page is back up and running. Hopefully someday PayPal will pull their head out of their collective asses and re-activate my usual account (which, btw, has money sitting in it which I have no way to access) so that I can switch back to my usual (verified) account. Until then, at least I'm able to receive people's goodwill (even if there's really no way for me to move it out of the account).
Needless to say, I can understand how someone's frustration level got to the point where leaving an exploding present on their doorstep seemed like an acceptable response to PayPal's thieving. Waiting for over a month with no way to get access to what's rightfully yours and no responses whatsoever to repeated contact attempts is certainly enough to make me grit my teeth. I'm already going to be contacting the BBB, and have half a mind to hire a lawyer to see if I can file a criminal complaint. Anyone else have ideas on how to get PayPal to sit up and take notice? I've already done every step in their obtuse "verification" table -- however, they seemed to blatantly ignore the fax I sent them as the last step in the process.
PayPal really sucks. eSellerate is still a winner in my book.
I haven't had any problems with PayPal. I've heard from several people who have, but they work for me...so far.
http://www.paypalsucks.com/
it took them 45 days to resolve my dispute
Buggers tied up several thousand dollars becsuse they said the credit card co of a client dipstued the charges (which is not true) And they charged me a fee in the process for this
I wanted to order 3 articles on RBLibrary (15 USD) but paypal refused all my cards so I haven't been able to get the article.
Aaron, do you plan to use another provider?
I got this message the following message. Last time i bought something I paid to be verified. (It was in july) What do you think about this?
Arne
/////////////////
This e-mail is the notification of recent innovations taken by PayPal to detect inactive customers and non-functioning mailboxes.
The inactive customers are subject to restriction and removal in the next month. Please confirm your email address and credit card information by logging in to your PayPal account using the following URL:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run
If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choice but to temporarily suspend your account.
If you received this notice and you are not the authorized account holder, please be aware that it is in violation of PayPal policy to represent oneself as another PayPal user. Such action may also be in violation of local, national, and/or international law. PayPal is committed to assist law enforcement with any inquires related to attempts to misappropriate personal information with the intent to commit fraud or theft. Information will be provided at the request of law enforcement agencies to ensure that impersonators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Thank you for your patience as we work together to protect your account.
Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department
PayPal, an eBay Company
Sorry about the first sentence. It was meant to be: I got this message from PayPal.
Arne
I have a feeling that if you have a formal legal complaint filed against them that they'll activate it within a few hours/days and then they'll make up some crap apology about a "misunderstanding". I've read about this happening numerous times on different forums. I think they just try to take advantage of anyone that won't go the extra step - so I'd highly recommend filing something formal...I bet you'll see your account magically come to life (for the time-being). Ridiculous that it has to be like that, absolutely no excuse.
Also...eSellerate does work excellently for me too. Not sure how/if it works for selling anything but direct software, but if they do, it's worth a try. I've never had a problem, and really have been happy with their service and support.
Yeah... PayPal sucks. And they don't have much viable competition, especially for smaller entities (individuals, SMBs, etc) and international markets.
It almost makes it worthwhile to open a PO Box to receive donation cheques/money orders in the mail :P
eSellerate lets you sell anything. I asked.
@Seth -- what about donations? Also, how easy is it for someone to sign up? Do they accept credit card transactions as well?
Arne, anything like a "Please confirm your email address and credit card information by logging in to your PayPal account using the following URL:" is almost certainly a Phishing ATTACK.
@ Andy
I suspected that, but look at the URL address. Can it really be pishing with that url? Anyway I didn’t use the URL. If it’s not pishing I think it’s unfair to not let your customers be inactive for at least 12 month. Why should I have to buy something every month...
Arne
@Arne: It can be pishing if the email you received was in HTML format - HTML format allows you to show an URL on text and have a different URL on the HTML source code. But if it was an email in plain text format, then it seems a correct URL.
Have you considered trying Google Checkout?
Yeah, but unfortunately, that would rule out most of the world as customers as it's limited to US-only residents from what I recall. Until they lift that restriction, there's no way we could go with them.
It took me over a month to get paypal to allow me to make purchases and it was never clear why my account was suspended. It's one thing to suspend an account (there's plenty of nefarious types trying to game the system so I can understand cautiously suspending when something doesn't "smell" right) but it's another not to give any indication why!?!? I mean was my password compromised? Did I make too many purchases in a day? Did I not make enough purchases? Did my CC bounce? They left me in the dark. Evidently it wasn't serious because they eventually fired up my account again (and I promptly purchased some RBlibrary materials).
~joe