PayPal Horror Story
 

After reading about "Ghettopoly" I decided to order one off Ebay. Then I get this letter today. Its hard to tell who is lying, but this much I know - If the guy was a total scammer, why bother to email us with an explanation?



Dear Customers,



It's important that you know what is going on and we apologize that we haven't done a better job of staying in communication. First of all, we want all our customers to know that we had every intention of following through with their order of the Ghettopoly board game. We were overwhelmed with the response and by the time our auctions ended we sold in excess of 3,000 games.



Anyone who sent payment through the mail will be receiving their game. We have just started receiving payments since Tuesday and are making every effort to get your game boxed up and shipped out within 2-3 business days of receiving your payment.



Paypal on October 10th, 2003, placed our account on limited access for "high transaction volume." We have been struggling for the last week to get this matter resolved. Paypal appears to operate above the law and they don't have to abide by any banking regulations. We have provided them with all the documentation they have requested and still our account is on limited access. We have made numerous phone calls and sent numerous emails and still the matter is unresolved. Currently, they have in excess of $75,000 of our customers' money. We haven't seen a dime of that money and Paypal seems intent on "stealing" it. Anyone who purchased the Ghettopoly board game and sent payment through Paypal will not be receiving the game. We apologize but there is no way we can pay for the $20,000+ in postage it would require in order to send everyone their game who paid through Paypal. Furthermore, we would be sending them at a huge financial loss because we haven't received any money. We don



We have filed complaints with the -



· Better Business Bureau

· California State Attorney General

· Nebraska State Attorney General

· Washington State Attorney General

· Federal Trade Commission

· Internet Fraud Complaint Center

· F.B.I.

· The Netchek Commerce Bureau

· National Consumer Complaint Center

· and we sent a certified overnight letter to Matthew J. Bannick, CEO, Paypal, Inc.



This is what you need to do -



· If you paid through Paypal, IMMEDIATELY, request a refund from them.

· File complaints with all the organizations listed above and your own state attorney general and forward them this email. Tell them what we told you

and explain that Paypal appears to operate unregulated.

· We strongly encourage you to take a look at the website listed below

regarding other buyer's and seller's nightmarish experiences with Paypal.

This is not an isolated incident or exaggeration.

· If you are currently using Paypal to send or receive money, we strongly

encourage to you not do so in the future. This was not the first time our

account was placed on limited access. Everyone thinks it won't happen to

them.....just wait, it will. Paypal is not a bank or even a credit card

processor, for that matter. They are a middleman and as such they operate

totally unregulated. We now know it was stupid of us to receive such a

large amount of money through such a company. We are now in the

process of setting up a credit card merchant account with a reputable

company.







Once again, we want to apologize for any inconvenience or disappointment this has caused our customers. If you didn't use Paypal to send payment, you will be receiving your game shortly.



*auntnutsy* (Heather & Chris Dawson)

I still hope it will never happen to me :helpme

loL owned

damn...sounds credible.

Sounds more than credible - unfortunately it sounds very probable.

Thats fucked up.

Their story is true and it happened to me too . Exact same thing . This has been a year and 2 days ago I got an email saying they will wire my money to my bank account

Yeah, I got the same email about the same thing.

I called PayPal and after waiting on hold forever and "talking" to their "support" rep... this is what happens.

Basically, PayPal won't do anything to help you. They are in fact holding the money. They won't give you a refund unless you do this:

Send the seller an email requesting that they then email PayPal at [email protected] requesting that PayPal give you your money back. PayPal says if they get such and email that they will do so.

I've already done this and am waiting for a reply back from the seller. No matter what, PayPal has seriously screwed up. They are holding their money, they can't get their money, but PayPal won't give you the money back without the sellers emailed permission.

PayPal encouraged me several times to file a complaint against the seller. I asked them why I would do that since PayPal is the one holding their money and all they would tell me is that I can do that or email the seller. I opt'd to email the seller for now, as why give the little guy a hard time and screw up their record if they haven't done anything wrong.

Ohh PayPal also told me this, after 180 days the funds will be released to the seller no matter what. So basically in 6 months they are going to get all of their money in their account. I asked them how intelligent that was and they didn't really have much of a reply. Basically I've never had a problem with PayPal in years, but I've now learned they are staffed by drunken monkeys with Downs.

no way i would of kept 75k in a paypal account,

should of start withdrawing from hit

I had my accout frozed before if the buyer disputes the transaction paypal will let you while your account is frozen to refund the person the $$ if its in your paypal account so just dispute the transaction and you should be able to get a refund.

PayPal always does that. And it might take months of hell, if ever to get it opened again - or to even touch the money! www.paypalsucks.com !

jDoG

Get a real merchant (PayQuake) account for less than 100 bucks. No application, statement, or gateway fees! They will have you setup in 2-3 business days.

i got an e-mail like that from paypal too.. i just got $90 in there tho but i just started bidding for vinyl shit on ebay and these fuckers just want paypal so :321GFY to ebay

Not surprising at all... there have been far worse stories posted in the past, and I'm confident that they'll continue. For a while there when we used Paypal as a backup processor, I cringed every time I checked my email, expecting to see a "SORRY YOUR ACCOUNT IS FROZEN, FUCKO" letter at any time.

