I just want to say:

The REAL and reputable merchant account industry Does NOT tout bogus PROTECTION POLICES
To its’ customers in order to “GAIN” more merchants to sign up.

PayPal or should we say… eBay DOES tout bogus PROTECTION POLICES in order to try to get more merchants to sign up and to “TRY” and keep the BUYERS buying at the site.

The market share and the revenue streams ebay has enjoyed over the years is going bye bye and

eBay has known this for quite some time.

This whole BPP and SPP is nothing but a ploy to try and make everyone feel “SAFE” at ebay so they will continue to shop online at ebay.

Their bogus SPP and BPP propaganda are just that… BOGUS PROPAGANDA.

It is deceptive advertising, it’s unethical and it’s going to STOP because
more and more people online DO understand what has been occurring with this monopoly (ebayPal)
and I think so many are SO tired of the BS.

And as a result more and more BUYERS are purchasing from REAL merchants online and NOT at
sites like ebay, were the buyer or seller don’t even know who they are dealing with until AFTER the sale.

With a REAL and reputable merchant account. You as a seller DO have more info, and more recourse to fight fraud.

Yep there is a BIG shift going on these days. Many online shoppers do seem to be pointing their browsers far far away from scam riddled, unethical, obfuscated, ebaypal.

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A while back there was some conjecture about how much money PayPal was making on held funds. As I mentioned earlier, I've worked closely with banks and funding institutions. Credit card companies have a thirty day hold policy on credit (not debit) transactions, and it's the same basic reason as what PayPal will do with held funds.

The analysis figured something like if 780,000 folks had an average of $250 held for 180 days at 1% interest... No. The bank takes that money and loans it out as capital. It funds credit cards, home loans, whatever. If that money is not making PayPal at least 8% interest in today's market, then they're incompetent. It should be making at least twelve, maybe up to twenty or more depending on their risk load. Compound that monthly, and reinvest the profits. Even if they've dropped their hold rate to 100,000 people, $250 each, and a thirty day hold, you're still talking about $208,000 per month. If it's a 60 day hold, then they've got twice that much so $416,000 per month. And that's if they're only making 10%, which they can make without even trying.

Sure, they have to return it after 30 days, but that's the trick: Next month they have to return $2,500,000, BUT HOLD ANOTHER $2,500,000. So why not just transfer the newly held money to the people they return it to? The amount goes up and down every month, but within a predictable range. So they keep a bit of cash on hand, and the rest gets invested. We all know our savings accounts are funding car loans and home loans and stuff. It's the same deal for anyone with access to that kind of money.

And just FYI, I programmed their computers. They didn't let me roll in the money.

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<Common Sense>, actually I've read tons of the posts here, including those by current and former PayPal employees. The key phrase was really "how is this different than running a storefront": to take a credit card in a storefront you first set up a merchant agreement with a bank and along with that get one of those nifty credit card processing readers. You scan it, it goes to your merchant bank, your merchant bank says 'it's a good card, charge authorized', and you give me the product and I go away. I later contact my credit card bank and have the charge reversed, my credit card bank takes it off my bill and contacts the merchant bank WHICH HOLDS YOUR FUNDS. So far it's been exactly like what happens with paypal -- even to the point that if the money was not in the account, you get a charge on your account. You have some time to dispute the hold, then the credit card decides whether they believe you or not. If they believe you, the charge is added back. If they don't, you never get paid.

I think talking that through has explained the difference to me (what follows is conjecture): I think credit card banks work with PayPal's merchant bank, not with PayPal. Second, since PayPal is the end consumer as far as their bank is concerned, PayPal gets to pick which charges to contest and how. In other words, while you could provide evidence directly to your merchant bank and they would figure whether they believed you, now you provide it to PayPal and THEY decide whether to send it to the merchant bank -- who may or may not believe you.

