
Paypal Does it Again - cwan
http://www.regretsy.com/2012/03/12/paypal-does-it-again/
======
Uchikoma
"I told her that the money generated by the pre-orders taken through the web
site effectively pays for the production and distribution of the book [...]".

Same post as most of the time. Someone takes money through Paypal for a
product that does not (yet) exist, without reading Paypals terms, then money
gets frozen, then people start to cry.

PayPal Acceptable Use Policy: "(d) are for the sale of certain items before
the seller has control or possession of the item [...] collecting donations as
a charity or non-profit organization"

Paypal terms (and here my English might not be good enough): "Initiation of
transactions considered to be cash advances or assisting in cash advances;
[...] and listing items for sale that have a delayed delivery date of 20 days
or more after the transaction list."

I also found that interesting: "Use of an anonymizing proxy;"

~~~
bigiain
"Same post as most of the time. Someone takes money through Paypal for a
product that does not (yet) exist, without reading Paypals terms, then money
gets frozen, then people start to cry."

I've got a client who does this every year - he starts taking pre-orders for
the new version of his book in September, gets his PayPal withdrawals
suspended in October, ships his books late December, and gets his money around
the end of January. He's happy to keep doing it that way, 'cause he's using
the pre-orders to accurately gauge demand and to decide how many copied to get
printed, rather than as a way of pre-funding the production or printing costs.

(The fact that it's played out identically for ~4 years now also includes the
bit where he gets a bit drunk over xmas/newyear and rings up any PayPal phone
number he can find and swears abuse at whoever answers… It's much more likely
to be that which ends up getting him banned from PayPal than the $20 or $30k
of transactions who's funds they get to hang on to for 3 or 4 months every
year)

------
ig1
Simple Rule: You can't take pre-orders (be it for physical products or events)
via any kind of credit-card payment system without pre-agreement with your
credit card processors.

If you fail to deliver the product then whoever processed the credit card
orders is going to be on the hook for payments when the consumers run
chargebacks. Obviously they don't want this risk.

So if you want to do this you need to come to an arrangement with your credit
card company before-hand (for example letting them hold onto all the cash
until you've delivered the goods).

~~~
aidenn0
Yes these people broke the rules, but it seems that PayPal hasn't told them
which rule they broke! How hard is it to say "preorders are not allowed, so we
froze your account"

~~~
ig1
Because that's probably not why they suspended their account, PayPal suspended
their account because it triggered a potential fraud tripwire.

The owner just won't be able to unsuspended the account because they're in
violation of the rules. If they weren't in violation they could just supply
the required verification documents and get their account unsuspended.

------
glimcat
A big part of the problem is that fraud prevention is HARD.

Worse, it's prone to expensive scaling laws, and more so if you want to catch
edge cases, and much more so if avoiding false positives is critical.

Any PayPal successor which is successful enough to become an interesting
target for fraud will have to deal with _exactly the same problems,_ possibly
causing service to break down in similar (or equally problematic) ways.

~~~
tbsdy
Really? So if I used Visa or Amex and I got a sudden run of orders they would
suspend my account? I hardly think so!

~~~
dangrossman
Yes, they would. With a traditional merchant account (as you apply for to
directly accept Visa or Amex), you declare your expected monthly volume and
average ticket size on the application. If your actual processing deviates
from those values significantly, the risk department will almost definitely
hold your funds in a reserve account until they straighten things out with you
and establish you're still operating within the bounds of the risk profile
established when they opened your account.

~~~
timdorr
When I got my first merchant account, I declare those numbers based on the
current state of the business: About $1000/mo. I never revised those numbers
in the 6 years I had the account. When I sold the company, we were doing
+$1MM/yr. I've never had this happen on any other merchant account I've used
since.

Obviously YMMV, but that's just my experience with risk tiers.

~~~
nirvdrum
My first start-up was almost tanked immediately because of a crappy merchant
bank (Cynergy, if you're wondering). We got our first large order, much larger
than we ever had before, and it exceeded our average daily balance in our bank
account. They froze the funds for 6 months since that's the potential
chargeback period. Meanwhile, we had to foot the bill on the material as we
were a hardware company and had to float those funds for a while. Our margins
weren't so high that this was a simple matter for us.

We ended up switching to a merchant bank that was better for online
transactions. Cynergy ultimately released the funds as three different
disbursements after we closed our account and decided to charge us account
activity fees for those three months as well. It was frustrating to say the
least.

