I fucking love paypal at times...

So, I open a new Paypal account from a shared one I had with my boss with our business (Which was about 2 months ago). Sell a laptop for over 1,100, try to transfer it over to my bank account,and I log in today to find out that it was limited under, and I quote: "Sep. 27, 2006: We have observed activity in this account that is unusual or potentially high risk."

FOR FUCKING SAKES, I SOLD A GODDAMN LAPTOP! IT'S EVEN LISTED IN THE PAYMENT FROM THE GUY! Seriously, there isn't even a claim against my account, it's just paypal randomly deciding that transfering money over to my confirmed bank account on a ebay auction with a laptop is suspicious enough for me to confirm a bunch of shit. I didn't even get a email about this, either.

Seriously, who runs this piece of shit?

 

you're a suspected terrorist..... this web page is full of them!

 

you bitch too much.

 

Pot, Kettle, Black, etc.

 

Stories like this are THE major reason i refuse to use paypal. Also its a bitch without creditcard but apart from that i dont like to deposit money to private companies who pretend to be a bank.

 

Tell me about it man, Thats why I never accept that much money through paypal.

I had a guy buy some items from me for about $100. He was in france, and I made the mistake of shipping without a tracking number. No worries I thought, the customs slip is traceable.

However when the guy said he didnt get them I called up the Post office and they did an investigation. They told me that it WAS delivered. So he did a paypal dispute....and WON. WTF! Despite me telling paypal it was delivered and giving them all the required info for tracking it.

All they had to do was call the USPS and give them the number. I told them this countless times until finally I was told that they will not do this, and they will only accept ONLINE tracking. WTF!

Im so disgusted with the company but theres really no alternative to getting money fast and easy with Ebay. I was hoping "G Buy" (googles service) was going to let consumers send each other money but thats not the case sadly.

Unfortunately you arent alone in this. Paypal regularly does this on large payment amounts. Meanwhile, your money is earing them interest in the banks while they do a (sometimes) 75 day investigation.

EDIT:

Good lord, its as if Paypal read this post at this exact moment. Heres my situation now.

I bought a 430$ monitor off techonweb.com. The item arrived, and was defective upon arrival. By this time I said screw it and went out and bought a cheapo monitor locally. Not hearing from the company for 3 days, I open a paypal DISPUTE (not a claim yet). Within the hour I got a return number, and shipped the monitor using DHL.

They got the monitor on the 19th, and my refund should be here in 14 days..(wtf). During this time, I noticed DHL overcharged me 53$ on my package. WTF! So Im currently in a dispute with them ATTEMPTING to get my money back.

Its now day 12, and I still have no refund. So I just escalated the dispute to a claim on paypal and look what I got:

UNBELEIVABLE!!!!!!

To top this all off, Dell owes me 30$ for shipping something back and Im still waiting on that check. Meanwhile I cant afford any of my housing bills thanks to all this because I was counting on that 400 being refunded. ARGHH!!!

 

Can Paypal fuck you when you use a Merchant account? I notice places like Play Asia accept Paypal payments, but do not force you to have trackable shipping. I can't imagine them putting themselves at risk.

 

Yes they can. I had a prick over at NTSC-UK do me out of 30 pounds because he said the item never turned up. That could be bull or true. The fact was that he couldn't prove that it hadn't arrive apart from saying so and all I had to prove that it was posted was a sale receipt that came with my change. F*ing Paypal sided with him. TWATS ! Now I keep my account empty so that they can not take anything out of it.

Yakumo

 

But are you using a merchant account? I know they can do that with normal joe's, but I'm wondering about people who are using Paypal as opposed to a real merchant solution.

 

Ah, mine is a business account if that's the same thing. Japangames must use a merchant account and he's been done by Paypal in the past as well.

Yakumo

 

Well, I was hoping this wouldn't go down to this. Basically, I have one of two options (Note that I have not sent out the laptop yet). I can either:

A.Send it out, Fax out all the info I need to, give the tracking, call up paypal customer support and fight with them about the social security issue (Pain in the ass, I bet. Last time I dealt with paypal on a lower issue, I had to jump through hoops just to get anywhere). All the while risk the buyer giving me negative feedback due to the laptop being a few days late sending out due to the paypal issue, and the possibility of him pulling some crap with saying he never got it (Which is what I am worried about). All the while this takes several weeks to sort out.