I've worked in banks long enough to know that the only way that PayPal's backing bank would agree to run PayPal at some ridiculously low rate (far lower than the 2.99% or 2.5% they charge) is if PayPal keeps a really low dispute rate. In other words as long as PayPal doesn't contest stuff up to their bank they can keep their rates low. I'll bet their backing bank doesn't even let them contest intra-PayPal disputes.

And if my guesses are right, I point out NoPayPal's alternate merchant bank. The analysis provided about the merchant bank fees says if you're only running $250 a month then PayPal is a better deal, and my two cents: it's not. I mean sure, PayPal may be cheaper, but that's not the only cost of business. Contact your bank and ask about merchant accounts. Do some searching for how to take credit cards, and compare the deal that was arranged here. Find a hosting company that has credit card processing as a feature. Get a merchant bank if you have regular sales, and don't play the PayPal lottery with your income. If you're running a business, act like one. I already said I buy directly from merchants who look like merchants before anyone else, so I put my money where my mouth is.

Okay, I'm climbing off my soap box now. Sorry.

Thanks.

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<Shawn>, They key phrase in your sentence is "paypal working to resolve it" which the reality is they don't period! What they will do is access your account whenever possible if anyone files a complaint whether legit or not. To use a sports term it's called "piling on". That is why scammer's always suggest you send it thru paypal because they already know how to use paypal to take advantage of innocent merchants. Keep on reading the entire site until you get to the "former employees" posts. That may be an eye opener for you! As a bank employee for many years I should tell you that giving someone permission to access your account (ie paypal) has somewhat less protection than using a credit card, especially once funds have already been withdrawn. Just thought you should know.

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I signed up with PayPal to buy stuff on ebay. I glanced through their disclosures and stuff, clearly not well enough to see all the stuff they could do to me. I was annoyed that they wanted bank account information, and that I had to confirm my bank account before I could even add a credit card. After this, I clearly don't want them to have any information about my bank, but I feel somewhat safe in that my bank is awesome and will actually respond if I tell them PayPal is doing something wrong.

However, it seems to me that there's only two points to paypal: people who want to pay for stuff and don't have a credit card, and merchants or folks who want to sell stuff but don't have a credit card processing agreement with a bank. I haven't bought on ebay for years, so I don't recall whether they accept now or ever direct payments by credit card. If they don't, then that qualifies as a non-competitive trade agreement (i.e., monopoly prosecutable under federal law).

I've been thinking about selling some artwork on ebay, and if it sells then great. But I don't have volume, and the sales would be sporadic at best, and the credit card agreements with banks cost too much to make it worth it for such trivial amounts. So I'm still leaning towards using PayPal to accept payments. If someone steals my art, then... awesome! They thought it was good enough to steal! And I don't need it to eat.

When I'm buying, if you accept credit cards securely, I'm using it. If you only take credit cards over http (not ssl), then I might consider using PayPal, but I'm more likely to buy from someone else. If you only accept check, money order, or PayPal, and you're a faceless ID or an impersonal direct seller, then I'm paying by PayPal through my credit card.

But regardless of how I pay, if you have a direct link to your site, you're traceable by law enforcement, and you offer decent product support (typical merchant guarantees, helpful sales people, etc.), I will follow that link and buy directly from you.

I guess with that note, you (the merchants) are better off not taking PayPal at all, because the only people left using it will be scammers. I'm wondering why the merchants here (or anywhere, if they have a real shop), ever bother with PayPal.

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I know I'm likely to get flamed for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway.

How many have used other recourses to recover their money? It seems like PayPal is going to have a bunch of irate customers anyway -- if they assume the seller is always right then they will be encouraging seller scams, and if they assume the buyer is always right they will be encouraging scamming buyers. Besides, they really can't do either -- if the seller uses their credit card bank to dispute a charge, and they don't follow the banks' rules about how to refute that (including the short time frame the banks have to file a response), then the seller's bank will recover the money anyway. It doesn't seem reasonable to me that PayPal should have to cover it when that happens, any more than that the seller's bank should just cough up the money.