~~~
dedward
Could that risk not have been averted by paying closer attention to merchant
agreements and shopping around more?

Your merchant account has a limit. When you're about to blow it out of the
water, you pick up the phone and call your merchant and talk about it, not
wait for everything to go into automatic investigation fraud hell.

There are no flawless , fire and forget payment solutions that scale to any
amount out there, there are just too many variables.

~~~
nirvdrum
Possibly. But I've never actually been given a merchant agreement with any of
the accounts I've ever set up. I've been given a rate sheet and little more
beyond that. Shopping around is hard when you effectively have no prior
business history. This has gotten a bit easier in recent years and Stripe
makes the issue a bit moot. But, the point is the grass isn't necessarily
greener and merchant banks can and will freeze funds if they think doing so
will avert a bad outcome in a risky situation.

------
tibbon
You know how they call the founder of Paypal the "Paypal Mafia"? It makes me
wonder if that wasn't just an endearing term, but somewhat hinted at the
culture of shady business practices that is still prevalent in the
organization.

I had Paypal instate a 21-day holding period on all money coming into my
account for a while, making buying/selling of things (I sell X, and I buy Y as
an upgrade) nearly impossible. I'd _never_ had any refund problems on my
account- ever. Emailing support got canned responses about how this is for my
safety, and partially because I don't do regular business that they can
pattern out on my account.

Then about 8 months later, they removed it. No reason why I was suddenly more
safe than before. I've had the account over 10 years. Zero problems. Yet, they
seemed to think there was a problem for a while.

~~~
jacquesm
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk> <\- you mean this guy?

He doesn't strike me as the Mafia type. The founders of paypal have long gone.
Initially paypal wasn't all bad but the got worse over time and after the sale
to ebay the customer relationships (or lack thereof) dropped through the
floor.

------
mrb
Bitcoin is generally misunderstood by the HN crowd, but this is _precisely_
one of the problem it solves. If this guy had collected donations in bitcoins,
_nobody_ would have the technical ability to shut down his "Bitcoin account"
because it "suspiciously received too much too quickly".

Don't downvote me. This is a true design principle about Bitcoin.

~~~
jvm
I'm so glad you point this out since I think this is the only validly useful
feature of Bitcoin. BC has its own problems but it's pretty awesome that
transaction costs are nil.

------
jasonlotito
For some reason (maybe it's the fact that I'm currently reading 11/22/63), a
picture of a battered wife staying with her abusive husband comes to mind.

------
mrkmcknz
This is why I can't wait for a Square or Stripe in the UK. At the moment you
have PayPal as your only option to take payments rapidly for say a quick idea
you have had and want to hack up.

~~~
itsprofitbaron
FWIW a 'Square' competitor are launching in the UK soon and they use Chip &
Pin as well - <http://www.izettle.com>

~~~
mrkmcknz
Any idea when?

~~~
itsprofitbaron
I'm not 100% sure although if you email hello@izettle.com they will probably
give you a better idea regarding timescales or may let you in on their testing
in the UK - which I know they are doing right now

------
spurgu
Are there any decent alternatives to Paypal btw?

~~~
dangrossman
Depending on your needs, a traditional merchant account or another 3rd party
processor like Amazon Payments, Google Checkout, Stripe, 2Checkout, etc. may
serve as an alternative.

But there is no equivalent substitute for PayPal. There is no no-monthly-fee,
no-credit-check, no-application 3rd party processor that lets you accept all
major credit cards, eChecks, bank transfers, and includes all 190 countries
and regions PayPal supports, including those where credit cards are uncommon
and Google/Amazon/etc do not offer accounts.

~~~
drucken
In addition, of the fee-free services, Paypal may be the only one that does
not require end customers to make accounts to use it. This is, for me, by far
the biggest disadvantage to the otherwise competent Google Checkout product.

------
jakejake
If some unusual activity triggers a warning, I don't mind PayPal putting an
account up for review in order to keep the system safe. But they should do it
quickly and provide some way for the account owner to see what's going on
instead of just freezing the funds and going radio silent.