:BangBang: PayPal sucks ass!!! www.paypalsucks.com

You have to look at both sides of the deal.

If I was running PayPal and all of a sudden a merchant goes from one average sales volume a month and then zooms to $75,000, you'd want to see exactly what was going on to make sure there was no fraud or excessive promises made with whatever the transactions were for.

Anyone who leaves $75,000 stting in a paypal account deserves whatever he gets. All money gets transfered out of our paypal account as soon as it gets in. We leave no more than $20 in there at any time.

My friend had similar experiences with PayPal. Everything was fine for three years until he tried to withdraw 4000$ to his bank account, which caused them to immediately freeze the account. After two weeks of no explanation after numerous phone calls and emails with albeit very polite PayPal staff, they finally agreed to send him a cheque in the mail (instead of doing the wire transfer which he had always done in the past) and refuse to reinstate his account. At least he got his money, but with no explanation and no more paypal account.

It seems like too much of a crapshoot to depend on them for much.

we still have $500 or so frozen in there from that 'no more adult transactions' fiasco in May. Will it ever get deposited?

suprised there is not a class action suit against them..........

they would release the funds, but paypal is doing the same thing they did to me, they want you to ship everything, and once you do they will release the money

I understand why it would be flagged... but any company that doesn't have a rational process to accomodate a growing customer like that is fucked. I think it's clear by the sheer number of pissed off PayPal customers that something in PayPal's process or staffing is way off.

Brad

that reminds me of the time i moved 10k from my banking account to paypal to buy a bunch of stuff for my office on ebay, once i started bidding and winnign auctiosn and started sending out money.. they decided to reverse all transactions .. send soem email to peopel telling them the money was possibly stolen.. and then lock my account with all my money for 6 months, when it was all said and done.. i didnt even get so much as a sorry from them, and thanks to them i lost my ebay account with 200+ positive feedback....

fuck paypal... if i was crazy id drive down to burbank and blow up their building

I think Paypal's offices are in Palo Alto.

Paypal believes that every dollar you have in your account actually belongs to them. It's only by their utter kindness and generosity that they let anyone actually withdraw their funds.

PayPal gets to freeze people's accounts, earn interest on their money, confiscate it at will, and only pay out when it's convenient. Not a bad gig if you can get it.

My girlfriend got ghettopoly via PayPal recently. Everything went well.

it's really scarey just how many paypal horror stories there really are!!! it's like every other person has one

paypal was based out of omaha, i thought that was still the case. maybe they moved when they got bought out?

Also their currency conversions are shithouse too!! They always convert at the LOWEST possible conversion! arghh it sucks!

I assume that you used a credit card when going through PayPal. PayPal will not do anything for you but your Credit Card holder will. Call them and tell them you want the charge refunded to your account...it will be refunded to you.

:BangBang: paypal fucked me for $900+

If it looks like smells like shit and tastes like shit it is probably shit.

Fucking PayPal screwed me on many $1000's once upon a time.

They are dirty fuckers.

:321GFY

Hope the Ghettopoly dude has better luck.

Thats insane. I've heard many horror stories about PayPal, don't understand how they can get away with shit like this.

www.PayPalWarning.com

www.PaypalSucks.com

Paypal took me for over $2000 . :ak47: Bastards

Though I did not have any essential problems with PayPal, when finally they shut me down for accepting payments for adult content, I breathed with a reliefe, rather than was aggrieved. Because I also cringed every time I checked my email while using them :)

So anyone know why they are still taking transactions it they had a problem with PayPal? I just sent them $250 for 7 games like 2 days ago and think i might not be getting my money back.

wow

I went through the complaints system too from paypal for another product and I never got my money by the time they did their investigation they claimed the account was dry. nice hugh.

sons of bitches

wow, that sucks

What's the difference between them and 2checkout.com?

Lame.

Never keep too much money in your paypal account.

Paypal holds the money for 6 months to get the interest off of it. The money is sitting in one of their accounts in a bank drawing interest. So, that $75,000 in interest is going to Paypal.

Ours is in transit through UPS now, we used a CC on his site though, not paypal......

It took about 2 months to ship though... I was getting worried.

true, I know at least several people that experience similar shit... They froze my account more than 2 years ago too, thank God I had less than $20 then...

paypal can suck my dick, i made a program for some little cock sucker, charged him $590 for it and he paid me with a stolen paypal, and now im -$590 because of this and i told paypal i was not going to add funds because of their carelessness to allow people to use other peoples acc's and they email me eveyr once and a while telling me theyw ill freeze my account if i dont add $590 to my account, i talked to them and they told me because i didn't ship an item out they can't do anything. fucking bitches they are

I no longer use paypal either due to me being screwed over by them.

I have some money on PayPal but I can't cash in simply because I'm from Brazil.... :(

PayPal is useless to me....

same here man :thumbsup

it will...sooner or later...thrust me :)