Paypal sucks. Screwed for no reason after 5 years of business... Need alternative.

2checkout is a nice option and relatively cheap. You can also try google checkout, I've never used it before though.

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

Solomon Huey

Wow, is there anyway to file a dispute or lawsuit ?
if you need to take some action, you can by submitting a report to
Ripoff Report: By Consumers, For Consumers

I would love to sue them. Not worth the time though, I'm guessing their TOS lays everything out pretty clear.

It's a good way to see how much I relied on them. I think in the bigger picture this will be a good thing.

-Scott

That is scary Scott,

2co are pretty useful (I like it)

Kim

I wouldn't waste your time with sites like RipoffReport, which is just people bitching about things.

Did their email really say "We're parting ways"? Seems like odd language.

There had to be something that happened to cause this, but figuring it out is impossible from the info provided.

Can you log into the account?

Hi Scott,

I am sorry to hear that. I use PayPal, too and your post is not a good news for me (((

I would use 2Checkout.com as an alternative. I don't know how's their customer support, though.

You could try also 1shoppingcart.com

Good luck!

Here's what the email says....

And then goes on to tell me I can refund customers or wait 180 days for my money.

The only weird thing that happened, I got an email this morning from a customer I had over a year ago. He asked why I sent him an invoice... I hadn't sent him an invoice.

So, I was thinking maybe my account was hijacked... I asked Paypal about that and got no answer.

-Scott

Sorry to hear

which ever payment processor you choose, you should still have a paypal acocunt for thise times when not having paypal means no sale at all...

also check out: https://www.alertpay.com

I have seen paypal do this to countless people yet I still use them.

I am looking for other alternatives today. Thanks for the wake up call.

I have been with Paypal for about 3 years, so far so good but I have never been 100% comfortable with them, I just pray and hope that everything will be ok.

I would not take this lying down. For me, it would mean close to the end of
my business until I found another payment processor, and then having to
change all my DLGuard products from PayPal to something else.

I would get a lawyer and fight this with every drop of my blood and make
an example of these people just like that one guy did with Google.

You don't have to take this crap.

I know I wouldn't.

That's what people always say. Of course it's not possible they actually did break some rule, is it?


The fact that PayPal mentioned "risk" tells me you must have been getting lots of chargebacks or they don't like what you are selling.

I used to think the same thing man... The people saying they did nothing did something.

I haven't had a dispute or issued a refund in months. The only thing I've been selling is writing services, and all of my customers are happy.

They got an ear full on the phone. I don't know what I can do to be honest. I don't think whining or talking to them will help. Hiring a lawyer may help but I doubt it.

Right now, I'm just figuring out how to pull my money out and finding another way to take payments.

From what I understand about them, they are not a bank or a service that is required to play by the same rules as even a CC agency. Their TOS pretty much allows them to freeze all of your assets and keep them "while they investigate". Thing is...during the six months they have your cash...they don't have to tell you what, why or how they are investigating. Easier for them to let the dust settle. Try making your affiliate payouts with dust!

On a different note...same goes for those who have "mail drops" that have their mail delivered. They could take your mail and toss it and you have no recourse with the postal authorities. When you signed up, you gave them cart blanche to accept mail in your behalf. Their TOS usually absolves them of any responsibility for your mail...heck of a deal huh?

Peter Soos

Was your account just a normal account or the "merchant account"?

I have read all the horror stories as well and I don't know
and don't want to find out. So I don't accept any payment
over $3,000 through Paypal for my copywriting services.

And I don't keep anything over $1,000 in my paypal
account before I do a bank transfer. In this way
I try to play it safe.

And 2CO has kept some money for me after I closed
my account. This money should have been sent to
me months ago and I never got it. Not enough to
sweat over anyway.

That's why for my copywriting services I accept
mainly wire transfers, bank deposits or a check
in the mail.

-Ray Edwards

PayPal is regulated by the FSA (Financial Services Authority) in the UK so UK customers have a powerful ally in such an event - is there no similar regulatory body in USA?

Also, since PayPal are the ones claiming that 'risk' is the problem, they need to substantiate that risk. It isn't as though they have suddenly decided to close your account. The email quote indicates that they are prepared to carry your business until you find an alternative payment processor but that the risk inherrent in their business with you is too high for them to entertain.

Maybe there are aspects to your business that experience has shown them are unwise. The 180 days delay in passing on payments to you is an indication that they are expecting to see a major refund level. This in itself would not normally be assessed as risk but they obviously also feel that the refund level could also affect their own position in the market.

It is worth sending them an email copied to a lawyer asking them to clarify their position.

This sucks royally, Scott.

Obviously, it's a complete pain in the ass to have to now look into a traditional merchant account for C/C transactions and start collecting your payments for your writing via check/fed-ex to keep cash-flow going. But that's where you are...

It's not fair, and it's not right. But, you seem to have your eye on the ball about it and are taking the pragmatic approach -- smart.

I'd also be writing a BLISTERING letter right now to the California Attorney General, cc'ed to PayPal's dispute resolution department, demanding specific information relating to the unreasonable seizure of your funds and the specific activities that led to PayPal's actions.

Best,

Brian

Get a lawyer! Sue them for your money they are holding, loss of interest, damages, lost earnings, lawyer and court fees, and whatever else you can.


You say it is not worth it, and it is this reason that Paypal gets away with it. Don't let them get away with it.


Shane_K

Ok, after reading this I'm thinking of switching to 2co, but Raydal got scr-wed but them too. anybody else got any feedback on 2co or AlertPay?
Jim

I've been with paypal for over a decade now. And to be honest, they have done this to me several times in the past. - The first time is the most devastating. But like you, I was selling an honest product with a very small percentage of refunds or complaints. However, out of the many people that work at paypal, I think that there are some people that work at paypal that are leery of any type of digitally delivered products. They believe it to be "too risky" because it's not a physical product that can be properly tracked. It's the same type of thinking that got digitally delivered items banned from ebay.

Now there are a few ways of addressing this problem. The first thing I would do is write out a well written email, explaining your years of problem free service to your customers, and begging them to let you back on. Continue to email them with this same email every day (maybe even several times per day). The point of this is that there are many different attitudes to the rules working at paypal. You may eventually get your email to a person that sees it to be as ridiculous as you do and help you to get reinstated.

