

Regretsy Issue Resolution - kmfrk
https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2011/12/regretsy-issue-resolution/

======
redthrowaway
When will Paypal and other companies that take this "under no circumstances
say anything with substance" tack to PR learn that it's utterly counter-
productive? Anyone who would be motivated to read the blog post had first read
regretsy's side of the story, wherein Paypal comes across looking petty,
immature, and unprofessional. None of that is addressed by this blog post, so
the only takeaway for readers is that your only recourse if Paypal seizes your
money is to raise a giant stink about it and cause them another PR headache?

All they had to say was,

"Our representative was enforcing our policy, but unfortunately did so in a
way that we didn't intend, and without the respect and courtesy we expect. It
can be easy for someone who spends their day dealing with scammers to see
wrongdoing where there is none, and we're sorry that happened here.
Regardless, scammer or not, we expect all of our representatives to deal with
customers courteously and professionally, and will redouble our efforts to
ensure that happens in the future. We sincerely apologize to regretsy and
offer our commitment to improve. We would like to assure both regretsy and the
community at large that customers remain our priority, and we will do
everything in our power to earn your patronage."

That's it. An honest, humble, apology, and you wouldn't have people running
around the Internet saying Paypal are a bunch of childish crooks.

~~~
eykanal
Their statement actually isn't nearly as bad as you imply. They mention that
there was a problem, that they handled it incorrectly, and that they were
multiple conflicting factors associated. They even admit at the end (again)
that they were wrong. It's short, sweet, and to the point. I think on the
scale of 1 to horrible, this is pretty far from horrible.

~~~
jfoutz
I'd just like to point out the docs for using donate buttons
([https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin?cmd=_render-
content&co...](https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin?cmd=_render-
content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_html_donation_buttons&bn_r=o)) makes no
mention of "clear guidelines for any business that uses PayPal to accept
donations"

i couldn't come up with those guidelines on a paypal search. so, it seems
pretty horrible to me. It's fine to have rules, it's horrible to have secret
rules you don't tell people about. They don't ask for documentation of non-
profit status, or any of that. Just, here's a button! good luck!

------
blahedo
> _"For background, we have clear guidelines for any business that uses PayPal
> to accept donations."_

That doesn't appear to be true. This post lays out the actual content of the
relative PayPal policies:

[http://thegreengeeks.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/why-paypal-
is-...](http://thegreengeeks.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/why-paypal-is-wrong-
regarding-regretsy-according-to-their-own-policies/)

and assuming the screenshots are not doctored, those policies do not seem to
be particularly clear, nor do they say that documentation is required other
than for officially registered non-profits.

------
navyrain
So Regretsy gets a (potentially) reasonable human to look at their case only
after making a media fuss? This is pretty troubling, as for every Regretsy out
there, there are many more smaller fish who will continue to get quietly
screwed, simply because they cannot attract the attention of the media in the
same manner.

~~~
Tangurena
This has always been the case with PayPal. They deliberately make it as hard
as possible to actually contact a real human, and then act all surprised if
the victim manages to get enough publicity to get past the barriers.

[http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/06/9252...](http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/06/9252348-paypal-
says-our-bad-on-regretsy-charity-scandal)

PayPal's business model seems to be based off of Kafka's novel _The Trial_.

~~~
saurik
Log in to PayPal; scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Contact Us";
click "Call Us"; dial the phone number; when prompted, enter the number on the
website; when asked why you want to call them, say you wish to speak with an
operator; when they ask you why you want to speak to an operator, tell them
you just want to speak to an operator; wait a few (maybe at most ten) minutes:
congratulations, you are now speaking with an actual person; note: if this
person cannot help you, they can usually find someone who can. Calling PayPal
is trivial, and they do not in any way make it even remotely hard to "actually
contact a real human".

~~~
JadeNB
> note: if this person cannot help you, they can usually find someone who can

Not according to <http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/05/cats-1-kids-0>.
Specifically:

> At this point, I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told that “No one
> above me will talk to you. No one at my level ever makes phone calls. We’re
> only doing this to help you.”

~~~
saurik
That entire conversation description is so over-the-top that it is difficult
to take any of the details seriously... that said, I'd be very interested to
know if they tried simply calling back and asking to speak to someone else.

