Well, here some advice. Don’t use paypal if you are planning on selling any nutritional supplements at you e-commerce store. After I processed $700.00 worth of credit cards today, they closed my account and decided to keep my money for 180 days. Luckily I do pretty well with my local residents who pay me cash to keep me going. But now, I got to ship out $700.00 worth of merchandise that I will not see the money for, for a long time. Anyway I should have seen it coming. The best thing I did this week was get my merchant account process application started which will be finalized next week, then I can return to accepting credit cards. Just a heads-up for you all out there about the way paypal works. Oh yeah, this also screwed up my ebay auctions also. Those two companies are married, so I really got the double wammy!!!! John

:uzi: Paypal

Well, I think I may have fixed the issue. I just went in and refunded everyone their money. I hope that works. It's not what I wanted to do, but I can't aford to be in the hole that much for 180 days!

What was the reason they gave for freezing your account?

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We recently reviewed your account, and we need more information about your business to allow us to provide uninterrupted service. Until we can collect this information, your access to sensitive account features will be limited. We would like to restore your access as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Why is my account access limited?

Your account access has been limited for the following reason(s):


Jan. 20, 2006: In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement and Acceptable Use Policy, we have closed your account. Your funds may be held for 180 days from the date of your last transaction. After 180 days, you will be able to access your funds by requesting an online bank transfer or, if applicable, a check from PayPal. Please update your address or bank information as we cannot be held responsible for checks issued to an incorrect address. We do ask that you please remove reference(s) to PayPal from your site.

I guess I violate their vitamins and minerals policy. Hell I don't know. I could have gotten more out of my 3 year old than I did with the "no customer serive" rep.

You're account is flagged by their retarded computer now... you will be frozen on a weekly basis for no reason at all. There is no way to unflag your account, and it will constantly search to make sure you aren't making any other accounts to avoid the flag. It will also freeze any family members accounts, etc. It's really a dumb system they have.

Even if you do nothing wrong they will freeze your account. They froze my account once... then I cleared it up within a day. So I figured ok it's over with, and as soon as I got a large order they INSTANTLY froze my account, so I called and they said I can not get my money for 180 days and they wanted me to fax over TONS of information but they still won't give me my money. There was no one there who could even tell me what I did wrong. There was no one available to help me. They said to stop calling. I lost nearly $9,800.

Once your flagged, move on, they do this all the time.

Oh they closed your account? I guess you can ignore my above post, this doesn't really apply to you. My case was a little bit different- A lot of freezing and unfreezing depending on how much money they could steal each time they froze me.

Nutritional supplements are very risky with some providers, and 2CO / Paypal canot support them due to these risks.

The reason it is 180 days is because this is usually the maximum for issuing Visa / MasterCard banks for potential chargebacks, but it does vary on each issuing bank

If its against Paypal's terms of service to deal with vitamin dealers, I don't understand why you're upset that they closed your account?

--Tina

You're account is flagged by their retarded computer now... you will be frozen on a weekly basis for no reason at all. There is no way to unflag your account, and it will constantly search to make sure you aren't making any other accounts to avoid the flag. It will also freeze any family members accounts, etc. It's really a dumb system they have.

Even if you do nothing wrong they will freeze your account. They froze my account once... then I cleared it up within a day. So I figured ok it's over with, and as soon as I got a large order they INSTANTLY froze my account, so I called and they said I can not get my money for 180 days and they wanted me to fax over TONS of information but they still won't give me my money. There was no one there who could even tell me what I did wrong. There was no one available to help me. They said to stop calling. I lost nearly $9,800.

Once your flagged, move on, they do this all the time.

I'm sure they gave you some sort of a reason, if even a vague one? What information did they want you to fax over and did you fax it all over to them? When you called, were you working WITH them or were you demanding because you wanted your money?

Maybe I've had incredibly good luck with Paypal, but we've been using them for over five years and have processed over a 1/2 million dollars with them with no trouble. They froze our account once, but a quick phone call and faxing over a couple of documents solved it within 24 hours.

--Tina

If this type of thing is happening to so many people, it can't be ignored. They must realize by now that their automated systems are malfunctioning, or their fraud/abuse department has turned into power-hungry psychos, or something.