Sometimes this doesn't work however - then you just sign up w/ a new account. In order to do this, you need to do a few things.

1. change up your personal info just a bit, so that it doesn't trigger any of paypal's duplicate account software. So for example maybe add an initial or your middle name to your first name, and maybe spell your street name a bit differently - like spell out drive instead of dr.

2. Have a different bank account then the one you used in the previous paypal account.

3. Start taking your money out more regularly. Never leave money sitting in your paypal account.

I know that this sounds like something an online thief would do, but believe me, I've only ever sold honest products. It's paypal that doesn't play by normal banking or financing rules. They can and will freeze your account - if the wrong person thinks that your products are "too risky". The only way to protect yourself, and still use their monopolistic services, is to also bend their rules a bit. It also pays to have several accounts running at once.

My most recent accounts have been running fine now for a couple of years. However I do not feel guilty in the least bending paypal's rules. They bend them all of the time themselves.

That's terrible and scary. No disputes, no nothing and they just shut it down? And they lose all that commission they've been making.

Very strange and scary. I'm scared of paypal. They're a necessary evil right now.

I had paypal on a site that was against their TOS though I didn't know it. So my account was put under review but they didn't close it.

Seems they would at least give you an explanation. You deserve to know why.

I'm scared something like this will happen to me one day after all the horror stories I've heard Hope not.

Do a search for "merchant account for online business" on Google and find one that you like. I would take the advice of Steve Wagenheim also. Someone sued Google for something very similar when they closed his Adsense account and kept several hundred dollars that was still in his account.

He sued and won, and Google was forced to pay his account balance. Very similar kind of deal, they claimed he was a risk, but could not give any reason why he was a risk. They tried to keep his funds also.

The bottom line is, it's illegal. You provided a product or service to your customers. Paypal can not refuse to give you your money. It's called stealing, and despite what their user agreement says, they can not force you to give up money you earned just because their user agreement says they can.

Keep trying to contact them. They might need some more information from you to see if you are a "real business". They don't just do things to be mean. You need to blame this on the highjackers and scammers that ruine it for everyone else.

If you guys are thinking "PayPal took my money for no reason and now I have to sue them to get it back". That is just plain stupid. They do NOT do that. They are trying to cover their ass because of the real suckers out there. So ask them what they want verified and you will get your account back up and running.

I've been using PP since 2000 and have been through it all with them. They want you as a customer but they have to cover their ass too.

Let me tell you something about 2Checkout. You CAN NOT sell products on multiple domains with ONE account. I'm assuming you have more then one domain right? Then you need to open a fresh account for each domain. Even if it's a $7 report!

So think about that. And I'm tired of hearing a bunch of cry babies on here ..."PayPal got me... waa waa!... I'm going to sue them bla bla. Some of you need to grow up. Are you really going to let this little freeze blow your whole reputation with PP?

One time I had 31k froze. I knew why, I handled it and the the account was back to normal. Now I have a designated Account Manager.

Realize they are at risk for your pleasure. There are 100 million PP accounts people. You will become an Elite client if you work with them. Send them a letter, introduce yourself and let them know you mean real business with them. Call attention to yourself. They are normal people too.

ok I'm done. Sometimes you guys tick me off.

Scott I feel really bad for you. I've heard about
this sort of thing happening quite a lot with paypal.

I use paypal but it's always a good idea to get your
own merchant account. As some people have already
said 2checkout is very good.

Don't take this lying down, nobody should be able to just
take your money and not give you any reason. I'd contact
a lawyer if I were you.

Good luck.

Will cooper

Scott,

Unfortunately, this happens all the time with paypal (and ebay). They don't need a reason and they don't have to explain themselves.

We had a slightly different situation with ebay/paypal a few years ago involving a counterfeit product from a bad seller and were completely blown off by both ebay & paypal. We got our $300+ refunded ONLY after contacting the District Attorneys in the states of California and Nebraska. They were well aware of the problems with paypal. It took a lot of time and effort, but we got our money back.

It seems paypal's policy is to grudgingly deal with squeaky wheels and ignore everyone else. If you really feel you have a case and are willing to invest the time necessary, I'd contact the DA's in your home state, CA, and NE and see what happens. You will probably find that the DAs have received numerous complaints about the same problem.

Regards,
T.

hey Scott that's terrible news man I feel for you and others that have gone thru this.

I guess the lesson that we can all learn is to do your due diligence NOW, and find a "back-up plan" in case Paypal decides to randomly close you/our accounts.

2checout sounds real good right about now...

UPDATE:

After HOURS of talking to several Paypal reps, here's the verdict...

Their fraud team has determined that I pose a "high risk"...

I went all the way up the customer service chain. The lady I talked to was nice and understanding...

I said "So, you're telling me that after 5 years of being a loyal customer... Who stays well within acceptable use policy, who has had thousands of dollars every month going through their account for years without issue, that you're shutting my account down and not even giving me a reason why?"

The answer was basically "Yes, that's right".

I had her manually go through my account activity for the last few months. I asked her to point out anything that may have raised a red flag. She said the account looks perfectly normal... No disputes or claims...

So I asked who to talk to about reviewing my account and being considered to have it reinstated...

The answer was that the decision is made by the fraud team, and that all decisions are final.

Bottom line, I am permanently banned from Paypal for no apparent reason...

I found out through some research that all accounts are manually reviewed by fraud specialists, and the ultimate decision is made by an individual.

There is no way to contact these people for a reason why.

I HIGHLY recommend everyone who relies on Paypal to get a backup plan in place TODAY.

Believe me, Paypal accounts don't come any lower risk than mine. I wasn't doing anything even remotely "shady" and I have years of history with them. If you're thinking "it won't happen to me" don't bet on it.

-Scott

Point taken. I guess I learned my lesson.

Scott - been there, I had this happen to me last year. Same thing - 'we are parting ways' and it didn't matter how much I tried to sort it out with them they just wont listen. Once they make up their mind that they are 'parting ways' then they don't listen to a word you say.

I used alertpay for a while, but I was doing subscriptions and they just didn't work for subscriptions. I haven't tried any other payment processor but there was a good thread on here yesterday about Paymate - they are supposed to be very good.

