Binarywebs
Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 1401
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:07 pm Post subject: [ News ] PayPal - An Increasingly Bad Name in Online Payment |
|
|
PayPal is billed as a safe, secure, easy online payment method. However, the reality looks increasingly different for many PayPal users.
PayPal, and later Skype at some further $4 billion, was purchased by eBay in recent years. The company however is rather hard to contact whenever there is a problem, a similar complaint levelled at Skype by many of its users. PayPal users who have a dispute with PayPal and follow the Email procedure, do not get a reply if the issue is a fault of PayPal and not the merchant or buyer. In fact, on the dispute resolution procedure forms, no such category exists for taking a complaint about service to PayPal itself. The complaint against PayPal even if finally communicated and inadequately responded to in email, remains in a deep dark hole indefinitely, and with no apparent recourse.
The PayPal company now stands accused of freezing accounts, without warning, for the slightest of excuses. The company messages give "fraud" protection as the usual reason for suspensions. For example, once 6,500 Euros of payments have been made through PayPal, even if over a period of several years, an account is automatically blocked and a procedure is announced to unblock it - basically verification of identity to "comply with European money laundering laws".
However, the company, knowing that the limit is approaching, does not allow its merchants to prevent a suspension by supplying this infomation ahead of the limit being reached. Instead the accounts are put into suspension, and a procedure is put in place which involves having to fax documents to PayPal - the problem however, is that the fax number given does not work, and even, the country of the fax number is not given. Users therefore may easily miss the 7 day time limit given to respond, or risk a permanent freezing of their account.
It is also noteworthy and illogical, that this relatively low figure for business, of 6,500 Euros, is an all-time figure. This means that if a business, individual or organisation is using PayPal for part or all of its payment processing, for 10 years and then reaches this amount, the account is suspended. Logic would dictate that money launderers would not use an account to process only an average of 650 Euros a year.
Such behaviour by the company have resulted in much talk of class action lawsuits against the company, and popular websites such as PayPalWarning.com and AboutPayPal.org warn potential PayPal users to avoid the headaches by informing them of the frequent complaints against the company, which allow merchants little or no recourse. Unlike banks, PayPal is apparently not subject to the same rules and regulations that are in place to protect European citizens.
Strange quirks such as charing "shipping charges" for donations, occur because the PayPal system allows merchants to build in automatic shipping charges for purchase of goods, which is a standard practice if the costs of shipping are fixed according to the price of the goods. However, the PayPal system does not ignore shipping charges for donations - as it should - but whacks those on for donations too.
Others allege that the entire PayPal procedure is designed to fraudulently obtain money from large numbers of unsuspecting people. Particular criticism is given to the misleading promise that it is easy to sign up and send and receive money by email. While the sign up procedure is fast, users can then only receive money into their account, but not send it, nor even withdraw it - until and unless a long and strangely laborious process such as faxing identifications and entering pin numbers from a future credit card statement, has been completed.
The level of PayPal spam email from fraudsters around the world has reached what appears to be an all time high. Email inboxes are bombarded by clever emails that look as if they originated with the company, mimicking the style and even using the genuine logos and buttons of the company, however, IP addresses are numeric and lead to false websites that steal the users account details. Only the most expert of Internet users would know to avoid these scams, as the site addresses are correct, but visible only in the source code of the Email, something 99% of email users would not know how to check.
It is probably a good time for a European or Asian online payment company to provide equivalent services to PayPal, at 4% or less commission, and with a lot less hassle for users. Any company launching such a service, based in Europe or Asia, not the United States or United Kingdom which are the traditional havens for fraudulent and poor service companies, would certainly do good business, if they also provide customer service and are easily contactable in case of problems.
We phoned the United States PayPal telephone number and waited 30 minutes before the line was answered, albeit by a helpful customer service representative.
Links on the PayPal website often lead to pages that state that "You have requested an outdated version of PayPal. This error often results from the use of bookmarks", even though they are internal navigational links reached after navigation from the front page of the site, and other links, especially when accounts are in suspension at the behest of PayPal, lead either nowhere or in circles.
PayPal USA finally confirmed that the numbers given on fax cover sheets supplied by PayPal (0821 230 217) are located in France. However, that number was tried and did not work. Anyone having problems with this number we have learnt, could try faxing PayPal in the USA on 1-402-537-5731 or using an alternative fax number in France: 0821 230 228. The US PayPal telephone support number is +1-402-935-7733.
The conclusion has to be that as the PayPal company has no interest to tire and wear down clients, holding small amounts of funds indefinitely, earn a bad reputation and miss out on lucrative commissions, the culprit must be bureaucracy and unqualified staff, perhaps even poor management. For an eBay company with billions of dollars at its disposal, and a website that is smaller than that of the Mathaba News Network, it is not logical to assume that all the programmers and funds at PayPal's disposal cannot result in a better system. If Mathaba can do better, with one full time technician and no budget in comparison to PayPal, there can be no excuse for these types of PayPal users' problems.
A list of several problems with the PayPal system has been sent to the company already three months ago. No response has been received.
Source: http://mathaba.net/news/?x=551018 |
|
