PayPal: 'Aggressive changes' coming to frozen funds policy
 

http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/21/tech...nds/index.html

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

PayPal's overzealous fraud filters have frustrated customers for years, with an inscrutable verification process that leaves some battling for months to get access to their money.

The eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500)-owned payments processor, like other financial companies, has policies in place to ensure that fraudsters aren't using its system to transfer ill-gotten gains. But PayPal also traps legitimate businesses and charities in its filters, and proving you're no scam involves a ton of paperwork and time.

PayPal says it's finally ready to deal with the problem. It's promising to roll out a massive overhaul of its system within the next several months -- but details are scant for now.

"These are not minor -- these are aggressive changes," said Anuj Nayar, PayPal's senior director of communications. "This is a fundamental shift in our business operations."

Nayar said he can't go into specifics about what will change, but transparency is a major focus. "We want to be clear about how people can get out of the [frozen funds] situation," he said. "We need to get better about helping people, or explaining why actions are being taken."

PayPal customers have complained for years about the Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to pry frozen funds loose.

The company routinely freezes funds for 21 days if it thinks there's a fraud risk, and its terms give it the right to extend the freeze for up to 180 days. To get access to their money, users are often asked asked to provide the kind of documentation that a product seller would have, like several months' worth of sales records. But if you're running a fundraiser or selling tickets to an upcoming conference, you don't have that paperwork.

Even for those with extensive paper trails, the appeals process can take months to resolve. The Web is filled with enraged blog posts, websites like paypalsucks.com, and a Tumblr called "Conferences Burned by PayPal."

Nayar first discussed PayPal's plan for "big changes" in a TechCrunch article posted last week, after science fiction author Jay Lake found his account frozen. Lake, who is battling advanced colon cancer, is raising money for an experimental genome-sequencing process.

Thanks to his own fame and the aid of friends like Neil Gaiman, Lake's fundraising effort went viral. Just five hours after launching his campaign, he had $20,000 in contributions. At about 4 p.m. Pacific time the next day -- January 11, a Friday -- Lake tried to transfer the funds into a bank account. Instead, he received an alert that his PayPal account was frozen.

"They wanted me to provide receipts, shipping information, business paperwork," Lake told CNNMoney. "That obviously didn't apply to me, but there was no way to bypass the process. I called, and they said appeals take 24 to 72 hours to get going. I asked, 'How I do prove I'm not conducting transactions?'"

After Lake fired off a sarcastic tweet at PayPal, his fans and famous friends lobbied for help. His account was restored by 6 p.m., and PayPal tossed in a corporate donation to Lake's fund.

"If it weren't for my small bit of fame, if I were the guy down the street, this could have taken months," Lake said.

That's what happened to Brook Drumm, an entrepreneur who sells 3-D printers. After running a successful Kickstarter campaign, he launched an online store to sell his Printrbot machines. More than $100,000 rolled in.

"PayPal freaked out and froze our funds," Drumm said. "They needed references and bank statements and tax records. This went on for months. And even with all that paperwork, they still ended up holding $50,000. We finally got the money, but it was an untold amount of stress and sleepless nights."

Nayar, the PayPal rep, said the company can't comment on specific cases.

"We've made a commitment to be clearer with consumers on how they can get out of these situations," he said.

For example, the issue that Jay Lake faced -- being asked to mail in receipts and other paperwork that doesn't apply to fundraisers?

"We're fixing a lot of that," Nayar said. "At a minimum, the fact that someone needs to mail in something to an online payments company is a problem. 2013 is going to be the year that we fix a lot of those pain points."

It will take time, he cautioned. PayPal has multiple, complex security systems in place, and all of them need a fresh look.

Ironically, Lake understands better than most what PayPal is up against. As a sideline to his writing, Lake consults with financial institutions about their communications systems -- for example, the automated calls you receive when your credit card may be compromised. He's familiar with the fraud protection process, and he thinks PayPal's has plenty of room for improvement.

"There's a guilty until proven innocent bias to it, and that needs to change," he said.