It sucks that they can just keep your money, this happened to me in November, my 180 days isn't up yet, but I refunded most of the money in there and some of my customer paid me again through other methods.

There are ways to get around it and get yourself another Paypal account - unfortunately they are the biggest and most used processor. I also found while I had alertpay as my processor my sales really dropped.

I use PayDotCom now for all my Paypal buttons - they are less likely to stuff you around when you are going through their 'best customer' with PayDotCom. That does mean a little more fees involved with each payment received as you have fees from PayDotCom and Paypal, but its worth that extra protection I think.

I know when it happened to me that there were people that just didn't believe me that I had done nothing wrong. I actually had one customer that was really nasty and assumed I was a scammer because of it and she actually started contacting my other customers and bad mouthing me, I had a heap of customers then asking for refunds all because of this one customers reaction to my paypal account being 'limited'. It really can ruin your business, my business is still not back up to where it was in November before this happened.

So all those sceptics that think he must have done something wrong - no he musn't have! Paypal do this and they can do it to anyone and you don't have to do anything wrong for it to happen.

Good luck Scott, I hope you get your business back on track quickly.

Sheryl

Oh, I just wanted to add, in my case I was using Jon Ledgers $7 script, which according to Paypal is a Pyramid Scheme, this was their reasoning anyway. They didn't care to listen when I tried to explain to them that it wasn't a pyramid scheme in any way.

So anyone using the $7 script may want to be careful too.

I am with E Junkie but their services need money processing base like PayPal or Google checkout.

I'd stick with PayPal anyway because most of customers using paypal and you can lose alot of sales if you ignore paypal.

But anyway your story freaks me out abit. What I use to do is withdrawing money each and everytime it reaches $500-700 mark. This way I can fell alot more secure than leaving my PayPal accont with few grands on it

Thanks for the story

Andrew aka Irmscher

Forget paypal.
If you want to be a serious merchant and accept credit caards you need a real merchant payment account with a real company like autorize.net.
You wo'nt have to deal with anymore rodiculous claims or chargebacks.
Get a chargeback just fax over your terms and conditions and proof you supplied your product or service and the money is back in your bank 15 days later.
No nonsense.

These paypal stories are true. Don't doubt it, and be very careful. One close associate of mine, and you would know his name here in warriors, lost paypal because a company sent him a single payment. That company was deemed by paypal to be illegitimate, so they not only shut down the companies' account, but every paypal account that received money from them. Even if a one time payment.

And that is not the most hair raising story.

I highly recommend plimus.com to anyone need to take recrurring payments, or single payments, and are selling tangible or digital products, or even legitimate business opportunities.

They acccept visa, mastercard, discover, AMex, paypal, electronic check, and others.

I'm wondering how big of a dog you have to be to get an Account Manager assigned to you by PayPal? Anybody know off the top of your head.

I'm just a little bitty cog in that big old PayPal wheel.

Ken
The Old Geezer

Paypal is part of FEE-bay and they are both mean FUBAR companies. I use them as little as possible. Let this be a lesson to others. I would investigate paypal. Too many cases of them doing max evil to their customers.

Also, many thieves are using FEE-bay to sell stolen swag so be careful, as you can go to jail for possession of stolen property.

Ok..I was just a little scared at the beginning of this post...now I'm running scared. I use Amember along with PP for my membership site, so I now I'm going to be pounding my head against the wall trying to figure out how to switch all my current members to a authorize.net recurring membership payment, do they even do that?

i seriously couldn't live without paypal. I haven't run into any major issues with them, knock on wood.
Yes, they take fee outs. Big deal. Who does NOT take fees..what on this planet is actually really "free"?
Paypal speeds up purchases, it makes it easier to do business online.

I "hate" every service/vendor who does NOT offer paypal...there are some european sites (hosting etc..) which STILL use old-fashioned bank-transfer..which means a transaction would take 5 days...with my ***** bank taking out the fees instead.

Using paypal i can buy domains and have them running within minutes. Just one example. Or whatever other purchases/service. I actually <3 paypal, sorry for your bad experiences. I would call them and talk to a person.

I used to have an ebay business, and was doing over $1000 a day into my pay pal account. I ordered private label product from china, and hence usually had a large inventory on hand (about 30 days worth, with the next 2 months already on order and being manfactured).

Pay pal shut me down out of the blue, and it took months to get things straightened out. In the meantime, my entire ebay and importing business colapsed, my car was repo'd, my utilities cut off, and I was pushed right to the edge of bankruptcy (thank god I had some family help me out). it should have taken 48 hours max to sort out - not MONTHS.

Everyone who has had this happen to them was once a pay-pal cheerleader, convinced everyone who says they got shut down "must have done something wrong". and then it happened to them.

I hate having to deal with them.. I made a few grand promoting a paydotcom product this month, and I it makes me nervous having to rely on paypal to receive it

I also had my Paypal account frozen last spring. I'm not a high-amount person and I don't leave much in the account. I tried and tried to contact them but nothing helped. Finally I was talking to "my" banker at Chase, I have a special account for Paypal, and he talked to a superior and so on, and they discovered why my account had been frozen: I had bought a $40 Lego Star Wars set on ebay and the seller had purchased something from someone else who turned out to have some questionable transactions. Note the chain!

I did get my money back after exactly 180 days.

I urge anyone who depends on Paypal to have a backup, just in case.

you might want to use two different paypal accounts and have some clients pay here, some there... like changing the payment link every 1st of the month on your site (looks the exact same to the buyer...)

helps a business not get totally crippled if they have a paypal issue.

Plimus works too.

Plimus

I use plimus too. I am from Canada and have very limited options. They process cards (and paypal) and handle delivery. Also, you can totally customize your order page, which I found very appealing. I was able to make it look like my site so it was integrated very well.

Oh ya, they also have an affiliate program so you can have affiliates sign up to promote your products.

Here's what I did today...

First, why wait until it happens to you! I went out today and secured several online merchant services and they all accept PayPal too.

Now I am back in control of my own business. I have several backup plans in place and can stop holding my breath every time I go to login to PayPal...

