Paypal - A Warning from StatCounter - RESOLVED
UPDATE: 15.25am GMT 30 May - RESOLVED
Paypal have acknowledged the double billing issue!
Please see here and here.
If YOU are a merchant whose customers have been affected by double billing, Paypal have confirmed that you can EITHER refund one of the two transactions by yourself OR contact their merchant support.
Sincere thanks to Karen and Danny in Paypal for their help, for working together to resolve our problems and for keeping us informed along the way.
While we have received great service from two individuals at Paypal within the last 12 hours, this does not excuse the lack of communication or assistance that we were forced to endure in the previous two weeks. We remain distinctly dissatisfied with the way Paypal have handled this situation.
As far as we can see, ALL the issues we previously reported are now RESOLVED.
UPDATE: 13.45am GMT 30 May
We have just emailed all the requested information to our contact in the Paypal Office of Executive Escalations who has promised to further investigate our case.
It appears that Paypal really ARE capable of providing good support - it’s just a shame that it took so long (and a blog post?) for it to happen.
UPDATE: 13.05am GMT 30 May
The excellent chap now looking after our case in “PayPal Merchant Technical Support” has just updated us again:
I’m working with our management team to setup a procedure for all the PayPal merchant affected by this issue.
We will also post shortly on our forum an acknowledgement of this additional issue with subscriptions, where you can redirect your customers in case they need a clarification.
I’ll keep you posted.
While it has taken weeks for this to happen Paypal ARE now communicating and we hope that the remaining unresolved issues will shortly be resolved for all of us.
UPDATE: 12.55am GMT 30 May
We are delighted to advise that we have spoken to a very helpful person in the Paypal Office of Executive Escalations. She apologised on behalf of Paypal, is fully investigating our case at present and has noted all our points in relation to the lack of communication and assistance. We will keep you updated.
UPDATE: 12.05am GMT 30 May
We have received a further email from “PayPal Merchant Technical Support”.
After reviewing those transactions I fully agree with the description of the issue you gave me.
Folks - we hope this means that the double billing issues will be resolved shortly.
UPDATE: 11.50am GMT 30 May
We have now received a voicemail from the Paypal Office of Executive Escalations. They would like to speak to us about the ongoing subscription problems and double billing issues. They are due to call us back later today.
UPDATE: 11.20am GMT 30 May
We have received a further email from “PayPal Merchant Technical Support”. They have informed us that the missing subscription issue has been resolved as we established in our update at the end of this post at 11:20pm GMT yesterday.
They have also confirmed that they are investigating the double billing issue. We are very relieved to finally KNOW that Paypal are actively investigating and addressing our concerns.
We will update again as we hear more.
UPDATE: 7.40am GMT 30 May
We have received an email from “PayPal Merchant Technical Support”
Thank you for contacting PayPal Merchant Technical Support.
I will research this matter further and update you with more information as it becomes available. If you have any additional information or updates to your issue, please use the instructions in this email to update your ticket.
Thank you for your patience.
Although the double billing issue remains, in light of many of the other issues being resolved we are hopeful that this problem will be fixed shortly.
Many thanks to all of you for your support. Particular thanks to our customers who have been directly affected by these problems for their patience and understanding.
We would like to emphasise that if the problems had been “just” affecting StatCounter we could have lived with that (e.g. if payment to our bank account was delayed) but since these problems have impacted on our members also, Paypal’s lack of action is simply unacceptable.
We are not happy that these issues had to brought into the public domain like this, however, Paypal’s lack of communication and assistance left us with no other option.
It may be a coincidence, but on the day that we posted this blog, nearly all of the highlighted issues were reported as “resolved”, 14 days after all of the problems arose.
We would still welcome an official response from Paypal in relation to these these problems.
Hi folks,
The Issue
We are having ongoing, critical problems with Paypal.
In view of the complete lack of assistance from Paypal in this regard, we have decided that we have no option but to inform you, our members, about the facts of the situation. This will allow you to make an informed decision about whether to use (or whether to continue to use) Paypal.
