Paypal really annoyed me today.

[Andyhenry]

They did that stupid thing they do where they suddenly freeze your account without notice until you redo all the verification stuff with them.

Since I'm out of my normal country, I couldn't verify my address and had to verify the bank account instead - which takes several days.

Meanwhile, my main hosting account that gets paid with via Paypal didn't get paid (they don't let payments go out while it's frozen) and about 100 of my sites are now down until the hosting company gets my message about why the subscription got canceled and gives me a way to pay them again.

All because I earned too much money into my Paypal account too quickly - they don't seem to care how much I spend.



end of rant.

[jlandells]

Andy,

If this happens to you, how can others on the WF say that PayPal is a great payment processor and no-one should use anything else????

-John.

[Matt Helphrey]

Wow sorry to hear that. Ive heard some horror stories about PayPal before but not to that effect. 100 websites down even for a short period of time has to sting a little.

I must sat though that that's the first time I ever heard a negative situation arising from earning too much money Hopefully you get this resolved shortly.

Best,

Matt

[Kay King]

That's rough - and one area where Paypal needs some work!

So many complaints about paypal are from those who have tried to game the system and got caught or who didn't read the terms.

It does seem like paypal could have a system in place where sellers who have proven their honest business practices over time would get a break on the "too much money" freezes.

Positive spin - you earn so much that even big payment processors notice you. Hope it resolves quickly for you.

kay

[MemberWing]

I expect this thread to grow big and fast - and most replies would not be nice toward Paypal.
The biggest problem with Paypal is that too many potential customer are using paypal. Paypal support is de-facto expectation for most e-commerce sites. So we, as vendors have to sacrifice and be tortured by paypal for sake of our conversions.

Otherwise we'd move to other shopping carts in a blink of an eye.

I am currently establishing account with 2CO as a backup plan.

[kenj]

Hi Andy

If you think paypal are bad you should try some of the high street banks here in the UK

It took me half an hour to draw out cash the other day with passport and drivers license as ID. Even then I was made to feel guilty for taking my money.

Banking is now the most corrupt industry in the world. at least they look after their criminal directors with fantastic pensions

[Andyhenry]

Originally Posted by Kay King

Positive spin - you earn so much that even big payment processors notice you. Hope it resolves quickly for you.

kay

That's how I'm thinking of it

I think if I was in the UK I could've avoided it by having them call my home phone - but because I'm out of the country and they don't accept mobile numbers, I had to use their other methods.

The bummer is - I use them for a lot of stuff - I have about $500 a month in subscriptions go out with them, and while my sites are down - all those email accounts are down aswell so it's lucky I have a few different hosting accounts and have operation email accounts.

There's a good lesson here not to have all your eggs in one basket - I almost moved all my hosts on to one server recently to rationalise the management of them, but this has made me reconsider that.

Andy

[Steve Sanchez]

If you are making that much money wouldn't your own merchant account be more cost effective? They transfer the money right into your bank account.

Might be worth looking into.

[Kay King]

I almost moved all my hosts on to one server recently to rationalise the management of them, but this has made me reconsider that.

I'd definitely reconsider that one just on a geographical basis. One act of nature in one location could take all sites down. It's a small risk perhaps but a big problem when it happens.

As large as paypal is, seems they could have a better option than total freeze on established accounts in good standing. Seems PP could have a restricted category where accounts in good standing with good reputations might be curtailed but still allow recurring payments to be processed. Guess that would require putting the word "customer" in service, wouldn't it?

Having a backup processor is what many recommend - but I've never understood how this would help with recurring payments.

kay

[Louis Raven]

If you need a hand Andy give me a shout.

I've seen you help enough Warriors in the past bro.

Louis

[George Montagu Brown]

Man... don't get me started on Paypal. They sure are one heck of a company.

I'm sorry to hear that, it really is frustrating when your business is delayed because of these ridiculous, automated checks Paypal uses.

The worst was when they wanted tracking numbers for a downloaded E-book! That led to several conversations on the phone, before finally, they understood.

We really should all start using a different company. Moneybookers is awesome, but still no affiliate programs pay via it.

George

[MemberWing]

Moneybookers are not so friendly for US customers though?
e-gold got busted.

Any hopes in this world?

Gleb

[Steven Wagenheim]

Andy, what scares me more than anything about what you just posted...

is that it happened to you.

If something like this could happen to somebody so successful, somebody
whose marketing "head" is so well put together, somebody who understands
business planning and everything that goes into starting and running a
successful business...

What chance do the rest of us have?

I think it's time for me to start looking into additional payment processors
and multiple backup plans with my subscriptions, hosting, etc.

Wow...just mind boggling.

[MemberWing]

I wonder what payment processing big guys like Frank Kern, Brad Fallon, Stompernet and plethora of other "product re-launchers" are using?