Mike Hill

I find it a bit strange Scott with that many transactions that you never had a dispute, refund etc.

I have been in IM for over 10 years and with Paypal 9 of those years and had my account suspended a couple of times but using a calm business approach always been able to get it resolved and back up within an acceptable time.

I have had many customers also using Paypal where they have had their account frozen for different reasons and also sorted it out. In every case it was the customers fault.

I guess what I am saying is what your saying does not ring true with my experience and I don't think you are telling the whole story.

Q

If you're making even a few hundred $ a month, it's worth the fees for a real merch account.

Hi Scott I dont use them anymore, once you start having issues with them you will not use them anymore. I wont anyway.

I hope you get a lawyer, in fact, I think all of us here, well me anyway would be glad to ring them and give them an earful and I am sure this would help, rip off merchants thats what they are,



Patrick

If you are accepting payments in the thousands of dollars every month, especially when delivering services or non-physical goods, I would look for other payment methods. They have a tendency to do this to anyone that starts receiving too much money in their PP accounts, at best they limit your account and ask for identification, at worst they make you wait 180 days to get your money.

I agree with Vegas - "and yet these same Warriors will bend over and kiss Pay Pal's ass...even when they get screwed for NO REASON. Warriors fear Pay Pal."

"I truly hope more good Warriors get screwed by Pay Pal. It's the only way....we'll ever see viable competition."


I hate to say this but I warned warriors about this before. Since November 2007, I've been saying it when the same thing happened to me after years of selling on eBay and using paypal. In the busiest season, with thousands of dollars of sales, they shut me down. I have never recovered.

A lawyer will not help so forget that. You will just have to start over with a real merchant account now.

This is amazing that the media do not expose the ebay and paypal scam. We only have lazy journalists now who do not investigate the practices of these companies. Notice that not one journalist warned about the financial crises until after it happened?

There has to be corruption at these 2 companies to operate like this.

I am surprised at how many warriors who are making money do not use a merchant account. When I PM most and ask for alternate payments, every single one who reply say "only paypal"! Unbelievable!

I agree VV and I know you HATE paypal, the problem is Paypal is THE major to send and rec. money online. It's like a necessary evil. If they hold ur money for 180 days I think they should also give any interest accrued.

I never keep much in my paypal. I like to keep around $50 in case I need to hire someone for a simple job or something. But if I get say $200 in my acct. I'll transfer $150 of that to my bank acct. So if paypal ever decides to shut down my acct. they will only be keeping around $50.

I also have an alertpay acct. I used it once to buy something from a site that didn't accept paypal. So I have a backup just in case.

I'd also recommend everyone getting a back whether it be alertpay or something else. I don't "think" it can happen to me but I know it might.

By the way I had to call paypal yesterday-they won't let me update any of my info cause I moved and the stuff on record is old. And calling them is a real hassle. The first number was a nightmare I couldn't get out of that stupid automated system. They asked me to punch in the phone # assoc. w/my paypal acct. That number is like 3 yrs old and I can't remember it.

I called another number and eventually after dealing with that annoying automated system forever was able to speak to a real live person who let me update my info. And he was really nice I was expecting a jerk, but he sounded very pleasant

Scott, I'm sorry to hear about your situation, too, man.

Some very good advice in this thread, though, so I hope you're back on your feet or that it doesn't even rattle you.

Re: some of that advice... I took another look at Plimus... boy have they changed! I remember buying some software through them just a couple of years ago and they seemed a bit hokey at the time to me. And as I seem to recall, they ONLY did software. Or am I mistaken?

At any rate, leaps and bounds, I say!

I'll definitely be looking into them a bit more over the coming weeks when I get a bit more time up my sleeve. Thanks for the recommendation (I can't recall who posted the original link to them in this thread, but thank you!).

QUESTION: Is anyone currently using Plimus to sell their services (a la copywriting, for example) and/or digital products other than software? I'd be very keen to hear your experiences--and I'm sure others would, too.

And re: Your own merchant account... any pitfalls there, folks?

TheNightOwl

Update:

I went and had a tool around the Plimus site and found this in their FAQs:

Now, I'm not in the gambling or adult markets, but what I find interesting is this bit:

(I assume where it says "or" it means "of")

They accept subscription payments for services and software, but not to websites. So no processing your membership site's payment's through Plimus. Hmmm...

Also, it seems that their legal status with vendor's is as a reseller and not simply a payment processor... so that needs further investigation.

And finally, their payout methods are reasonably limited for non-Nth-American folks, with the only viable option being ** drumroll ** yep, good ol' PayPal!

Very keen to hear more about merchant accounts and will do a search here on the WF later in the week. Gotta get back to the work I was doing before dropping in!

Be good!

TheNightOwl

Yes same exact thing happened to me. I had a few grand in my account and my account goes limited. When you try to contact and ask them they don't give you a real answer. 2CO Checkout works well as well as Alertpay are the ones I use.

And again...

interesting thread here. Scroll down to where Josh starts pumping out the good stuff (as usual).

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ease-help.html

I would highly recommend 2Checkout. They accept PayPal payments so you get the best of both worlds.

After My account freeze with PayPal, 2Checkout has always been there for me. Customer service is excellent. Only drawback is they require a separate account for each domain that sales come from. That is easily offset by using JVManager or another centralized system.

Funny thing, my account has been dead for nearly a year and yesterday PayPasl sent me their PayPal Mastercard Debit card. Just for giggles I tried to activate it. No good LOL

Ted

I deliver an ebook through plimus. Just zip it up and they take care of the distribution as well. Actually a pretty good system. They also accept paypal from buyers. They have a good system for tracking everything, you can even find out how far people are getting in the order process and so on. They still have limitations but have found them to be pretty good. I am in Canada and I have them send me check every month so that works well for me.

dont know if this will be of help to you but you could look at mals ecommerce it is free
hope it all works out for you

I'm sorry to hear this.

I think it's a good lesson for all of us: don't leave a whole bunch of cash in Paypal.

Fabian

A temporary solution to prevent such PayPal slap: do not leave a lot of money in your PayPal account. Withdraw regularly and do not leave anything to them.

This is awful i had a few problems with them a couple of years ago, had my account hacked into and was using it as a business at the time it took them months to deal with it and whenever i spoke to them by phone it just made me more angry.

