Six years of doing business selling online crochet patterns. SIX. I love what I do, but I don’t love dealing with PayPal. Matter of fact, I dislike them with a passion.
Cartoon courtesy of PayPalSucks.ORG
In the last six years, I’ve had to make several phone calls to PayPal to work out claims and disputes. Every time it’s involved someone making a purchase and not realizing one of the following:
1) They’re downloading a pattern, not an actual item (I kid you not, a few people have purchased thinking they were getting, oh, let’s say a $6.50 real shawl) and they want their money back. It’s no wonder why I have to put this on my site:
2) The link to the file was sent to them, sometimes landing in their spam filter. They had the email with the link, they just didn’t realize it. To solve this, I just forward it to them.
3) The link to the file wasn’t sent to them to the best of their knowledge. They checked their spam filter to no avail. And no emails landed in their inbox containing said link. This is another easy one to solve. I forward the email from PayLoadz (they are the sending source for the patterns) - because I’ve received it but they haven’t. It includes the link and they download the file. In a few rare instances, neither the customer nor I have received the email from PayLoadz. This is always PayLoadz fault as their system somehow didn’t pick up the receipt from PayPal. So I go into PayPal to confirm their purchase and then send them a link from PayLoadz manually.
4) They couldn’t open the file. Now this was caused by two things: a) their Adobe Acrobat software is out of date or 2) they didn’t realize there was a password involved (which was listed in the same email with the link to the file). I’ve gone ahead and solved that issue by removing the necessity for the open document passwords. But until now, the password has been in the same email with the link to the file just some people didn’t see it was there at the very top of the email. 
And then again in the second paragraph. No big deal though.
In each and every instance, I’ve had to call up PayPal to get the claim or dispute taken care of, otherwise, it could linger on for more than 30 days (Yes, I’ve had that happen before which means PayPal gets to keep my money for that long). In each and every instance I’ve been told that I needed to provide documentation that the item shipped, which I do. I send them the receipt of purchase, the receipt from Payloadz that the email was sent, and a copy/paste from my PayLoadz account showing the same. It’s usually taken care of right then and there.
A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE
Now, fast forward to three days ago when a payment made to me was flagged as a dispute a couple hours after purchase (that’s the higher tier of the two between claims and disputes, usually people put in a claim first then it escalates into a dispute). I instantly figured the scenario was one of the ones listed above. And I spent the next 30 minutes going through my emailed receipts and PayLoadz account looking for my documentation, taking screen captures, and uploading the pictures.
That was three days ago. I’d heard nothing from PayPal regarding this – not surprised – so I called them today. This time, however, I was informed that PayPal had flagged the transaction, and not the customer. I’ve never had that happen before. I asked the customer service rep why this happened to which I was told that it could be any number of things and that she wasn’t required to tell me why, as though this was a matter of international security.
So, I continued to press on about their non-existent virtual goods policy that gives all protection to the customer and none to the seller. I got the same has-been, regurgetated speech I got the last several times: “We apologize. We’re working on it. We recognize this is an issue and we apologize but as it stands, there is no policy. You have no protections.”
Sorry doesn’t cut it. I’ve been doing business – not so thankfully – with PayPal for six years. You mean to tell me it takes SIX YEARS or more to come up with a policy to protect both the sellers AND the customers equally? It’s time to embrace virtual goods as a real and viable form of goods that deserves protections. If that means that there’s an extra layer of security involved in the transaction, that goods can’t be downlaoded instantly but rather the transaction is checked and double-checked for authorization, I’m all for it. If it means I have to wait a few days for payment – and subsequently the buyer waits a few days for their item – just to know that it’s a valid transaction, then I’m all for it.
Back to the transaction, I was told that the money would be held for 10 – 15 days while they tried to contact the buyer to authorize the purchase. I asked what would happen if they said it wasn’t authorized. I’m sure you could guess the response. I don’t get my money and the buyer gets the goods. This kind of shell game is not cool in my book.
And they wonder why there’s an entire website dedicated to the disdain of PayPal several websites dedicated to the disdain of PayPal.
In the meantime, my account looks like this:
This has me puzzled because I was lead to believe the money from one single transaction was frozen, they were giving me my money back, and that the case was closed.
Nope.
When I click on all those cancelled fees, it leads to multiple transactions from different people, one of which I spoke to this week personally so I know it was a valid transaction! And the dispute? It’s still open.
This is a shell game of the worst kind.
They continue to get away with it. . And some people have had it too as there’s a class action lawsuit against PayPal:
“The law firm of Freed & Weiss LLC has filed a lawsuit against eBay and PayPal on behalf of their clients, Ronya Osman and Brian Patee. The lawsuit charges that PayPal’s practice of “holding” funds for up to 180 days in the accounts is fraudulent because of the “systematic and arbitrary manner in which the freezing is done and the lack of information shared with affected customers.”
Freezing funds and not sharing information as to why? Hmm, SOUNDS FAMILIAR.
The day I can cut the strings that me to PayPal and PayLoadz will be an awesome day worthy of a red sangria toast.