I'm sure one reason they move so slowly is to give everybody involved enough
time to notice if money is missing and fraud has occurred. In which case
PayPal will still have the money to issue a refund. I do appreciate that as a
buyer. But as a seller, the way they're handing it can be disastrous for a
business that is relying on their service.

------
zrgiu_
Paypal once froze my account too (it had about $3000 in it then). I got it
solved over the phone in about a week, but the customer service was really
really hard to work with. And here's an anecdote:

When I called the customer service for the first time, gave them a few
details, up until the point I was from Romania.. their (clearly shocked)
reaction: "Aaah, you're from Romania ? Let me redirect you to our India
office". WHAT ?!? Are you kidding me ? Romania was in the European Union back
then already, and I was already assigned to the Ireland branch of Paypal (an
email about that was sent).

------
conradfr
"you are now at the mercy of the customer service representative, who is asked
to make “a judgment call.”

Wrong, the CSR never makes judgment. This is for services like Account Review.
So you can yell at or sweet talk to the guy on the phone, it won't change
much.

Anyway it's sad that PayPal shows almost no progress year after year to handle
legitimate "small" business, especially when they cancel transactions of goods
already delivered. But people need to READ THE TOS. We're talking about MONEY,
being on a shiny Internet website does not change that fact.

~~~
regretsy
I have to correct you.

In the phone call I had with a PayPal executive after the Christmas debacle,
It was stated to me that when an account is frozen for bringing in too much
money too quickly, the CS representative taking calls is asked to "make a
judgment call. " In our case, "they made a very, very incorrect one."

That's my entire complaint with this process. In any other business, a good
customer who makes you money gets dedicated customer service. Your account is
treated carefully. That's not how they do it there.

I also want to say that I understand the compulsion to lay blame at the feet
of the person being screwed over in stories like these ("They used the wrong
button!" "They didn't read the TOU!"). Human nature is such that we have to
find fault with the person on the receiving end of treatment like this. We
desperately want to believe that if we'e very good, nothing bad will ever
happen to us.

It honestly does not work that way.

~~~
Karunamon
>I also want to say that I understand the compulsion to lay blame at the feet
of the person being screwed over in stories like these ("They used the wrong
button!" "They didn't read the TOU!"). Human nature is such that we have to
find fault with the person on the receiving end of treatment like this. We
desperately want to believe that if we'e very good, nothing bad will ever
happen to us.

I'd say this is roughly 50/50. While Paypal's customer service is _legendarily
bad_ , and there's no excuse for not providing a method to talk to a live
human, there's also no excuse for not reading the T&C and knowing what you can
and cannot do, moreso if you're a business. This is a friggin' payment
processor. One of your lifelines as a business. Not reading the terms is one
of the dumbest possible things I can think of doing.

And this isn't a case of fine print, either. It's not hard to find Paypal's
policy on preorders, or other things which you are specifically not supposed
to do, and in fact _agreed in advance_ not to do when you signed up.

You'd think that people knowing in advance that they're dealing with the devil
would make them scrutinize the details that much more...

------
bhb916
I believe that Paypal (and judging by the comments above: banking institutions
and credit card companies) are going to these customer-service-destroying
efforts at fraud prevention because the regulatory environment forces them to
do so.

If so, lets put aside the question of whether it is "right" to put the
responsibility of service abuse on the service provider, but instead ask the
question: is any of this really in our best interests? It seems to me that a
consumer population would be better served by not being artificially protected
and thus completely off-guard when they do get caught in a scam. Any payment
processed online should be done with the same amount of wariness and
forethought that a purchase at a brick-and-mortar retailer would be.

Now, it's possible that I'm wrong here and Paypal is actually doing all of
this as some sort of verification service to provide a fraud-free environment
for payers (i.e. paying with paypal will never be a scam). If that's the case
, then this is a really ineffective way of going about it. It seems like a
great deal more upfront investigation and analysis would be appropriate. I
would take some of the peer-to-peer lending services as a model.

~~~
Karunamon

      >are going to these customer-service-destroying efforts at fraud prevention because the regulatory environment forces them to do so.
    

I'm pretty sure there's no fraud prevention regulation that requires you to
stonewall your customers.