Gleb

[Dan.Thies]

StomperNet has had a long relationship with PowerPay & Authorize.net.

[william.jack38]

Ohh man, its really bad news. Paypal has made the rules very strong because of its client security matters. Try LibertyReserve, it is the safest and user-friendy payment processor.

[Bev Clement]

Andy, sorry that has happened. As you say it takes a couple of days to verify your bank account with Paypal.

A couple of suggestions for you.

Get a UK Skype telephone number, costs about 16 quid for a year. PayPal will let you use that but not a mobile number. I know I have a UK Skype telephone number and I have done that.

Look carefully at what they want from you, they need you to verify your home address.

If you have internet banking, you can download an online statement and use that.

They wanted a couple of bills from me, so I downloaded my online current account statement and my online savings statement and that was sufficient for them.

I really recommend a skype phone number because you can contact them instantly with that and do what they need.

Bev

[derekwong28]

Andy, are you sure the problem isn't caused by the fact that your were accessing your PayPal account from outside the UK? Also, did you ever use a proxy to access your account?

[Bev Clement]

Derek, accessing it from outside the UK shouldn't be a problem. I do that daily, heck I even accessed it from Mainland China without any problems. They limited my account when I reached a certain amount earned because that is European law.

There was also another time when a lot of UK accounts were limited when PayPal made some legal changes

[Francis Chan]

I had my account locked yesterday because they detected "suspicious activity" when I made some payments all in a matter of minutes. The credit card was canceled and I had to verify all sorts of questions.

Maybe that's what happened? Too many payments and they suspect someone stolen your account.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Bev,

Originally Posted by Bev Clement

Derek, accessing it from outside the UK shouldn't be a problem. I do that daily, heck I even accessed it from Mainland China without any problems. They limited my account when I reached a certain amount earned because that is European law.

There was also another time when a lot of UK accounts were limited when PayPal made some legal changes

Accessing it from other areas can and will cause a problem for some. I think it was in January, I went to the NH/Maine area for a 2 week vacation and was still doing business while I was there. On my third day, guess what happened? Yup, they froze my paypal After it was all sorted the customer service person told me that it was initially froze due to accessing it from an area that is different from where I normally do and a secondary reason was the amount of money that I was spending on vacation.

[derekwong28]

Bev, do you have any ideas what the limit is?

I access my account all the time ouside HK. But my understanding is your ip that had been associated with fraud in the past, it will trigger fraud alert filters at PayPal. That is why this is more likely to happen with proxies as hackers and fraudsters like using them.

China is a not a high risk country for credit fraud, but we have had a lot of attempted frauds from Vietnam, Philipines and Indonesia. Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore are pretty high risk as well despite the fact that their overall crime rate is pretty low.

Another possibility is that Andy was spending too much money with his PayPal account in a short period of time.


Derek

[MemberWing]

Now I understand why e-gold service was born in the first place. Neat idea.
Too neat to survive though.

[stevenh512]

Originally Posted by Kay King

So many complaints about paypal are from those who have tried to game the system and got caught or who didn't read the terms.

If only that were true. The sad truth is that Paypal can and will do this to anyone, at any time, for any reason (or no reason at all).

Originally Posted by kenj

Banking is now the most corrupt industry in the world.

Hasn't it always been? Honestly, what other business can you get into where you can tell someone "I'm going to charge you a free for the privilege of letting me make a profit off of your money, then if you want your money back I'm going to charge you another fee on top of that."? Biggest financial scam in history and it's totally legal.

[RebeccaL]

Paypal did it to me a couple of years ago. It was crippling for a couple of weeks until it was finally sorted out (many faxes later).
It is alarming how little transparency they have with their customers, you would not see a bank pulling these antics.

Just shows how you should not rely on one source for income.

[Bev Clement]

Jeremy I know it does happen, but Andy has been over in the Far East recently for a few months without any problems.

Derek, 4,500 pounds is the amount earned when they will automatically limit your account.

[Yudha Andika]

Yesterday...my account was held by PayPal. I don't know why. Their reason is that they saw illegal transaction. So, today I got minus balance...lol I contacted PayPal...and I must wait 15 days to investigated this situation...I can't make any transaction today...and my hosting get suspend !!!!!

[X]

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

It seems weird that you've come here to air this in public and not mentioned whether you've even spoken to them about it or not.

Andy

Andy -

This is what annoys me.

You're a big boy and you know how
PayPal goes.

Knowing that PayPal could freeze your
account, A. why would you put your
hosting account in that kind of jeopardy?
B. why are you ranting about it? and
C. how is this any different than Diana's
post where she's ranting (see your
response to her above, where you call
her out)

Personally, I think this is just an
opportunity to talk a little smack about
how much money you make (or not).

But I could be wrong.

Really, where's the real rant here?