PayPal can't afford to be complacent much longer. The field that it once monopolized is now full of competition: WePay, Square, Stripe and smartphone-based systems like Google Wallet are only a few of the up-and-coming rivals.

"We are committed to getting back to being the center of our customers' financial lives," PayPal's Nayar pledged. "Big changes are coming."

poopal /inb4 CS

They are going to have to go a long way to prove to me that Paypal won't still suck.

:2 cents:

I have a big ticket product that I sell on Amazon and eBay. Almost all of my eBay buyers use PayPal for payment.

Amazon pays every two weeks, regardless of when the sale takes place. I could have a sale on January 15 and they will process the payout on the scheduled date, which I think would be the 16th. Very fast and easy. PayPal on the other hand puts a three-week-hold on my payouts, despite being a 100% positive seller for two years and selling well over $50,000 in merchandise... drives me absolutely insane and really crushes my cash flow.

I could definitely see a lot of businesses purposely staying away from PayPal due to payout delays.

i'm waiting for spam asking me to check my paypal account...

it's fun talking to business owners.. military peeps who came back and invested their money into, you know, businesses.. have these horror stories of watching those business go down in flames as these paypal and in extension ebay guys 'figure it out'

seems way more of a 'catchall' scam system than a legitimate concern process

make a bunch of money quickly, lose money, lose business, and magically there is someone who 'took ur place'

I remember testing out Google Wallet years ago. What happened to that? It was pefect and a total game changer.

trust me google wallet is even worse. imagine not being paid for a month and the only response you receive is "our tech team is looking into it" on top of the fact that there is no sort of phone support

Paypal can take a 14" dick up the fucking ass, they suck so bad.

My sister has a nice t-shirt operation and was making $15-$20K on ebay per month but the idiocy of ebay and paypal made her look at other avenues. Now her website and etsy easily outsell ebay and she pulled out of ebay.

Seems to me only poor people have issues with PayPal.

Bet you 5$ they fuck it up and make it worse.

fuckyou paypal

Add a few more zeros and that's my bet

Yes, google's phone support is TERRIBLE. The worst I've experienced in all my life. I ordered ONE chromebook, they wouldn't send it and wouldn't put me in contact with the shipping dept. So I ordered a second one, which came and charged back the first one....Needless to say, a month later, another chromebook magically appeared on my front porch with absolutely no prior notice. I haven't even opened the box and won't until my chargeback with my bank is complete. Because if I return the second laptop, it will cause even more MONTHS of bullshit and my money being taken out of my account again. Then I would have to go back to google for a refund.....fuck that shit. They can kiss my ass.

I love paypal... been using since day one, the x.com days. only had minor issues but simple call always cleared things up.

It will take a lot for PayPal to persuade me to give them a good shot - They seem totally unaccountable to anyone and just do what they please.

Also 'Kafkaesque' is my new word of the day.

Your post made me inhale my drink! Curse you, Red Baron!

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Apparently they also have a new verification change,

making all accounts who do 60 transactions submit paperwork akin to Paxum.

Paypal, as is Paxum required by USA law to verify all accounts which generate funds over a certain amount and PP says that amount is $500 per month. If you are legal, you should have no problem with the verification required.

If you have a problem with verification, you are either doing something illegal, trying to hide money or trying to launder money, the two latter of which are dumbass things to try to do through PP.

I'll not address doing something illegal but if you are trying to hide money, I'm on your side but PP is not the way to do it and there are completely legal ways to make most, if not all of your income effectively tax-free. As far as laundering money, you are on your own but I could, if persuaded, tell you a lot about how to do both of these things.

Just give PP what it wants and you will be fine.

:2 cents:

I still have my account since 1999..have had no problems what so ever, still use it almost daily..

tl;dr

Maybe these "aggressive changes" will involve Paypal releasing the many 1,000s of dollars of mine that they've been holding since before EBay bought them out. I won't hold my breath...

PayPal, GloBill, Sypro... Cash Titans... There are more... Hmmm.. Lancelot... Now I am just getting depressed.

This isnt paypal being responsible this is because paypal is losing out big time to things like square

fuck paypal

will have to see it to believe it