There just complete idiots i do know quite a few that have successfully sued them. Yes you'll get the money back but they wont do business with you again stating your relationship is broken. There was a site that people used to go to called paypalsucks.com but i dont whether its still up because paypal kept threatening court action against them!

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Scott.

I hate ******* companies like this. They get too arrogant for their own good.

You definitely need to at least try and go up the chain. The reps you speak to when you first dial in are like tricycles in a lot full of Acuras. They won't get you far, and they are trained to be the first line of defense and stall or push you back.

PayPal's HQ is here:
PayPal, Inc.
2211 N. First St.
San Jose, CA 95131
Phone: 402-935-2050
Fax: 650-864-8001

Here is a list of their top brass:

(I would start here with this group, Merchant Services and Consumer)
Dana Stalder
SVP and General Manager, Merchant Services and Consumer (at PayPal)

Now this is an SVP/GM. She is probably too high up to spend time with you at first. You may want to reach a Senior Manager or Director level person under Stadler.

There's a chance that they will screen your call. And you may get a bitch or asshole who will act high and mighty and won't put your call through.

But don't forget that PayPal is an eBay subsidiary. Here is eBay's HQ info...

eBay Inc.
2145 Hamilton Ave.
San Jose, CA 95125
Phone: 408-376-7400
Fax: 408-376-7401

You can call eBay customer service or their sales department. Try to get a really low level name, an authentic employee name. Call into ebay like a real client or potential customer and be really nice and friendly, this will help you get the person's name.

Then you can use that name to call PayPal and get through to Stadler's group and speak with someone. But don't be nasty at first. Control your temper and speak professionally.

I hope this can help you at least figure out WHY they closed your account. Good luck!

If all else fails, send a Tweet to Obama.

PS...Don't reach out to the Legal department. That's the last place you should turn to on your own. I believe most "Lawyer Jokes" actually originated from true stories.

__________________________________________________ __________

Other PayPal senior staff:

Rene Aeberhard
Director, Architecture

Michael Barrett
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dude the same thing happened to me. I got my money after 6 months though.

The REAL solution is simply to get a merchant account. The most popular in internet marketing is Authorize.net...

If your credit is an issue you may not get approved.

There are many merchant accounts out there so don't get discouraged if you get turned down. Just to a search for internet merchant accounts and you'll have enough listings to keep you busy for a while.

I'd look for the companies that have phone numbers listed on their websites. Pick up the phone and call them. See if they answer their phone. Do your due diligence. Find out if they are a reputable company...do their customers love them??? How do they work.

Since a payment processor is one of the most important parts of your business, take the time to really figure out with merchant account is best for your needs. Do they have good customer service? Do they have a dedicated account rep? Do you care? It's really up to what YOU want.

Do this research and your business will thank you for it....

However, I have a feeling that only 5% of anybody reading this will actually do the work it takes to find the right merchant account. It is a bit of work.

Hmm....

Here's an idea. Do the research, find out what merchant companies are good in different situations. Do the report for yourself...then package it up and SELL that report to other internet marketers. Sounds like the makings of an excellent WSO if you want to take the time to do it right.

Hey Scott

Sorry to hear about the problems,

I can understand your frustration because as a South African citizen im not allowed to receive money through paypal but they have no problem taking it from me!

Anyway i use 2checkout and they have been great.

Hope you come right

Sorry to hear that Scott. My sister went through the same thing last year. She was a power seller on eBay, and her PayPal account got closed after 4 years. All she sold was items that she picked up from yard sales and thrift marts. She made a nice income from eBay, in her last two years; she made an average of $6500 a month. Then one morning she checked her PayPal account, and she was limited, followed by the awful parting ways letter. Not only that, PayPal held the $15,000 she had in her account for 90 days.

If a collective effort by a substantial group of marketers and online businesses were somehow organized to leave PayPal and specifically state these occurrences as the reason for leaving, would it make a dent or make anyone there notice?

I wouldn't expect eBay sellers to do this, for obvious reasons. But as for a good chunk of non-eBay businesses to do this...does anyone think it might push them towards relaxing the "We do what we want without needing to give you a specific reason" policy?

Any opinions?

I would post a complaint w/ the Better Business Bureau for sure!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This cost you a lot of money. That is CRAZY!!!! Others should know but if no one ever files anything, it will keep happening.

I don't really care if you believe me or not.

I didn't say I've never had a dispute or given a refund, I said I haven't in a few months.

I haven't sold physical products in years. When I sell digital products, I always have a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

So anytime a buyer complained for any reason or disputed, I would refund. My refund %'s are always low.

At the end of last year I sold off a lot of my websites to shift my focus to copywriting and a few bigger products that I plan to release soon.

I haven't sold anything besides writing services through Paypal in a couple of months.

And to clarify a few other comments I've seen...

My account isn't limited, it's done. Paypal doesn't want to work with me anymore, I worked my way up the customer service chain yesterday and was very diplomatic. No possibility to be reinstated, no second review of my account, it's just done.

My guess is that they didn't like the fact that I was selling a large volume of expensive items that aren't physical and that they can't see. That's the only thing I can think of.

Anyway, it's just a payment processor. I'll live without the money for awhile. I have friends and family with Paypal accounts I can use, I have backup plans in place, and life will go on.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, it's been a huge help!

-Scott

Sorry to hear about this scott. I wonder if there is anything we can really do about this..The only reason I ever really use paypal for is ebay. If I can get around that problem then MOST people would not need paypal.

Steve,

I have thought A LOT about what you just said over the last couple of days...

Basically trying to answer the question "Will I be alright without Paypal?"

In short, yeah, I'll be fine personally.

The main problem I see is that a lot of the things I buy require Paypal... WSO's, services on this forum, things like that.

But I know enough people with a Paypal account that I can just have them pay for me and pay them back with cash or whatever.

As for accepting payments, if people want what you're selling and know who you are, I don't think it's an issue.

The only downside I'm seeing is I'll lose the instant cash in hand that my Paypal account/card gave me, but that's not a big deal.

And in my opinion, if your business relies on one company... Paypal, Google, whoever to survive, you need to restructure your business, or at least have a backup plan in place that you can implement immediately.