~~~
bhb916
True, this certainly could be just a bad policy on Paypal's part. However, if
there is even a remote possibility that Paypal could be held liable for fraud
using their services then I can sympathize with "shut them all down" approach.
After all, like garbage mashers, some things should not be trifled with.

------
EREFUNDO
Fraud is hard especially for a small eCommerce store because of chargebacks.
Unlike a brick and mortar store who can show the credit card association
physical receipts with signatures, a video recording of a customer purchasing
an item from a store, or ask a customer for an ID, online merchants can only
show shipping receipts. These are often not enough. Chargeback policies are
skewed towards buyers. The funny part is that this is only mostly true in the
US, Canada, and Europe. If you're a credit card owner from another country
(especially in Asia) it is very difficult to file for a chargeback.

------
damian2000
We all accept that Paypal probably have a hard job to weed out frauds etc, but
they could improve things immensley by just making sure their phone support
people do not patronise and talk down to customers when they freeze their
funds. I had a frozen payment once and the needless beauracracy and petty
attitude coming out of those Paypal phone operators is truly mind blowing. If
you ever have to deal with this sort of situation it just turns you right off
PayPal altogether.

------
sadris
Why is it everyone assumes that making a pity post on the internet will fix
their issues with PayPal? File a suit in a small claims court if you want some
relief.

~~~
Uchikoma
Yes, do that. The court will dismiss your case as you did not read the Paypal
terms and user agreements.

~~~
Karunamon
I'd be willing to bet that completely ignoring your customer is a business
practice that goes above and beyond the T&C. Unless the T&C says "In the event
we flag your account for fraud, we will not touch you with a ten foot pole..."

Again, the problem isn't the automated risk prevention system, the problem is
the complete lack of customer service if/when it happens to you.

~~~
Uchikoma
My answer was about going to court. So you think they have a case in court
because PP has not customer service on the level you want them to have?

------
danbmil99
If Paypal was taking, say, 0.2% commissions, I could understand this attitude.
At close to 4%, they need to man up and pay for experienced CS reps with
discretion to put things right when their systems slam down on someone who
isn't actually running a Nigerian ponzi scheme.

------
MRonney
PayPal is what happens when you have a completely unregulated financial
industry. They act like a bank, but they have no responsibilities like a bank.
Somebody needs to find out what PayPal 'is' and slot it under some existing
regulatory agency.

------
robomartin
Many have commented on my suggestion that something as powerful as US
Congressional action might be required to fix some of the totalitarian
behavior of the internet giants.

I do realize that this is sort of thing often comes with collateral damage. I
for one don't want to see government in my life. Their function is to do a few
things, do them well and stay as invisible as possible. This is far from what
we have today.

Yet I wrestle with this issue of monopolies, particularly when they behave as
badly as PayPal, Google, eBay and others seem to be doing with some frequency.
Because they are monopolies they don't encounter any force that might compel
them to fix some of these issues. Under a normal competitive environment
participants would improve their offerings at many levels in order to gain
points here and there. This would include improvements in customer service
because this is most-definitely one item that could sway customers to use one
service over the other. Examples of this effect abound.

However, once a monopoly takes root the leverage disappears. The company who
owns the market can then focus its attention on activities and policies that
benefit them the most. Customer service is hard and it is expensive. Internet
companies would much rather have algorithms make decisions. These are cheap
and you don't have to feed them. Here the decision is simple: If the
collateral damage caused by the brutality of a system without any semblance of
customer service is but a rounding error in our revenue: Go forth and prosper.
And that's how you end-up with what we are seeing happen with alarming
regularity today.

The fact that your business might go down in flames because of their
algorithmic decisions is a rounding error in their revenue stream. Devoid of
competition there is no incentive to expend any effort chasing after rounding
errors.

And so I search for solutions and can't seem to find any. A startup to compete
with PayPal? Google? eBay? Not likely. Huge barrier to entry. They are in-
effect, monopolies. It could happen, but I would not bet on this approach.

How about a united front of users, bloggers, etc., making a lot of noise in
very public ways? Hmmm. Well. If you are in good standing with PayPal and
Google, do you want to risk the wrath of the machine and get banned for life?
Because that is exactly what will happen in one way or another?

How about suing them? Same issue. You almost can't exist on the internet
without using services from these giants. Who wants to risk their wrath? For
example, I'd sue eBay and Paypal in a second if I had the financial support
and had a reasonable good certainty of a positive outcome. They have both
caused me damage in the past with unfair unilateral/totalitarian actions. The
problem is that when you look around you can't find a solid way to replace
them. I'm willing to bet that thousands upon thousands of people just take it
on the chin and move on precisely because of this effect.

And so, that leads me to where I really didn't want to go: Governmental
action. The only way to kick these giants in the nuts seems to be to meet
force with force. As consumers of the services of monopolistic companies we
have no leverage whatsoever. None. However, we do have the ability to get our
government/s to take note and take action with overwhelming force. This is
just about the only kind of fight that monopolies are afraid of. Everything
else might very well be an exercise in futility.

So, how does one get the ball rolling on something like this? While I have not
been affected at the level that some of these stories relate I've had enough
of a taste of how these machines work to be very concerned that one day I
could incur tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage because of
these unfair practices. I would prefer to see them corrected before that
happens.

What's the consensus among HN users? Is this something worth pursuing?