Have you contacted anyone other than paypal about getting your money back? This is the kind of thing you could take legal action on... At the least you should have reported PayPal to the Better Business Bureau.

edit:

I looked up paypal on bbb.org, and thought you'd be interested in seeing the complaint history...
Of the total of 3955 complaints closed in 36 months, 1561 were closed in the last year.
These complaints concerned:

46 Advertising Issues
34 Sales Practice Issues
1644 Delivery Issues
45 Guarantee or Warranty Issues
678 Product Issues
69 Refund of Exchange Issues
77 Contract Issues
67 Customer Service Issues
93 Billing or Collection Issues
1184 Service or Repair Issues

They were closed as:

3610 Resolved
345 Administratively Closed

As per their TOS,
Additionally, PayPal prohibits the sale of a product sold as a dietary supplement and promoted on its label or in its labeling as a treatment, prevention, or cure for a specific disease or condition, as such sales are considered unapproved, and thus illegal, by the FDA. Included in the category of “dietary supplements” are: vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids, and substances such as enzymes, organ tissues, glandulars, and metabolites. Dietary supplements can also be extracts or concentrates, and may be found in many forms such as tablets, capsules, softgels, gelcaps, liquids, or powders.

Seems pretty straight forward to me.

Vito

I looked up paypal on bbb.org, and thought you'd be interested in seeing the complaint history...
Of the total of 3955 complaints closed in 36 months, 1561 were closed in the last year. These complaints concerned:

46 Advertising Issues
34 Sales Practice Issues
1644 Delivery Issues
45 Guarantee or Warranty Issues
678 Product Issues
69 Refund of Exchange Issues
77 Contract Issues
67 Customer Service Issues
93 Billing or Collection Issues
1184 Service or Repair Issues

They were closed as:

3610 Resolved
345 Administratively Closed

That's a damn good track record, considering their size and that 3610 of them were resolved. You've just posted the very best reason to use them. :)

Note that 1184 were 'service or repair' issues. My guess is that someone had a complaint with someone they paid through Paypal and stupidly reported Paypal as the problem. Likewise with the 1644 "delivery" issues.

There are over 86 MILLION Paypal accounts...and roughly 350 BBB consumer complaints per month (almost all of them resolved). Surely you can see how this information shows Paypal as one of the very best companies to do business with.

--Tina

That's a damn good track record, considering their size and that 3610 of them were resolved. You've just posted the very best reason to use them. :)

PS: Note that 1184 were 'service or repair' issues. My guess is that someone had a complaint with someone they paid through Paypal and stupidly reported Paypal as the problem. Likewise with the 1644 "delivery" issues.

True, but think about how many people don't bother with filing with the BBB, or how many people don't even know about the BBB. There could be thousands more unresolved issues that no one knows about other than the people who experienced them and didn't care enough to complain. And while it is a very good track record considering how many transactions they handle per day (probably more than most banks handle) it still needs to be known that they screw up once in a while and that if you talk to someone who cares (unlike their tech support as we have seen from example here) things can be resolved.

http://www.paypal.com/aup

So it's Paypals fault that you didn't read the "Acceptable Use Policy" first? I don't think so.

Paypal's still a pain. But you can't live without it.

Yes I read it "after the fact". I'm not saying it's not my fault, but their customer service sucks. I'm sure I did as others have and just click the accept the agreements and not really read over them. I am just putting the word out to others who may be considering using paypal as their primary merchant source. Be sure to withdraw your money daily. My $700.00 was one days worth of sales that I was going to withdraw when I found out I was froze. Peace out!

I'm a very down to earth person and I try to be everyones friend. I fully understand that you will only get what you want as long as you keep your cool and show respect. That being said, PayPal still sucks.

I did about $400,000 worth and that is when they got me. I was at their very lowest rate because of my volume. I thought they would have my back because of this-- Sadly mistaken.

The only thing they hinted towards on the phone, one lady told me that it is in my best interest to "stop calling and move on", this nice lady was the one to tell me a little bit about the automated flagging system. The only reason she told me this much is because I am very easy to deal with. So, two civilized people both on the same page and nothing can get resolved. In a real bank you can go find the manager or general manager yourself, heck even the regional manager.... you will never get that close to PayPals management.

You can't live without it though, I've thought of using it again a million times since then. I never will though.

It's really a roll of the dice- they get you or they don't get you. I use to be one of those people who ALWAYS defended PayPal- I absolutely LOVED them. People always told me, "just give it time, they always get you, it may take 6 months or 6 years but they always get you"... and I just figured they where morons that didn't know how to follow the rules or didn't fully understand how PayPal worked. They even gave me lists of private phone numbers so I could skip the menu system.

They loved me and I loved them.. and I almost can't believe I'm sitting here and telling my unfortunate ending. I keep reading this post over and over and I sound like everyone that told me to watch out. I just can't believe it....

My question is though, what were you selling LinuxMaster? And did you take any legal action against them? I believe you said you lost over $9000, thats a lot to just walk away from.