Please note that these problems may arise not only in relation to payments made to StatCounter but in relation to ANY Paypal payments that you make. We hope that this post will equip you with the information necessary to make sure that YOU do not become another victim of this ongoing Paypal saga.
The Problems
On 15 May Paypal performed a site update - this is confirmed by Paypal here.
After this date numerous problems were reported across the globe:
- The Paypal Handling Cart feature completely broke down - see update below
- Cross border payments could not be made as the drop down country list did not work - see update below
- Customers have been flooded with hundreds of duplicate subscription emails from Paypal - see update below
- Payments from Paypal are no longer associated with the relevant subscriptions - see update below
- Some customers have been and are being DOUBLE BILLED by Paypal
- Merchants have not been receiving instant payment notifications or failure notifications
- Merchants/customers are unable to cancel subscriptions - see update below
The main problem that we have with Paypal is NOT the list of issues above - we all know that errors happen - we are absolutely furious at the complete lack of acknowledgement or assistance from Paypal in relation to these matters.
At StatCounter we have tried phoning, emailing, posting on the Paypal forums… Many of our contacts are ignored, but even when we do get an answer all we are told is that “Upon review of your account, unfortunately we do not have a time frame for a resolution to your issue we are currently actively investigating your issue with subscriptions.” You can see our posts in the Paypal forums here and here.
It appears that all of these problems are the result of the update made by Paypal on 15 May. Typically, any software upgrades can be “rolled back” if they are found to be flawed. Paypal’s inability (unwillingness?) to do this does not bode well.
What does this mean for me as a StatCounter Paypal Subscriber?
Unfortunately, we will be unable to issue invoices to many of our customers who pay us via Paypal until such time as the above issues are resolved. This is because the “payment file” provided by Paypal and from which invoices are generated is incomplete.
There is also a danger that you may be “double billed”. Please make sure to check your Paypal account to see if this happens. Although we would be delighted to sort out any double billing for you, in the current climate of confusion we are unsure whether WE are actually receiving the erroneously charged amounts. This means that WE are not currently able to refund any of these overpayments to you. We strongly believe that since this is a Paypal error, Paypal should rectify the situation - and leave us to focus again on our members rather than cleaning up a mess of Paypal’s making. Please do report any double billing to us and we will take action to report each case directly to Paypal.
Other StatCounter Upgrade Options
Please note that you can also make subscription payments to StatCounter using your credit card directly, by cheque or by electonic transfer to our bank.
Conclusion
Folks - we sincerely regret any problems you are experiencing and assure you that we are doing our best to get all of these issues resolved for you. We strive to offer a high level of customer service and pride ourselves on being responsive to the needs and suggestions of our members. To have our hands “tied” in this way as a result of Paypal’s inaction is frustrating to say the least.
These problems with Paypal have already cost us thousands of dollars. We continue to expend large amounts of time and resources on these issues - resources which we would much prefer to concentrate on improving the service we provide to you. We would be very grateful for your patience at this time as we wait for Paypal to resolve these issues.
We would also ask you to be patient with any of our fellow internet merchants experiencing difficulties with Paypal at this time.
Please post any comments or questions below.
Notes:
Other Links:
www.channelregister.co.uk
tech.blorge.com
www.finextra.com
Paypal Forums 1
Paypal Forums 2
Paypal Forums 3
Update 2pm GMT 29 May: This post by Paypal indicates that the following issues have been resolved:
1) For subscription signups, when trying to enter billing information users
are not be able to change the country on the billing page.
2) For merchants using “handling_cart” parameter with PayPal Shopping
Cart buttons handling amount is not charged.
To the best of our knowledge the other issues remain and do not yet appear to have been acknowledged by Paypal.