~~~
ahoyhere
What could be the repercussions for a bit of law that says "If you hold
customer money in an account, you cannot simply close and freeze the account
without a certain set of procedures and an appeal process that looks like x"?

A bank can't do it. A stock trading brokerage can't do it. There are even laws
to protect you from a company deciding suddenly that your gift card money is
all theirs. (These laws are newish -- they can charge a small maintenance fee
after x mos, but THE MONEY IS YOURS.)

There's no reason why Google or PayPal should get away with more theft than
Macy's Gift Cards department.

------
Inane_Chatter
This comment will no doubt drift out of sight, however:

Whenever this perennial "PayPal screwed us out of X monies" comes up (and I've
seen it about 7 times in the last 3 years), no-one seems willing, or able, to
actually understand why it happens.

It's this simple:

PayPal is an American company, and so has to obey US law, and in particular,
financial regulations over money laundering.

[i]Section 351: Amendments Relating to Reporting of Suspicious Activities

This Section expands immunity from liability for reporting suspicious
activities and expands prohibition against notification to individuals of SAR
filing. No officer or employee of federal, state, local, tribal, or
territorial governments within the U.S., having knowledge that such report was
made may disclose to any person involved in the transaction that it has been
reported except as necessary to fulfill the official duties of such officer or
employee.

Section 352: Anti-Money Laundering Programs

Requires financial institutions to establish anti-money laundering programs,
which at a minimum must include: the development of internal policies,
procedures and controls; designation of a compliance officer; an ongoing
employee training program; and an independent audit function to test programs.

Section 356: Reporting of Suspicious Activities by Securities Brokers and
Dealers; Investment Company Study

Required the Secretary to consult with the Securities Exchange Commission and
the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to publish proposed regulations
in the Federal Register before January 1, 2002, requiring brokers and dealers
registered with the Securities Exchange Commission to submit suspicious
activity reports under the Bank Secrecy Act.

Section 359: Reporting of Suspicious Activities by Underground Banking Systems

This amends the BSA definition of money transmitter to ensure that
informal/underground banking systems are defined as financial institutions and
are thus subject to the BSA.[/i]

<http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/patriot/>

PayPal is legally required to both freeze accounts for review under the
Patriot act when large sums of money quickly flow into accounts from non-US
sources, [b]and[/b] legally required not to disclose the reasons for freezing
said funds.

There's plenty more regulations for companies out there, however it amuses me
no end to see the short-sighted band-wagon get going.

If you're ignorant of the way these companies work, and even worse, ignorant
about what the [i]law of your own country[/i] demands of companies, then
please: do the world a favour, and step out of the discussion.

Or, you know, protest against the people who wrote the Patriot Act.