-Scott

It was a business account.

I really doubt that me buying stuff was the issue... That would be ridiculous... Then again giving me no reason at all is pretty ridiculous too, so I dunno.

With thousands of dollars each month, you should look into getting your own merchant account setup.

Best alternative I know of other than that is AlertPay.

This is definitely not the first or last PayPal horror story. I leave about $10 in my PP account and transfer everything else out.

You may want to try filing complaints with some consumer watchdog agencies.

It's almost like politicians own and run PayPal

As for personal experiance.. I have 1 paypal account that is in the negative because someone broke into it. My bank cleared my of the fraude but paypal didnt, So I open a new one to clear my first one and they lock up the new paypal account with over $1,500 in it. And they still have the balls to send me to collections. I refuse to pay my negative balance until they release my funds after 180 days. This should be coming up in may. If I could SUE paypal I would. I think this should be a group effort in the sueing process. Otherwise their lawyers will eat any single entity alive. There are not enough negative words in the dictionary to describe the hate I have for paypal..

I remember sometime ago someone had posted a site I think it was something like paypalsucks dot come or something like that for people to contact paypal for issues like this. Paypal makes it very hard to get satisfaction when there are problems like this but are quick to shut you down when they think there is some hanky panky going on. Really not fair at all.

I will try and find that link for you. It lists supervisors and their direct lines and stuff. I am not sure if its still accurate but it couldn't hurt.

With US Paypal users able to generate VCC numbers, there is much LESS incentive to take paypal in such a case, where you are selling mainly to the US market... because paypal customers can buy from you even if you dont accept paypal.

I have had this with clients outside the USA that I have paid their aweber bills for via a VCC when they sent me a paypal to cover it.

This can happen with any payment processor, even a real merchant account. In fact its much more likely to happen with your own merchant account.

And paypal are essentially putting there merchant account on the line verytime they process payents for anyone. there fraud department runs on the rules set by the credit card companies.

either they kill all risk no matter how smaall or they risk losing their own merchant account effectively putting them out of business.

With one company I use to be associated with the merchant account froze the account because we were doing monthly subscriptions, they deemed it high risk and froze the account for 180 days (180 days is the norm)

If they choose to to stop dealing with your business from a risk assessment thier only option is to hold onto the funds for that period in which perspective chargebacks are eligible.

And I would say the risk is as pointed out here, no discernable product digital or physical.

I have had this conversation with my paypal rep, and we now log all customer activity on the sites we run, we record the IP address of every log in and can recall the records of all accounts. Essentially we can give them a complete record of number of times they logged in the IP adresses used and the last login date.

The risk on doing business is all on paypal, they risk far more than you if they get it wrong, so their fraud department is rightfully cautious

Robert

To add to what Robert has talked about...

Given the present state of the economy, credit card companies are tightening up their belts.
This maybe why you are seeing more account closures with places like Paypal.

I'm seeing this with my husbands boat dealership.
There are bad apples in all levels - from the consumer to the business owner.
In a knee jerk reaction, financial institutions (cc companies) are going through their accounts with a fine tooth comb to minimize their risks.

For example at the dealership they are seeing an increase in the interest rate from the flooring companies (companies that carry the purchase of the products in your showroom) as well as a decreased "free flooring" time.

There are companies as well as individuals going bankrupt and the financial houses are panicking. They need to cover their losses as well as minimize any future loss.

In a time when these institutions need to help small business and be more flexible - they aren't. Its a knee jerk reaction and it affects business as well as consumers

Is it the right way to do things? - not necessarily but its our present reality.

You could still do more with customer service and co-operation. I don't think the issue here is so much in that they held the account.

It it in that they have no desire to try and rectify the problem. Just ignore us until we go away. That it no way to run a business.

As a side note here, if you have customers who lodge an unauthorised activity dispute with paypal because they just want a refund, be careful to fight the dispute...

I used to take the view that it wasnt worth the time to argue and it was better customer relations to just process the refund. But everytime a customer lodges an unathorised activity complaint they are accusing you of fraudulent activyt, and everytime you capitulate to keep the peace you are essentially admitting the fraud.

If customers come to us via the support desk and ask for a refund, even if its because they just changed their minds we are 90% liable to give them one.

If they lodge a paypal complaint with asking us first there is no chance in hell they will get a refund, we use all the stats mentioned above in my previous post to prove they have logged into get thier product or service

Even if we sell a single product we make them log into get it so we can prove they received it.

(very usefull owning your own membership script so you can achive that)

If you continously admit to fraud by agreeing to a resolution by refund for any such paypal dispute eventually paypal will see you as a risk

Robert

Quite frankly, not having PayPal as a payment processor can affect your business, especially if it is webmaster related. Since many prefer to use PayPal over credit cards directly.

If yours was a business account, I would open a personal account or vice-versa. You will need to use a different address and also credit card. Also it may be advisable to use a different ISP when you do it.

But it is important to find out what the reason is why PayPal close your account in the first place. My suspicion is that they did not like the product/services that you were providing.

Hate to point out the obvious but WE ARE WARRIORS

Why not organize as a group and start showing PayPal some of our muscle?

We are capable of generating so much influence that even PayPal could shudder...

Well this is ironic, just today I had my paypal account limited. I can't recieve or send money or do anything except add money to the account. (yeah, right) :rolleyes:

This better be resolved in a few days.

I had paypal buttons on a site which I didn't know violated their TOS. I was made aware of this and removed all paypal buttons immediately. And I emailed them and told them so.

Then today they send an email saying it still wasn't resolved?! :confused: And they limited my acct. and it's under review. So I'm screwed until this gets resolved.

So I took down the site completely. There is no site there at all. I emailed them and told them the site was taken down so hopefully they will restore my acct. asap.

There are other ppl with similar sites to mine that use paypal and haven't been "caught". So I don't know what's up with that.

Now that the site is down, they have nothing to complain about. They had nothing to complain about after I removed all paypal buttons but they still limited my acct. after this for some strange reason I don't understand.

I made a blog for someone recently and they can't pay me until this is resolved. (unless they wanna send a check :rolleyes: )

At least they haven't "parted ways" with me yet, but they threatened that if this wasn't resolved they would terminate my acct. So I immediately took down the site.