Update 9pm GMT 29 May: A post by a Paypal staff member here indicates that these issues (some of which we weren’t even aware of) have been resolved:
1. Cannot change ‘country’ for subscriptions.
2. Free trials not being charged once trial period is over.
3. Subscriptions with free trials not being shown in history log.
4. Can’t cancel an active subscription.
5. Multiple emails being recieved (sic) for subscription payments.
No mention appears to have been made of these issues:
# Payments from Paypal are no longer associated with the relevant subscriptions
# Some customers have been and are being DOUBLE BILLED by Paypal
# Merchants have not been receiving instant payment notifications or failure notifications
The double billing remains the major issue of concern to us.
Update 11:20pm GMT 29 May:
Although we have still not received any official communications from Paypal, we can confirm from our own experience that payments from Paypal ARE now again being associated with the relevant subscriptions. For StatCounter members with Paypal upgrades this will mean that we can now issue you with your outstanding invoices.
We have confirmed in our account that the double billing issue persists:
# Some customers have been and are being DOUBLE BILLED by Paypal
As far as we are aware, the following issue also remains:
# Merchants have not been receiving instant payment notifications or failure notifications
May 28th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Cuando un servicio externo provoca problemas a los usuarios de mi servicio simplemente corto la conexión por perder la confianza en el prestador. Mucho peor si estamos hablando de dinero de por medio, PayPal puede tener su reputacion, pero SC necesita mantener la suya impoluta
——————
When a 3º party service make troubles’ to my users, just cut the connection because lost of confidence. Even worst if are money in the middle, PayPal have a reputation, but SC need maintain your own clean
Saludos
May 29th, 2008 at 12:23 am
There is nothing more frustrating for a business owner than to look incompetent because of the actions of a vendor. I’ve been there guys, I know what it’s like, and you have my sympathy. We know it’s not you but I have to wonder why PayPal hasn’t notified their users of this problem and taken the responsibility upon themselves. Choosing to let merchants (that pay them fees for the privilege of transacting with them) look like the cause of the problem is completely irresponsible.
I use PayPal for both buying and selling. I’m more than a little concerned that as a buyer I have not been notified by PayPal of any problems. Perhaps it’s time to move on to Google checkout…
May 29th, 2008 at 1:59 am
I feel for you. I am a PayPal customer and have found them to be unresponsive when an issue comes up, and I have lost money. I’m now stuck with an account I never wanted, and therefore, paying unnecessarily more. Personally, I think they’re crooks.
I hope you remove them as a paying medium. It’s appalling what they get away with by their inattention. I know this is not practically helpful, but I have been a beneficiary of your free services and think you deserve better. I suggest you find an alternative payment agent. All the best!
May 29th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Funny but they recently deposited an amount twice into my bank account and then removed the double payment 2 days later. I hadn’t gotten around to investigating it to find out why the double payment - I thought I’d made a mistake. Not seen that before.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:02 am
PayPal sucks. Plain and simple. There is a growing mass of people who have discovered what a Nazi-like organization PayPal is. PayPal has even been taken to Court…and lost due to their malicious actions. You can visit the website below and hear/read the horror stories surrounding PayPal.
http://www.paypalsucks.com
Spread the word and keep up the great work you guys do here at STATCOUNTER - simply THE best counter on the net!
May 29th, 2008 at 2:36 am
This is a typical example that when a company becomes too big, they almost loose the attitude of helping out their existing customers and are simply looking out for new business. I have had two bad experiences with them and now I personally use Google’s Checkout wherever possible (although accepted on a very few sites). You guys at statcounter are doing a great job, we are with you.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:37 am
I closed my paypal account a couple of months ago because I got tired of differing amounts showing up on my bank statement… They never seemed to match up with the initial billing amounts for purchase or fees from ebay. Always off by a few cents. I got sick of it and when I tried to communicate with them & ebay, it was useless.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:14 am
Paypal has some internal problems, see: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/25/paypal-ten-days-and-counting-to-fix-drop-down-menu-bug/
May 29th, 2008 at 3:31 am
GOOD FOR YOU!!!!