------
niravshah
Great, it was resolved once it was picked up by some media and someone high up
at PayPal realized it was an issue. Nothing about the bad customer service,
nothing admitting to any kind of wrong-doing - just "we are truly sorry that
it happened"

Being sorry it happened and working towards preventing it from happening in
the future are two very separate things, and PayPal is only saying the first.
Can someone take these guys out already (Stripe?)

~~~
morrow
I've used stripe and it's definitely a breath of fresh air, but as I
understand it, most people won't bother switching away from paypal to
something without international support. Stripe's working on that:
<https://stripe.com/global> but otherwise there isn't a good international
alternative to paypal at the moment.

------
andrewvc
Why, on the blog, does the Director of Communications at paypal use a headshot
that looks like he's trying to stare you down before killing you? Oh wait.

~~~
JshWright
For more than a couple seconds, I was confused as to why they had a picture of
an angry Mr. Bean attached to the post.

~~~
Technopia
I had the same confusion too initially lol

------
ck2

       Last night we became aware of an issue 
    

lol, so which big media company contacted y'all for an interview?

I guess this is going to be the future of getting PayPal to do the right thing
- you have to make it to the top of a social network somehow to embarrass
them.

PayPal has promoted tipjars for over a decade now, this was just stupid.

~~~
Vivtek
You know, that is exactly the point here, isn't it? _Why wasn't PayPal already
aware of it?_ Clearly, the answer is simple: why should they be? Until
somebody important gets in touch with somebody important, nothing has
happened.

~~~
longlistener
Paypal _was_ aware of it, as they claim its written into their policy.

They should stop worrying about the 'important people' and just simply 'do the
right thing'. Start with retraining the customer service people to not be
belligerent jerks. Next if you're going to stand behind some regulation to
monitor accounts, staff it appropriately so innocent people don't get randomly
locked out of access to their _own_ money for 6 months.

~~~
Vivtek
No, no, I mean this guy claims that PayPal _was not aware that Regretsy was
having troubles with PayPal_. Think about that. Think about the utter failure
of management and customer service that that concept implies.

------
angelbob
This is a really amazingly tone-deaf response. We may only hope that somebody
like the Daily Show takes them properly to task for this.

~~~
nroach
It really isn't that bad, under the circumstances. They did some things right:

1) Acknowledge a problem in a timely manner (assuming the really did only get
escalation one day ago) 2) Provide specific information on what is being done
to fix the problem (working w/account holder, making a donation as a mea
culpa) 3) Explain limitations on resolution (legitimate constraints on public
comment for privacy-protected matter)

What wasn't done well was:

a) letting it get this far to begin with b) failing to explain how future
problems will be prevented by policy changes

~~~
westbywest
I'm really only seeing damage control as Paypal's motivation behind this
statement on their blog.

I wonder how many other folks have had the same problems with Paypal's
inconsistent application of their policy (when not just outright obstruction),
who don't have the same resources to make noise as the woman running Regresty.
And whether they will get similar resolution.

------
conductr
Paypal would have been better off without this message.

I read the Regretsy story yesterday, didn't think much of it - typical Paypal
customer service, I've read those stories 1000 times. Now that I know it got
someone's attention at Paypal that is "important" and could have done "right"
in one way or another but they blew it.

At very least they could have refunded them their transactions fees! Paypal
now looks worse in my mind than if they would have said nothing.

------
Bobby_Tables
I'll believe it when I hear it from Regretsy...according to their blog
(<http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/06/breaking-news/>), they know as much about
the resolution as we do...

~~~
JadeNB
This is almost as disturbing to me as the original announcement—make a
prominent post saying that you're working on the problem, let it get lots of
attention, and then (apparently) ignore the issue. Well, it didn't work very
well for AirBnB ([http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-
nightmare...](http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-
end-in-sight.html)), and hopefully it won't work for Paypal, either.

------
netmau5
Here's a suggestion to their Director of Communications: communicate with a
smiling face. Perma-frowns only work on people purchasing stock trading bots
or MiGs.

------
kvirani
Moral of the story is: when wronged, make noise, and make it well.

------
ed209
wow, unbelievable. I posted a comment to thepaypalblog.com and I've had two
total strangers tell me that my email address is appearing in the comment
input fields when they go to comment! They've both said that other people's
details are also appearing.

------
y3di
At the very least, regretsy gets a donation to help their cause. Which,
despite all the problems paypal caused, is one good thing to come out of all
this.

------
eykanal
Unfortunately for them, I closed my PayPal account last night. One too many
stories like this for me, thankyouverymuch. If I ever need them again to buy
something I'll purchase without logging in, anonymously, like most people do,
manually entering my credit card info. I'll pay that price.