/looking on with amazement

~~~
ScottBurson
You need to read more closely. No one has a problem with PayPal freezing
accounts. The problem is that once they do so, they refuse to communicate with
the account owner to resolve the situation.

I can understand that to a first approximation, pretty much everyone whose
account they freeze is committing fraud. But there are exceptions, and their
processes don't seem to take account of that fact.

------
epikur
It seems like the guy writing the book should try Kickstarter instead.

------
jackreichert
it seems that the second top google suggestion for the words "is there an
alternative" continues "to paypal" #justsayin

------
huggyface
There are always those subtle little details that get missed in these
discussion.

For instance the site is, right now, taking _pre_ -orders, not orders. There
is no published timeframe when they'll actually ship the books that I can see.
Paypal only allows you to accept pre-orders up to 20 days in advance of
shipping the product to buyers, and even then they can demand significant
additional proof.

Because, unfortunately, pre-orders are the classic setup of too many scams
(which some random agent probably won't easily be able to eliminate), and it's
the domain where PayPal ends up holding the bag. 5000 people pre-ordered some
cool internet controller and then maker disappears, etc.

We've been hearing these sorts of "horror" stories for _years_ (wow do people
not understand how hard and exclusive the payment process used to be!), yet
despite PayPal still being relatively small -- especially compared to the
banks and credit card companies -- no one is credibly doing what they do.
Maybe because they're doing something rather hard?

~~~
robomartin
This isn't just a PayPal problem. All of the large Internet companies have
this totalitarian approach to customer service. Google, Paypal, Ebay, etc. One
bit goes from 0 to 1 somewhere in their code and you are friggin screwed.
Can't talk to anyone. Can't email anyone. Can't SMS anyone. Can't even send
smoke signals.

It's a totalitarian hit-them-with-a-hammer approach that truly needs to end.

I don't know what it will take for this to change but it has to change. For
example, AdSense alone has left a trail of destruction like no other service
out there. You read stories all the time about legitimate businesses being
cutoff for no apparent reason without even the possibility to engage in
dialog.

This thing with PayPal is downright scary. Having done tens of thousands of
dollars of business with PayPal its one of those things that can keep you up
at night.

The problem isn't the suspension of accounts for investigation. I welcome a
responsible approach to preventing fraud at all levels, as a consumer and a
vendor.

No, the problem lies in the fact that they don't engage in any kind of
mutually-constructive dialog in order to try to determine whether or not
there's a real problem. By not doing so they can ruin people's lives and,
because they have so much money, they don't really care because it causes them
no pain at all.

I for one hate government burrowing too deeply into anyone's affairs. However,
this is one case where I find myself really hoping that one day we'll see
Congressional action here in the US in order to protect us from the monsters
that these huge corporations have become. Remember, vendors are customers too,
not just the end-users/buyers of products and services.

This, very plainly, is wrong and evil.

~~~
bambax
You are completely right. The problem is certainly not "fraud monitoring", and
it's not a problem specific to Paypal either.

The problem is in the attitude. Being French, I'm well-trained in dealing with
soulless bureaucracies; but with the French administration (or probably any
public administration in most countries) there is always a way to escalate the
issue; and if you were right, you very usually win.

But these companies are judge, jury, police and executioner. This can't go on
forever.

~~~
narag
For that kind of problem the solution seems to be forcing a fast arbitrage
system.

------
nirvana
I did business with paypal about 10 years ago. I had a similar bad experience
with them. Despite me doing nothing wrong, and my customers being quite happy
with what I was delivering to them, paypal decided to get involved and screw
things up.

Attempting to resolve the issue with them resulted in an unending series of
demands, many of which were asinine (e.g.: show the original manufacturer
invoice for this used piece of clothing you sold on ebay, or show us a
contract with the creator of the software you're selling proving you have the
right to sell it-- I was the creator, and obviously, of course, a contract
from me, signed by me would not be acceptable to them.)

I sent them endless amounts of documentation, but they demanded more, and they
lost half of it. Their CSR reps are complete and total assholes-- after all,
according to them, I was committing fraud otherwise I wouldn't be dealing with
the fraud department, right? (this despite not a single chargeback or dispute
on paypal from customers.)

The sad thing was, I did many tens of thousands in business thru them, payed
them thousands in fees, had very few customer complaints (and issued refunds
when I did or otherwise resolved it)... but they don't care.