I have always disliked PayPal because of their allowance for the purchase of pets over the internet–the current plague of online puppy milling is epidemic and most of them accept PayPal as a form of payment to quickly sell dogs like ebay trinkets. YUCK.
This is a company with no moral center.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:49 am
Apart from the Google Checkout mentioned above, what seems to me to be a good alternative to PayPal is XCoin — http://www.xcoin.com
May 29th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Paypal monopolizes the internet and couldn’t care less about its customers. I sympathize with every business that has to deal with them.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:23 am
[...] is recounting the problems they are facing along with everyone [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Hi,
Paypal must resolve their problems as soon as possible. That must be useful for them and others too…
Meditation
May 29th, 2008 at 4:39 am
Glad you are explaining the truth - I’ve had my issues as well and I smile knowing the type of reach you have with this information. Sorry for the problem, but kudos for the guts. Hopefully they’ll act now but… they are paypal:(
May 29th, 2008 at 4:50 am
I’m in the process of starting an online business and had paypal selected as one of the top 3 merchant service providers. And it’s not like they are cheaper.
I had a problem with paypal and skype, where they charged my paypal account and didn’t credit my voip account. I complained and paypal refunded me the money, only for skype to shut down my account.
I am now with Yahoo voip.
Paypal, Ebay, Skype should be avoided at all costs.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:59 am
This is the most timely article I’ve read in a long long time. This is because I’m new in business and was going to register for Pay Pall just today! I’ve heard a few problems here and there but I’ve always assumed it’s the normal hitches that company’s have. but now I see the from your article and reader’s comments that it’s a much bigger problem. Thanks Statcounter. This is very enlightening.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:00 am
I have not used Paypal in quite awhile and no longer have an account with them as I do not really trust them. My advice would be not to use them anymore since you do offer other alternatives for payment. I never use Paypal unless it is the only alternative to make a payment for something.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:04 am
I wanted to pay a web designer from Canada about 3 weeks ago. He used Paypal and I signed up.
Shortly after making the 250$ payment, my Visa debit was debited for that amount,but the guy never got the cash. My payment was being investigated.
Since it was urgent, I had to send the money by wire (swift).
That´s PP publicity “Send money anywhere quickly and savely” - certainly not true.
Then, PP froze my account and kept the money. I spent hours emailing, I sent letter to headoffice and after 3 weeks I finally got my money back.
Then I looked about the inernet, and found many sites:
http://www.paypalwarning.com
http://www.paypalsucks.com
there are tons of other sites…
I don´t think it happens, you don´t think it´s for real, until it hits YOU.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Paypal: Great Idea….high costs….total lack of service and arrogant towards their customers.
A merchant account with the right bank and payment gateway is the only way to go. You’ll lower your overall costs and have control over payments and what is accepted and what you need to decline.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:38 am
I understand completely, I quit using paypal some time ago as i believe they are nothing more than scammers. Repeated attempts rto resolve an issue fell on deaf ears. I filed a complaint with the Federal trade Commision, only then did I get a response which was something along the lines of we can charge whatever we we want for our services, translation: we can rip you off as much as we want! There has to be a better way than Paypal?
May 29th, 2008 at 5:43 am
We have been thinking of offering Google Checkout on our site for some time but the features are rather inferior - if only Google could match PayPal Express Checkout.
But it looks like we may have to go ahead anyway…
May 29th, 2008 at 5:51 am
I just open account with paypal recently and still didn’t have any problems but i just not sure what will be in the future.
May 29th, 2008 at 6:00 am
hi,
amidst all this these so called Paypal company still operates? I think they messed up pretty bad here, they could have gone out with lotsa money in the bank, thank you Statcounter for providing an info about this, this sucks. Paypal has to be ready to be sued by someone soon.
_____________________________
Fav Parts of the Internet
guide for pregnancy
May 29th, 2008 at 6:03 am
How does this affect me and why should I care. In other words, why did you send me an e-mail about this?