~~~
elemeno
Which will do nothing.

Unless you're someone who's using PayPal to collect money, there's remarkably
little reason for them to care if you're logging into an account to pay by
credit card, or paying 'anonymously' by credit card without logging in.

If you want any change from PayPal then you need to persuade people to stop
accepting money through it, since that's the only way you impact their ability
to collect fees.

------
longlistener
Apparently now they're refusing comments on their blog because theres so much
negative backlash.

------
exit
how could a serious pr department attach that photo to any statement?

------
vaksel
if they want to make real impact, they should be changing their policies...not
just releasing the funds in this one single case.

if the only way to get good customer service is to get millions of people to
support you, then you aren't doing it right

------
suhastech
Great! You need to get on the first page of HN to get an "Issue Resolution".
Everybody else, die in hell.

------
leeoniya
let us all acknowledge that HN front page is the new, uncorrupted BBB - it
gets shit done.

------
brndnhy
He looks like a really nice guy.

------
VonLipwig
I really like this from PayPal. They have nipped the issue in the bud. They
are making a donation to boot.

It seems to me that both Regretsy and PayPal are at fault. Regretsy for using
a button with implications they didn't realise. Paypal for not making these
issues clear and what looks like some shocking customer support. I hope PayPal
look into the customer support issue but that aside the issue is resolved.
PayPal have publically admitted fault and are taking steps to correct it. Good
on them.

PayPal gets a lot of bad press. I do feel though if you look at the quantity
of transactions they deal with and the amount of rules and regulations they
have to work with they are doing an alright job. The could improve in areas
but lets face it.. what big company couldn't.

~~~
longlistener
How long have you worked for PayPal?

~~~
VonLipwig
Oh someone posts an unbiased comment against PayPal.. must be working for
them! It is the 'in thing' to bash PayPal at the moment. Just because you take
a sensible view doesn't make you an employee.

------
InclinedPlane
I am somewhat mystified by the level of paypal hate going on here. The major
issue here was bad customer service (something that google, and even say
Mojang, for example, seem to get away with quite easily).

A big problem here is people acting with good intentions and believing that
somehow that should be a shield to the world. Unfortunately, even the best
intentions can't shield you from having to comply with business, taxation, and
financial regulations. Make no mistake, regretsy was in the wrong here. Paypal
was in the wrong here too, but mostly because they were rude and unhelpful in
enforcing a legitimate policy enacting legal and regulatory requirements.

~~~
pseudonym
The backlash here is comparable to EA's banning of users from their single-
player games, I would say. Shitty customer service is crappy, but the backlash
is greater in proportion to the criticality of the asset in question. In
Paypal's case, the asset is cash, which naturally flips the "fuck you guys"
toggle in people in general a bit faster than, say, not being able to log into
the Minecraft forums.

~~~
citricsquid
> not being able to log into the Minecraft forums

Ha, some of the anger I've seen from our users would make you think _we're_
stealing millions of $ from them when they have an issue.

------
davidu
The Director of Communications needs a new headshot. I'm sure he's a swell
dude, but his photo makes him look like he's about to pounce on you.

~~~
einhverfr
Don't worry about him. He's just directing communications.

------
Cieplak
Moral of the story: get your issue frontpaged on HN or Reddit and someone will
fix it

------
rhizome
I wish there was a way to assassinate a corporation.

~~~
tfb
<easierSaidThanDone>Build a better product and market your ass
off!</easierSaidThanDone>

------
Terretta
> _"In this instance, we recognized our error and moved as swiftly as possible
> to fix it."_ — eBay

I wonder what those defending eBay in the earlier thread will think of this.