I think that my experience and others experience has been out there for over a
decade. I'm shocked that people actually use this company-- they are not
trustworthy. As far as I'm concerned, they are straight up thieves. (and I'd
LOVE them to sue me for saying so-- I'd love to go to court on that issue.)

You do business with paypal, you do it at your own risk. They are not a
reputable business.

I don't like Amazon (for a variety of reasons) but at least they are a
reputable business. I have my beefs with other companies, but they aren't
criminals.

Paypal is a criminal organization, as far as I'm concerned.

In the end, they managed to steal about $600 from me. (I was lucky it wasn't
more.)

~~~
paulhauggis
"I don't like Amazon (for a variety of reasons) but at least they are a
reputable business. I have my beefs with other companies, but they aren't
criminals."

I have a similar story with Amazon. I was doing business with them for a
couple of years. I passed all of their tests (in the beginning, your account
is put on hold for 30 days).

2 months ago, I had my first complaint (I have nearly 100% feedback, no
complaints, and if there are any problems, I always pay return shipping and
give a full refund).

The customer was nasty, spiteful, and didn't want to send me back my goods (it
was worth $100+). This was after I immediately apologized for any issues
(which to this day, I'm still not sure the exact problem. The message I
received was a babbling mess of terrible English) and gave them a return
label. I think they scammed me.

Amazon takes the customer's side and gives them a full refund and they got to
keep the item. When you email them for support, you get automated responses
signed with a name. In the automated response, they told me that I most likely
just didn't make the customer happy enough. I should have answered their
messages faster (I answered within 5 minutes on a Friday night at 10pm), or I
should have made it easier for them to return my product (they just needed to
print out the pre-paid label and mail it back).

2 days after this, my account was permanently suspended without warning (they
are also keeping $5K of my cash for 3 months). I called them many times and
was told that I can only get support through email (this was from a call
center in India).

Email support gets you absolutely nowhere. I don't even know if there's a
person on the other end. Just automated cookie-cutter responses signed with a
name. They most likely do this because they pay people peanuts to answer
emails and don't want the backlash of having broken English in the responses.
Amazon is also the biggest marketplace for sellers besides Ebay, and they know
they can get away with it.

As a marketplace seller, I was giving them thousands of dollars per-month in
fees+$50/month for a pro account.

They don't respect sellers at all and I advise anyone wanting to business with
them to steer clear.

~~~
perlpimp
You should have gone to small claims court, I think it is up to 10000$. You're
within your rights to demand money and if your documents are in order then you
might even claim punitive damages. IANAL, but I won't sit around when someone
steals from me. If you are not in US and Amazon has no representation then you
might be SOL.

What gets me is why these people don't go to court. It would be the best to
win in a court of law and plaster that everywhere that that corporation is a
crook not publish stories of butthurt and how life's is unfair.

my 2c.

~~~
TheAmazingIdiot
Court sucks, period. Even if you are the plaintiff.

I live in Indiana, where I believe the limit for small claims is 5000$. It
costs 135$ to file with the court. Then you are given a date 1-4 months out on
a random non-Friday weekday. And you are at the mercy purely of the judge. The
last case I was in (medical bills owed), the judge read a spy novel.

The court systems aren't made for any sort of speed or cost. And there's that
possibility that you'll lose. Maybe that judge didn't get to smoke his
favorite cigar...

------
Porter_423
I have also faced this type of problem with pay pal before.I don't know why
they are repeatedly doing this with their costumers.Its totally injustice.

------
wilfra
Pay for a domain name or web development with PayPal and the person flat out
scams you and PayPal will do nothing about it. Nor punish the person who stole
your money. They'll just quote you the section of their terms that says
virtual goods are not covered and close your case.

Unfortunately they are a necessary evil until somebody disrupts them.

~~~
dangrossman
What should they be doing about it? How do they determine whether you were
scammed, or you're now scamming the domain/development seller to get whatever
you bought for free? As any merchant doing any volume will tell you, the
latter is the more common case! A scamming seller will get enough disputes
that they'll lose the account fairly quickly, but there's a couple billion
buyers out there for whom risking a PayPal account to get free product/service
is no big deal.

It's not really something a payment service SHOULD be deciding. That's the job
of small claims court.