StatCounter Team Response:
Hi bj,
We do apologise if we have offended you by sending this email. As explained, our intention is only to warn you and others about the problems Paypal are facing. We wanted to forewarn our members about the difficulties being experienced so as to avoid having any of our members “caught out” by double billing or other problems.
This matter is relevant to the hundreds of thousands of people who use Paypal as a payment method and if it does not affect you in particular, then we are very sorry to have bothered you. Please do take a moment to view the other comments on this blog, though, and you will see that many people are concerned by recent Paypal events.
You can of course “opt out” of our occasional mailshots (the last one was sent in July 2007) by clicking the link at the bottom of the email.
May 29th, 2008 at 6:16 am
I am a PayPal Merchant with several accounts and I understand your problem. Pay Pal constantly refunds money to those who have learned how to steal from me.
Please keep me advised.
May 29th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Aodhán,
Report them to the Better Business Bureau: http://www.bbb.org
They will cut through the red tape and get results.
RL
May 29th, 2008 at 6:48 am
We have used Statcounter and Paypal for a number of years and reading this post about Paypal.
I assume that the changes may have something to do with ebay’s recent acquistion of Paypal? It will cause a lot of users/websites problems if Paypal services start to decline and I’m sure that in the long run they won’t be able to afford to let this happen, so hopefully they’ll resolve their problems asap.
An alternative you may like to look at would be http://www.nochex.com/.
May 29th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I ahve a Paypal account but I only use it to pay people who do not accept anyother form of payment.
You already have credit card payments (MUCH better). Why not add a few alternatives? Moneybookers and Google Checkout both seem pretty good. Moneybookers is regulated by the FSA (the UK regualtor) which is a fairly good regulator from the consumers point of view, unlike Paypal which AFAIK seems to have largely avoided regulation.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:21 am
It seems Paypal has really monopolized the internet. For very many services I try to register, right there in the registration form there is a requirement for Paypal ID and no other options at all. So are we stuck with a non performing service?
Graeme I’ve also heard some good things about Moneybookers. Maybe thats the way to head.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:25 am
I appreciate your difficulties but you probably should mail only paying customers and not blast everyone on your mailing list who’s ever used your service.
PayPal definitely needs to get things in order for you; but just so you know, the email came off as partly informational and partly as a smear attempt out of irritation. No hard feelings towards you, just thought your business might appreciate the feedback.
StatCounter Team Response:
Thanks for the feedback Jacob.
The reason why we decided to email ALL our members is because these problems are not specific to StatCounter. Although you may not be a paying member with us, you may have a Paypal subscription set up elsewhere.
In addition, this is not any kind of “smear” attempt. We simply want to provide information so that people can make up their own minds in this regard.
As outlined in the notes to our blog, we take no pleasure in reporting this issue to our members, but in all of our interests, we felt that we had no option but to do so.
NOTE: an attempt was made to email you but the email address provided is incorrect - “user unknown”
May 29th, 2008 at 7:25 am
We hate paypal too — paypal is owned by ebay in case you didn’t know — and ebay/paypal have become increasingly monopolistic, anti-competitive, over priced and downright hostile to both buyers and sellers
Customer service for both entities of the same giant has gone from bad to worse! All they seem to care about now are hawking outrageously usurious high interest rate credit cards and high interest credit plans provided by another monopolistic monolith - G.E.
Please provide other options, suggestions and alternatives as you move forward. There has to be a better option than the awful totally sucky paypal!
the likely problem with google checkout will be that it will eventually become exactly like ebay/paypal and google is already a total behemoth spying on everyone reducing our privacy by the second.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:32 am
You guys have been fantastic from the get-go. No worries on this one — this is clearly Paypal’s fault.
We stand right by you.
- John
May 29th, 2008 at 7:54 am
paypal does suck.. unfortunately i have to keep using it cuz i can’t find another option.