It's like saying, "I messed around in the
red light district and got the clap.
Honest honey, I was told they inspect
those women. Basterds. Next time
I'll use my Visa card and charge it
back."

Personally, I've run a respectable
amount through PayPal and I've never
had an issue - knock on wood. But
I'm not going to expose anything
serious in my business in that way -
I think anyone who's been around as
long as Andy should know better by
now.

Anyone disagree?

X

[Agung Prabowo]

PayPal is great payment processors but it's really Annoying sometimes!
my last account was been freeze by PayPal then i'll try to fix it and contact Paypal

Still..........there's no answer till today! UUuhhhh.....

and sorry to hear about your paypal andy

[timpears]

eBay (which owns PayPal) is just too big and throws their weight around like many bullies do. PayPal had some problems before eBay bought it, but it just got worse after they took over.

I remember getting my account locked and it took me a month to find out why. And it turned out that I missed sending in some paperwork proving my identity after I complained about a vendor not delivering my product. I was already a well established account and getting close to $1,000 a day to my PayPal account. The number of phone calls and email just to find out what they wanted was horrendous.

eBay had a payment system trying to compete with PayPal, and they put limits on your revenue allowed. It was my secondary account that I kept just for those that didn't like PayPal. I exceeded my allotment and got it raised. I think it was around $10,000 per month and I exceeded it again, and it took a few days to get it raised the second time, and got a bunch of complaints from customers that I had offered that payment method and now they couldn't use it, and they were mad. What a pain they were.

Bottom line, they are just up to their same old tricks. It is hard to fight them as they make the rules, and they are the big boy on the block. But what is a person to do. They got that big because they provide a service that most of us need.

None of this helps the Op, I know. Hope that you manage to get it worked out.

[Bev Clement]

X one of the problems with PayPal which is not totally understood by the Americans as we see it time and time again happening.

If a person has a PayPal account in the UK or even within the European Union, they have a fraud law which means that regardless of how long a person has an account with PayPal they automatically limit it when 4,500 pounds is earned. This is an European Union Law which has nothing to do with PayPal, except that they have to implement it.

So it is normal for a Brit to get their PayPal account limited.

I was shocked when it happened to me. I opened my account to sell a couple of things on Ebay in the dim and distant past. I had the account for a couple of years before I started IM, and then one morning I woke up to find my account was limited. I read the reasons, and it was easy to sort it out.

I don't understand about the hosting though. I pay for my hosting through paypal, and my card linked to my paypal account expired. I forgot about it, and got an email from the hosting company to say that the payment was due. I went into the hosting account and then did a direct payment using my PayPal account, or I could use a credit card. Hostgator gives around 10 days grace to sort this out before they take any action and suspend the account.

[Francis Chan]

Hosting companies usually give at least a month's notice about your expiring plans. I would pay up once I received any such reminders from my hosters.

I am sure we all seen too many expired hostings on our internet adventures.

If you depend on your websites for your income, renew them well in advance.

[WinsonYeung]

Wow, another victim to paypal. I'm afraid I will encounter that in the future as well, any great alternative that can use to replace paypal?

[Sheryl Polomka]

Sorry to hear of your paypal trouble Andy, I know how you feel, I've been on the bad end of Paypals stupidity myself and it sucks. You're right, it is amazing just how much it affects your business, I lost a heap of subscriptions when it happened to me and most of them didn't come back.

I hope you get it all sorted out soon.
Sheryl

[Rully]

wew i just begin to use paypal :-( should I continue to use it ?

[jlandells]

Originally Posted by Bev Clement

They limited my account when I reached a certain amount earned because that is European law.

Ah - that's interesting to know! Do you happen to know what the threshold is, then anyone using it can be prepared for the inevitable?

Thanks,
-John.

[jlandells]

Originally Posted by jlandells

Ah - that's interesting to know! Do you happen to know what the threshold is, then anyone using it can be prepared for the inevitable?

Thanks,
-John.

Never mind - I read the rest of the thread.....

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by Rully

wew i just begin to use paypal :-( should I continue to use it ?

There's no reason to not use or avoid Paypal.

I think the general message here is to diversify.

Don't become depended on Paypal alone.

That can also be applied to lots of things in business and marketing


-Paul

[valerieSONORA]

I'd be pissed off if I had 100 sites that all went down cause of paypal. I went over 2 yrs with the wrong info cause I moved, got a new number and wouldn't let me change it without them verify by using my old # that I couldn't remember.

Finally had to call them and it took forever to talk to real person and so they would let me update my info.

The auto thing keeps saying, enter the phone number to ur paypal acct. Can't remember my old one and I entered my new one and the stupid bot kept repeating itself

Glad they didnt make me verify my info b4 that cause I couldn't have.

[Beatdock]

Did any one ever try to have two Paypal accounts just in case something like that happens?