I hate paypal, but I need paypal

Oh the painful memories...

They did that to me with many thousands on frozen hold for a WHOLE 180 days.

OMG - what business speed bump. I use linkpoint now for some stuff. 2CO for others.
AlertPay is up and down, they stopped taking visa and mastercard the other day out of the blue... Merchant accounts and payment processors... oh man...

Franco

dam this sucks. another economic downfall. guess they needed your money more than you do. The great Paypal Buyout! Lol

Just got an email from paypal saying my acct was restored. After I completely took down my website. I didn't know anyone there even worked at this hour.

Vince, what do you use to send or receive money online?

You should've called them up and demanded all interest they accrued on your account. I don't see how it's legal for them to take interest on YOUR money. It's not theirs, it's yours so how can they keep it and stay out of legal trouble?

Here is a great site..

Welcome to PayPalSucks.com, PayPal Lawsuit, PayPal Alternative, PayPal Complaints, Fraud & Evil behind the PayPal system!

I do not know this Burt Carpenter character and have not had time to search anything yet. However, having lived without paypal for a long time and having been shut down by them in the past for no reason other than they considered a fifty dollar christmas gift from my Mom to be a suspicious transaction (and since I no longer had the same credit card, decided it was in my best interest for them to keep the 350 bucks I had in my account at the time) I know how fragile relationships with them can be. I am using paypal at the moment to rebuild and reestablish myself but I am not making it a career choice and not limiting them as my only option. Once I do get established, I will definitely be looking at the merchant accounts as they are much more user-friendly and able to take a much wider variety of payments than paypal all while offering a certain amount of protection to the buyer and the seller.

I am only in phase two and the second week of building back up from nothing though so it may be a while before I can afford a merchant account, much less justify the expenditures.

Just my two cents.

I certainly appreciate the comments on this thread. For me it is a wake up call too. I think that it is best to diversify a little, especially these days.

Use paypal perhaps only for those who would like to send funds that way, and another option for credit cards.

Has anyone had any experiences with Alertpay or iKobo? Possible alternatives to Paypal?

I do not currently use them. I use merch services through my bank. However, I have used them in the past for an offline business that I sort of "inherited" (bought the note, borrower defaulted on loan, repo'd the assets). My PB didn't like the fact that I intended to simply open the business with the assets and hire someone to operate it because the perceived risk was high. This was a couple of years before the economy started to slide, and this business is one of the first "luxuries" to get axed out of a budget So, not only did I not get any LOC to support the operation (I never sign personally for any business deal with a corp or LLC in place), they wouldn't even underwrite the merch services on the deal.

So, I funded the whole thing out of pocket. A couple years after having sold the operating business to another investor, and replacing banking relationships with one a little more in tune with my own entrepreneurial attitude (and not on the federal bailout nipple I might add), I am more than thankful that this company was around to fund a startup with no business credit.

IIRC, it was about $50 a month for admin fees. The cost per transaction was pretty reasonable, but high comapred to other merch accounts. Not even close to PayPal's hijack.

Good company, no issues. But then again, you don't get many chargebacks against $4 lattes and baklava slices.

And real banks give u suckers or tootsie rolls when u go there. Paypal doesn't do that

Personally I detest Paypal, their so called payment protection does nothing but favour conmen, their support is awful, their charges a mickey take.

The problem is I will continue to give them thousands of dollars a year in revenue because my customers demand that Paypal is available as a payment mechanism.

I would LOVE to turn off Paypal tommorow.

Awful company in every respect IMO.

This definitely sucks and is very frustrating. But, it begs for everyone to have a backup plan and maybe two.

Hey Scott thats sucks with the paypal nightmare Im just starting some ecom sites thanks for the heads up on paypal I have sign up for a free merchant its good so far and its free rockettheprofit.com/instantmerchantaccount Free Merchant Account Sign-Up Video[/url]

check it out let me know if it worked for you

This the perfect example of why you NEED to be in contact with your Paypal rep.

Don't have a rep?

Contact them and get one!

For example I have a launch coming up and Paypal should see a flood of money coming into my account all of a sudden which might raise some eyebrows.

So what will I do between now and then?

You guessed it, contact Joe my Paypal rep. So they know what's about to happen and I prevent any obvious misfortunes.

Lessons to be learned:
1) Get your own Paypal rep.!
2) Have a back-up plan!

Sorry to hear the news about PayPal! I will most definitely take heed to your warning. If you can round up about a dozen other folks that this has unfairly happened to, it sounds like this would make for a good Class Action Lawsuit. You should really think about it because you could very well get far more money than their holding from you!

Here's a thought. I earn a living by helping people in this forum. Do you think I'd start a thread admitting I had my Paypal account canned if I wasn't telling the whole truth?

How does starting this thread make ANY sense at all if I'm hiding anything? I rely on people to trust that I'm a good person, that I'll do a good job, that I always work with their best interest in mind...

Anyone who I've ever wronged, through Paypal or otherwise, is free to comment here. I don't see any, do you?

I would be an idiot to post here if I had something to hide, over 2,000 people, 2,000 potential clients, have seen this... And I'm not an idiot.

I'll be transparent...

I had thousands of dollars coming into the account and I routinely withdrew the money... So at the end of the month I may have $2k-$3k instead of the original $6k or whatever...

Maybe I am at fault, I dunno. I'd LOVE for a Paypal rep to come in here and give me a specific reason. I've emailed them and showed them the thread.

But you don't know me, you and everyone else who have said "you're hiding something" are wrong...

If I was "hiding something" then posting this in a public forum for thousands of people to see would be stupid...

And I'm not stupid.

Peace,

-Scott

Scott, so sorry to hear about your Paypal problem. I am completely convinced you are telling the truth. And at the same time I think Paypal is justified in taking the action they did.

Paypal deals with billions of transaction by millions of customers. They do their best to set up systems and procedures to deal with fraud. But there is no way any large company can sort the fraudulent accounts from the legal accounts with 100% accuracy.

Every company this large has do to the same thing in order to stay in business. They set up rules to determine when account activity is suspicious. Then flag the account and sent it to the fraud department. Where someone will quickly determine the risk to the company and then make a decision.