2 months ago they suspended my account, which had over 1000 USD in it, just because i had forgotten my password and tried to log in 3 times but failed.. it took me over a month to get them to unsuspend it.. almost all my emails went unanswered, and when i did get an answer, it was some BS copy and past response which didn’t even address my problem. no phone number to call either, and replying to their emails didn’t work.. i had to keep loging into my account and going through their tedious forms.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Paypal is a joke, they have to be the worst payment processor out there. I have experienced so much grief with this company and it’s compounded by their extremely poor communication. How can anyone run a serious business and use Paypal?
http://www.paypalsucks.com
Tony
May 29th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Its good that you detailed all the facts of the problem……….now its up to Paypal to resolve this issue…….Good Luck !
May 29th, 2008 at 8:38 am
I’m not a paying statcounter customer… but I was delighted to get this mail. I was just about to sign up to offer Paypal as a payment method on my new site, but now I am going to avoid!! I am also delighted to see some other options suggested (Google Checkout, Moneybookers) Are there any other options?
You did the right thing publishing this, you need to protect your own brand, and it seems you have tried all reasonable methods first.
Thanks Statcounter, keep up the good work!
May 29th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Paypall in romania is not avabile, is blocket …
May 29th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Paypal was great when they were small, but they are now far too big for their boots. And being part of eBay has made both monolithic businesses even more greedy and dictatorial. Pride comes before a fall… I hope.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Really glad that you took the trouble to post this to the users of Statcounter. I’ve always felt uncomfortable with Paypal. Let us know when you change and to who.
Glad yo see you speaking out!!
May 29th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Looks like Paypal is another .com good idea going wrong. Probably due to bad management, especially poor admin.
Thanks for sting the situation. Providing Pro-active information like this makes StatCounter a better company.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:57 am
sting=stating
May 29th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Thank you for making a stand for all us “David’s”.
I have barely used PayPal but when I have it’s caused nothing but hassle.
Now, what can you do to help me with my troubles with New Heights?! (Furniture company that’s gone into administration taking £100s of pounds of punters money with none of the promised furniture to show for it …)
May 29th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Use Moneybookers instead.
https://www.moneybookers.com/app/?rid=3514616
It is much better, cheaper and reliabel
May 29th, 2008 at 9:52 am
We decided a long time ago that we will only deal with financial organizations that are governed by banking industry and FTC standards. PayPal is not governed by anyone but their own bottom line.
I am just sorry StatCounter had to find this out the hard way.
Thank you for heads up, it looks like a lot of users had no clue that PayPal is not regulated by ANYONE.
May 29th, 2008 at 9:55 am
PayPal truly sucks. Too many people (myself included) start using it because it appears cheap and is quick, but, as I and StatCounter and many others have experienced, it is not suitable for commercial applications.
I too could not make contact with PayPal, by email, phone or special delivery to their registered office, I contacted the Financial Ombudsmen Service to find out what to do, they said they couldn’t help. I then contacted the FSA, filled out their extensive documentation to be told a month later it wasn’t applicable to them.
Thus it appears the likes of PayPal are unregulated and can operate their businesses in any manner they see fit.
Be warned!
May 29th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I have a feeling PayPal will be keen to resolve the situation after this blog post starts ranking highing in SERPs for the keyword “paypal”
May 29th, 2008 at 10:08 am
We’ve been using Paypal accounts for the last few years both to collect
money and to pay many of our service suppliers both in Ireland and abroad.
We’ve experienced no such problems whatsoever.
In fact, in my recent experiences with Paypal’s
Dublin based Customer Service helpline, I have consistantly met with friendly, professional,
efficient and proactive support staff.
Probably the best Customer Service that I have experienced in recent years either in Ireland or abroad.
With the rapidly decreasing standards of service and accessibility in Irish
SME business banking where local bank management and staff are no longer
allowed to engage with their customers, I am actually moving more and more
of my business away from the Irish banks and towards the likes of Paypal.
Even my accountant likes them !
Kind regards,
Stuart McNamara
StatCounter Team Response:
That’s great news Stuart, but, the problems we are reporting have only been happening since 15 May.