PS: They love to freeze accounts as soon as you try to withdraw money OR they will freeze it the next day and reverse your withdrawal.


I'm really done now though. Thinking about the past just gets me upset. I hope I helped some wandering soul out with my information.

My question is though, what were you selling LinuxMaster? And did you take any legal action against them? I believe you said you lost over $9000, thats a lot to just walk away from.


I was selling something that was not against their policy.

In their Terms of Service it states that if you open an account, you will file a claim in their state and county. Which is California and I'm all the way in Massachusetts. The lawyer I talked to mentioned I would have to go there between 2 and 6 times.

That was my number one reason for not taking legal action. There was a lot of REAL money involved in ATTEMPTING to get my money back. Plus... there is too much sueing going around anyways.

Stress and emotions rub off on me. Going to court and having to think and worry about all of this stuff wouldn't have been healthy for me. I just took the loss, learned as much as I could from the experience and now I am telling people my story. I'm satisfied with that.

Yeah paypal can be a pain. But then again, Paypal can be a very usefull service. I've never had any majour problems with them. Apart from how long it takes to verify an account :@

True, but think about how many people don't bother with filing with the BBB, or how many people don't even know about the BBB. There could be thousands more unresolved issues that no one knows about other than the people who experienced them and didn't care enough to complain. And while it is a very good track record considering how many transactions they handle per day (probably more than most banks handle) it still needs to be known that they screw up once in a while and that if you talk to someone who cares (unlike their tech support as we have seen from example here) things can be resolved.

You're the one that posted the BBB data as if it were relevant. ;)

Of course they screw up every once in awhile...every company does. You judge a company by the amount of complaints vs the amount of customers. By far, the majority of people I see complaining about Paypal are the ones that don't follow the rules and then whine about it.

--Tina

Yeah paypal can be a pain. But then again, Paypal can be a very usefull service. I've never had any majour problems with them. Apart from how long it takes to verify an account :@

It's fine for moderate personal use. If it's for a very small business, just make sure you eventually get a real merchant account and you can still keep PayPal but just recommend that your customers use a credit card directly if they can.

I will give PayPal credit.. they have 58 million customers? Even with just 500 or 5,000 customers things start to get rough. Imagine... 58 MILLION? Alright so considering that, I guess they aren't doing too bad.

I'm not going to be the one who gets screwed because of their size though. Some people say the same thing about Bank of America.

Of course they screw up every once in awhile...every company does. You judge a company by the amount of complaints vs the amount of customers. By far, the majority of people I see complaining about Paypal are the ones that don't follow the rules and then whine about it.

--Tina
Thats very true. And also, if you were to take a look at the people who liked their services against the people who don't and complain, I'm sure you would find that the majority of people like their services. With the size of the company, it's hard to keep everyone happy.

It's fine for moderate personal use. If it's for a very small business, just make sure you eventually get a real merchant account and you can still keep PayPal but just recommend that your customers use a credit card directly if they can.

I will give PayPal credit.. they have 58 million customers? Even with just 500 or 5,000 customers things start to get rough. Imagine... 58 MILLION? Alright so considering that, I guess they aren't doing too bad.

I'm not going to be the one who gets screwed because of their size though. Some people say the same thing about Bank of America.

Its actually 86.6 million.

--Tina

It's fine for moderate personal use. If it's for a very small business, just make sure you eventually get a real merchant account and you can still keep PayPal but just recommend that your customers use a credit card directly if they can.

I will give PayPal credit.. they have 58 million customers? Even with just 500 or 5,000 customers things start to get rough. Imagine... 58 MILLION? Alright so considering that, I guess they aren't doing too bad.

I'm not going to be the one who gets screwed because of their size though. Some people say the same thing about Bank of America.

Of course it's a problem. With the amount of money you lost? I would be pretty upset and annoyed with their services. I don't blame you for not liking em :)

Yeah, losing $9000 on them is definitely a bummer. I lost around $2000 on them freezing my accounts and basically supporting fraudsters who claimed that they did not get what they paid for, which was untrue. I had to fax them a ton of things, over and over and of course, no luck. My accounts were finally unfrozen around 6 months later. But I am once again using them as it is almost inevitable.

Yeah seems like paypal have alot of problems :S... Are there any other places just like paypal who have sorta the same services?

You're the one that posted the BBB data as if it were relevant

Well, at the time i thought it was relevant. And it still stands to show that if you take proper action, these kinda things can be resolved with PayPal... However after a closer look was taken at their TOS, we see it didn't matter as he simply violated the TOS. And in LinuxMasters case it was just easier to not take legal action as it might have ended up costing him more than he was trying to get back... But theres still a hope at my info being relevant... maybe... lol