OR

B. Tell the buyer to ask for a refund via paypal, I give him the refund, and the high possibility of Negative feedback, then relist the laptop and only request a check or money order.

Keep in mind that I need to pay bills, so I need to do the faster option. The whole point of selling the laptop was to do it quickly, but I see that paypal will make this a long process either way. At this point, I don't mind the negative on ebay compared to the possibilty of a negative AND losing both the money and the laptop if I do the paypal route. At this point, i'm not too trustworthy of Paypal after all the crap that has happened.

 

Mate, you better do B. Do not send that laptop out because you arent gonna see that money for weeks even if you jump through all their hoops. I've seen it thousands of times before. Sorry :\

 

Negative feedback on ebay or get cheated out of your money? Hmmmm.... You decide whats better for you ;-).

 

i ve had shitty situations before. Keep a good communication channel with the guy and I m sure he ll try to understand if he's reasonable. Shit happens, people realize that, no need for negative feedback.

 

I think a "business account" by their definition is someone that sells more than buys. I'm referring to a business, that has a Paypal Shopping Cart setup on their site. I can't imagine that these businesses would put themselves at risk.

 

OK, I just sent this email to my buyer. I have a bad feeling he may leave negative feedback, since he does only have 1 positive and nothing more. Hopefully, he will understand the situation I am in.

"Unfortunatly, I have bad news in general.

I know none of this is your problem, you did pay for it and did it promptly, you pretty much did nothing wrong. However, I have been trying to contact paypal about my account issue, and I have had no luck. The problem is this: the whole purpose of me selling the laptop was to pay off a bill, and then this happened. Even if I did get everything settled with paypal, I would not even see the money for months due to how slow they are.

Unfortunatly, I am afraid I am going to have to offer you a refund on this. There is absolutely no way I can ship it out without the possibility that something may happen with paypal, which would screw me over even more then I am now. I know you have told me you need this laptop, which is why I would rather you get the refund swiftly to make your own decisions with (Trust me, I have lost quite a bit of money on this. I'm going to have to relist the powerbook as it is and do it via a mail service).

This is what you should do to get your refund: send in a claim to paypal about it, and they should send me a message about it. I'll send you your money back via paypal, and you will be free to do whatever with it. I know this has been a struggle for both of us, and you are free to welcome to leave negative feedback if you wish (I will not leave a negative against you, though, since this isn't your fault). I hope you can understand my situation, and I wish you the best of luck in getting a laptop without the hassle I have been going through. I just wish Paypal wouldn't have made this rather large dent in the transaction, because it would have gone smoothly otherwise.

Best of Luck,

-Jason"

 

Unfortunately for you there's no easy way to explain to the buyer why you're backing out. Any reasonable buyer is going to think that you're just looking for an excuse to not sell the laptop (either you got a better offer or you think the bid was too low and want to relist).

Quite honestly, it's not the buyer's fault that you have to spend the time to verify your PayPal account.

And while I hate to play devil's advocate, with PayPal you *always* want to ship via a trackable and insured method. That's the only way to prove delivery and there's no way to prove non-delivery. When it comes down to a case of he said-she said PayPal is going to understandably side with the buyer. It's the same thing with credit card merchant accounts.

-hl718

 

You know whats funny about this whole situation? I just got a reply email, and he apperantly contacted paypal about this. Apperantly, the reason they told him about my account being frozen was that HIS account was a new account, and they thought it was some sort of scam...

Wow...Paypal needs to get their act together. Fortunatly, he said that they would unfreeze it once they verify his address...I hope he is right.

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Paypal is so fucking backwards. It's the only place on the planet where the seller, no matter how honest, is at the mercy of the psycho buyers.

 

This situation just gets better and better....They locked HIS account as well, so he can't get a refund, nor can I give it to him...I'm never using their service again, especially after all this shit.