Our post is intended only to inform you about the situation so that you can decide on the basis of full information how to proceed.
All the best!
May 29th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Been using PayPal for years, not one problem …
May 29th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I own two large web-sites… Paypal have made thousands from me and their service is still poor. Why don’t business customers who generate a lot of business given enhanced privilages and support? Paypal have terrible customer service, they don’t care about their business customers at all.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:55 am
hi all, im using paypal on a number of sites without issue,the above talk of using banks and payment gateways is a non runner ,unless you can prove to the bank rep that your turn over will be high you are likely to be paying very high transaction fees,monthly account fees and more fees for you gateway,
i have ran in to one or two small issues over the years with paypal but weighed against the banks fees {bos 6 % on all transactions,plus monthly account fees, plus large setup fee,}i think paypal is actually quite cheap and is a great product.
Mick
May 29th, 2008 at 10:56 am
We’ve had absolutely no problems whatsoever on two busy accounts in recent weeks or days and nor have any of our customers or suppliers in Ireland or abroad.
My positive experiences with their customer service helpline in Dublin have been in the last few days and weeks
Kind regards,
Stuart
StatCounter Team Response:
Again, that’s great news Stuart - unfortunately we are not so lucky. We sincerely hope that you continue to receive a great service and do not experience any of the problems being reported around the globe.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Well! This is all interesting. Luckily I had a VERY honest customer last week who informed me that her payment (which was instant) had been cancelled. Upon checking this was true - no email to me to say so mind you! She paid by direct deposit but how can this happen? I offer paypal on our website but I think I may just be taking it off.
Cheers Carolyn
May 29th, 2008 at 11:23 am
What an unprofessional email. In spite of your repeated claims that you don’t intend to smear PayPal, that is exactly what you are doing.
StatCounter Team Response:
Hi Kenneth,
We’re sorry to hear that you think we are trying to “smear” Paypal. This is absolutely not our intention.
Our members are being directly impacted by these problems and, in view of the fact that we have received no assistance from Paypal despite repeated requests, we are highlighting these problems in the hope of reaching a speedy resolution.
Our actions are motivated by concern for our members. We sincerely hoped that the situation with Paypal would not come to this - but we have found ourselves left with no option.
All we have done is outline the facts of the situation. It is up to you to form your own opinion on Paypal.
As outlined in the notes to our blog, if Paypal should wish to contact us, we would be delighted to post their side of the story here.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I don’t know if anyone has posted this yet as I need to run to get to work, and don’t have the time to read through the rest of the posts, but, if PayPal continues not to cooperate, the merchant and the customers affected can report then to the Better Business Bureau online at
http://welcome.bbb.org/
and possibly the Federal Trade Commission at
http://www.ftc.gov/
I would double check any requirements on the FTC, but I’m sure that PayPal will take notice if someone reported them. That goes on thier record as a business. just an FYI.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
i had a huge problem with paypal/ebay not doing anything about defective non working merchandise sent. i had to reverse it through my visa. paypal cancelled my account because i dared do that. they wouldnt do what they advertised they would not do
May 29th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
From personal experience, I know that that the double billing situation has been going on for at least 3 years. When I first joined ebay 3 years ago I thought the concept of paying by paypay was fabulous and would make my life easier. Every payment I made via paypal was double billed, I was charged the same price twice on every purchase and the only clue I had about it was when I recieved a letter from my bank telling me that I was over £100 in debt. When I looked into it I discovered that I was being double billed for ever ebay purchase I had made through paypal. £50 worth of goods cost me twice the amount. At the time I didn’t have an overdraft on my account (I a very particular about borrowing money no atter how small an amount, and I didn’t want the temptation). Needless to say not only did I have to pay back the £100+ but also I had to pay bank charges on top for the privalige of being in debt. Getting help from paypal was like pulling hens teeth. I never did get my money back, and now I will not entertain paypal at all. I only used paypal for a month so I don’t know what happened after I gave up on them. I figured the problems would have probably been solved by now (not that I am prepared to risk using paypal again), but either these problems haven’t been solved, or something has gone wrong with the system again and some people are being affected. It just seems odd that only a few users of the paypal service are being affected by double-billing. I am sure if you have been using paypal for years with no problems you probably have nothing to worry about. New users however, would do well to keep an eye open for problems should they choose to use paypal.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
PayPal cannot be trusted. I would distance yourself from them as fast as possible.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Paypal scares me and I really wish something better would come along.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Regarding the professionalism of the “warning” email… I might agree that StatCounter could have sent a more succinct email, i.e., the bare facts only, without the narrative. Given the seriousness of the problem (double billings, etc), I’m inclined to give StatCounter the benefit of the doubt since customers might have though StatCounter was at fault–so long as they don’t use defamatory language. I too have been affected by recent bugs in the PayPal system (handling fees have been ignored, resulting in underpayment), and I’ve used both phone and email contacts with similarly frustrating results. These are major bugs that PayPal should have put at the top of the fix queue.