As a buyer, I've been frauded a couple of times (never by PayPal). Both times I learned a little more about how to avoid it the next time, and how to better deal with it; once was in a foreign country, and I learned how to take better documentation. (My credit card company would do nothing because the seller said he'd provided the services; even though he didn't, I didn't have documentation to prove it. Well, next time I will.)

In several of the stories I've read here, it seems that the next recourse is to sue the buyer (or seller) or file charges. Especially when you have the documentation, as many of the people who are posting here do. I don't know what the recourses are for outright fraud, but I assumed there were some -- if someone steals my credit card, I know I don't have to pay for the goods purchased; which really s**ks for the merchant, since they're out the goods but don't get any money. But you wouldn't be complaining about me in that case, and you wouldn't really say anything about the guy who stole my cards, and you wouldn't be mad at Chase Manhattan Bank.

To try to be more brief, I guess I'm just trying to figure out how PayPal differs from running a storefront (where you can still get a bad credit card or the buyer can initiate a chargeback), and whether other avenues have been used to recover the funds (filing charges, small claims, contacting issuing banks). In several of the cases it hasn't seemed that the case was really "done" at the time PayPal stopped working to resolve it.

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roberto11,
He admin, maybe you should kill he link, its a key logger.

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[scammer post deleted and banned from the site]

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Quote:

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PaypalSucks, with Merchant Account, how do you fight credit card chargebacks? Is there some kind of protection for the seller? It's still word against word. The buyer can still say he only received an empty box.

---

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PaypalSucks, with Merchant Account, how do you fight credit card chargebacks? Is there some kind of protection for the seller? It's still word against word. The buyer can still say he only received an empty box.

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Quote:

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However, this site helped me fight the scammer, and I won. I followed a lot of the information you gave here. I filed a police report. I contacted the police in the city where I delivered the camera and had the report sent to them. A detective took up my case for free and hunted down the kid who was scamming me. She convinced him him to give me a money order for the amount of the credit card chargeback dispute I lost.

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<hater>, Here's what happened to me. I sold a video camera to a kid in Florida for $2700. He paid thru PP with two different credit cards (never accept multiple payments!!!! Paypal's SPP doesn't cover this!!!!). After I shipped the camera, he sold the camera on ebay, using my same auction, but he lied about the age of the camera! Then, he charged back his credit cards he used to buy the camera from me. I disputed the chargebacks. Paypal was helpful. They answered my calls and won one of the chargebacks because the kid claimed he never recieved that camera. I had evidence, including emails from the buyer, that he did recieve the camera. I lost the other chargeback claim because he claimed the item was not as descibed!
There is just no winning. If I were a scammer, I would read through this forum like a textbook looking for new ideas of how to rip people off. However, this site helped me fight the scammer, and I won. I followed a lot of the information you gave here. I filed a police report. I contacted the police in the city where I delivered the camera and had the report sent to them. A detective took up my case for free and hunted down the kid who was scamming me. She convinced him him to give me a money order for the amount of the credit card chargeback dispute I lost.
The bottom line is that there is no system of checks and ballances. I can send you an empty box or claim that I received an item that was not as described. Nobody can prove anything.

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http://www.bbbsilicon.org/commonreport.html?compid=210387

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PaypalSucks,
I agree paypal does suck.
I made a purchase from AAVI through pricegrabber and they shipped a product that will not even power up. I can't get any response from them, and paypal simply says they only guarantee shipment. Even if they ship a pile of crap. Luckily I used american express through paypal, even though they pushed for me to use my bank account. Amex takes care of their customers.

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<helene oba>,

You are so full of it lady, I did not have even a pinch of the problems I am reading about on this website but when I did have a problem regarding money that paypal was holding on a purchasing I made I calmly contacted my bank and the company I was buying from and paypal and I conference everyone in the only problem paypal would admit to was everyone else had a problem. The service from the manager at paypal was a joke. So get a grip. Go for the lawsuit get the media involved expose the blood suckers for what they are, and Ms, \"I work for paypal dispute resolution\" what goes around comes around, karma is a serious thing remember that when you participate in screwing over people.

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