Once a final decision is made there is nothing the company is willing to do to change it. Not because they don't believe you. But because it is not cost effictive to investigate it any further.

Nearly every customer who's account gets flagged as "high risk" will want to contest it. But the company cannot commit the resources to listen to every case. The cost would be unacceptably high.

Instead they flag the "high risk" accounts knowing full well a percentage of them are perfectly legit. They accept this "breakage" as a cost of doing business.

This is the only way a large business can deal with millions of customers. I worked in management for a Fortune 50 company, most of those years in customer service.

This is something we saw often. And I have been on the other end of the conversation you had with Paypal too many times.

It doesn't make any sense to the customer when they hear nothing can be done once the decision has been made. But in truth it is a business reality.

The only options left for you Scott are to file a complaint with any overseeing government regulatory agency and/or sue them.

Can you get another bank acct. and use another email and open a new PP acct. if you need to?

Hi Paypal did something like this to me. I had a sale for $1,500 dollars not really IM just on a sale of a physical product on ebay, After 3 weeks the person decided they wanted their money back.

There was a clear no refund policy. Paypal said my money was safe and that I was in the right, just fax the no refund post that was on ebay, which I did. Her credit card said they will take her side and will ask paypal for the money back.. After paypal said I was covered by paypals insurance i did not feel good about paypal even though they said I was in the right .They said the $1,500 was mine I would not have to give the money back. I took out $500 out of my paypal account leaving $1000
10 days later paypal seized the remaining $1000 that was left in my account and told me I had to pay them the $500 dollars that i withdrew!

I said you said I was protected and was in the right...no answer from them ..just a closing of my account after 4 years and they took the 1,000 dollars from my sale that was left in my account

I'm a "newbie" and haven't been on the Warrior Forum in a while due to travel and time constraints, but I read every word of this thread because it's a "hot button" topic for me. I've never accepted payments through PayPal but have heard all of these stories in other places as well. My experience is with Merchant Service Providers, but it is similar and for those who want to abandon PayPal and get your own Merchant Account this is particularly important information.

My main business has been accepting credit cards for payment for over 18 years and although most of you are in an online environment my business is what used to be called "mail order" or now "direct mail" which has the same challenges and constraints as online businesses because we never have the credit card in-hand.

I've always watched our rates closely as our business operates on a very low profit margin and giving away any of it is difficult to accept, especially just to get our payment. And as our business grew I found out more and more about how to get better rates and how the whole thing worked.

Then last year someone whose Forum I follow and participate in posted a rant about exactly what happened to Scott, but it happened to her merchant account, not PayPal. So I obviously was concerned. We process over $1.5 million a year in credit card transactions and I couldn't believe they could take her money and then tell her it could take up to 180 days for them to resolve the situation. That would be catastrophic for our business.

And then in talking to a friend with a retail, brick and mortar business I heard another horror story. For them, not only did they get talked into changing their merchant provider which actually cost them twice as much in fees as their previous one, but the sales rep also convinced them to lease a new terminal in order to get "better rates." A $3,000 lease for a terminal that could easily be bought for under $200.

I'm an self-admitted "information-aholic" and I set out to find out what had happened in both cases, if it could happen to our company, and more about the industry itself.

It's not a pretty story...a lot of horror stories, rip-offs, frozen accounts and on an on. Now I dig deep and follow links and leads and this took me several weeks. But this is a very unregulated industry and there are a lot of unethical people and companies out there.

I finally found four merchant service providers that I "thought" were potential winners. But that's when I got serious about my due diligence.

So I looked into applying to become an independent agent with them...best way I could think of to find out the "real deal." Two had them made it relatively easy to get this information and I got the paperwork, etc., just to see what kind of compensation they offered their independent sales people. It was an eye-opener! One company quoted their rates and they actually said "you can mark it up whatever you can get and keep the difference." And the leasing of terminals? Yup, they gave bonuses for selling those outrageous leases. Crossed them off the list.

I paid for Dunn & Bradstreet reports on them - one of the ones I had really been considering had a history of not paying their employment taxes to the IRS and there were liens against them. Crossed them off the list.

That left two companies. I couldn't find anything negative about them and so I contacted both and submitted my company's information to get quotes for switching our business to them.

They were both very good to deal with. Their quotes were similar. I got to talk with real people, the same ones every time. I quizzed them both about the situations that had started me on this journey and they both explained why that could happen and why it wouldn't happen in dealing with them.

Bottom line there was a big deciding factor for me in choosing to move my business to one of them over the other. Their rates had been similar, but one of the guys told me "I don't understand something about your current statements. All of your transactions are going through as "unqualified" which means you're getting penalized and it looks like it's costing you about $900 a month." I immediately spoke to my employees and it turns out that there was an "upgrade" made to our terminal and the trainer told them to "just hit the return key" when any information such as zip code, etc. was asked for. That put every single transaction into a non-qualified situation and cost us plenty!

So the decision came down to going with the company whose rep was not only concerned with my rate, but was truly concerned about my company even though at that point he didn't know if I would select them. Good old-fashioned customer service even before you've gotten the customer. It's the way I do business.

I called and spoke to the head of the company to tell him how impressed I was; we still correspond and talk occasionally. And I e-mail and talk with my rep regularly.

Not to step on any toes, but I noticed that the Merchant Account Provider (as someone in the thread pointed out) that some big names in the internet world recommend have an "affiliate program" associated with it. This isn't necessarily bad in any way, but it shouldn't keep you from doing your due diligence on your own. Referrals are a great starting point, but look into the company just as thoroughly as you would had they come knocking on your door.

Google checkout is a good option, i would never leave that amount of money in paypal anyway...transfer everything to your bank...that way they can't get their grubby little hands on it....

But, best of luck to you in finding another alternative, paypal is needed sometimes, especially for places like the warrior forum, what happens when you want to run a wso...you need paypal!

I wonder if Allen would accept other means of paying for WSO's?

Who hasn't been screwed by paypal at one point or another.

To me it just means that I'm doing enough business to get screwed once in a while.

Ouch. Sorry to hear.. hopefully you can get it settled. I personally would make it a point to call incessantly until you got a straight answer.