

WakeMate has refunded all paypal deposits - xelfer
http://blog.wakemate.com/2010/08/06/paypal-refunds-complete/

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jasonkester
PayPal is just poison for your business. They do stuff like this with such
regularity that it's nearly impossible to run a business on their payment
system.

Any minor change you make exposes you to their review process, which often
means they'll simply shut down your account while you jump through their
hoops. In the meantime you can't pay your bills or collect payments or
otherwise use your account the way you've been using it for years.

They're coming out with some truly interesting services that I would love to
use, but frankly I can't afford to expose my business to the risk associated
with their review process.

~~~
thehodge
Didn't they have to refund the money because they haven't shipped the product
yet and Paypal has a time limit on transactions like that... I don't really
think its Paypal's fault that they took payment for something 9+ months ago
and the members still haven't received it.

I'm a bit user of Paypal, it allows me to sell easily to almost anyone in the
world, I'd argue that Paypal makes it easy for anyone to get started with a
webapp be it for payments, donations, subscriptions.

Sure they have there issues but I've always being able to get them on the
phone and sort it out.

~~~
jasonkester
Indeed, they help you get off the ground in a hurry.

The big issue I have with PayPal is that they don't let you set up a new
account for a new bank account. They tie everything you do to a single SSN or
tax ID, so there is no way to separate one product from another.

As a result, if you put a new product live, they'll review it when it bills
its first credit card. And often that means they'll freeze your account, thus
killing _all_ your businesses dead until you resolve it. Worse, if they decide
to shut down your account, it's permanent. For you. As in, you as a human
being can never set up another PayPal account. As in, you quickly need to
reimplement payment for every one of your products. And figure out a new way
to pay your overseas suppliers.

It's just not worth the risk.

It's a shame too, since they do make some cool stuff. If they let me set up a
new account to try it out, I'd definitely do so.

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StavrosK
What do you use? Are there any other good gateways? I haven't been able to
find anything that doesn't require a huge setup fee (for my volume of
business).

~~~
jasonkester
Amazon is great for getting the same sort of hosted checkout experience up and
running with zero hassle. They don't mind you setting up as many accounts as
makes sense for your business, even if more than one of them point to the same
bank account.

For a proper merchant/gateway experience, I'm with Braintree now, and they are
everything you'd want. Granted, you need a real business bank account behind
it, and they'll charge you about $100/month as a baseline. But their API just
plain makes sense, comes with all the bells and whistles if you need them, and
drops right in to your app without a single fist-shaped dent in your keyboard.

~~~
StavrosK
Thanks for the info, I'll give Amazon a go. Hopefully they'll be less fascist
than PayPal, thanks again!

EDIT: It seems that it's only available in the US, back to PayPal I go, I
guess :/

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noonespecial
What a trip! Good luck to the Wakemate guys. People who wrangle hardware are
like the badasses of the startup scene. I have much respect.