Update: the handling_cart problem seems to have been fixed as of this morning. I got an email from PayPal stating so, and a spot check of my client’s site confirms that handling fees are working now. I hope this means that they will soon be addressing the subscription and billing bugs affecting other merchants like StatCounter.
Regarding alternatives: I too would like an alternative cart+merchant solution, but frankly the garishness of the web sites for frequently-mentioned alternative merchants turns me off. They just don’t inspire confidence. Can anyone recommend an alternative cart+merchant solution that they have actually used?
May 29th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Dear Whomever you are at StatCounter:
PayPal are the biggest shits in the world. Anything you can do to get around their close-to-monopoly on the Web is great. Please keep me posted. I’ll be happy to send you an account of their dropping 400 sites as PayPal customers several years ago for “moral” infractions, when they decided that sites that even offered penis-shaped macaroni would be banned from PayPal. (They also decided that only “registered” works of art, such as the Sistine Chapel, could get past their ruthless ban on any kind of nudity anywhere on a customer site).
A few months later, after a barrage of media attention about this (some of which came from me, such as getting Forbes magazine to do piece on PayPal censorship), the turds decided to “reinstate” perrybrass.com, as if nothing had happened. I have since still not gone back to PayPal, and never want to. The most difficult thing is actually getting a human being to answer your questions there. One of their humanoid robots told me, “PayPal does not censor sites; we just decide who to do business with.” They dropped my site after about 5 years of doing business with me; I was told by many people in the industry, including at Verisign, that PayPal was in complete cahoots with the John Ashcroft “Justice” department, and when Ashcroft threatened to go after the Web for “porno infractions,” PayPal decided to aid and abet him.
Perry Brass
May 29th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Paypal really does have terrible (non-existent) customer service. I too stopped using them for exactly these reasons.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Good for you! The only way to hit these big guys where it hurts is to make their actions publicly known. They are not untouchable, and I am glad that you have reminded them of that fact.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I taught long considering wether or not to trust a second payment solution.
Luckely in the beginning there was (Europe) the IBAN solution.
Afterwards came the problem for people having Visa, Mastercard ou Paypal…
My customers are given the “choice” or to pay through their normal (internet) banking system for no extra cost or 2/ to pay through Paypal.
Of course the Iban payment is slighty cheaper for these customers as they have to wait a little bit longer (money has to arrive first on my bank account-only takes 2 workings days in Europe)
So : make 2 sums: one lower, one slightly bigger and leave the choice to the customer…
This works well for my company and in case they have to pay a second time: with (internet) banking there is no problem to schedule a payment on later dates (like paying the montly rent f.e.)
May 29th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I too have had my issues with PayPal but I have always found someone to help me and correct the issues. If you are having trouble with communications with them I will be happy to personally represent you to get your issues resolved.
StatCounter Team Response:
Hi Gary,
Many thanks for your kind offer. If you have any contacts in Paypal who may be able to help resolve our issues, then we would be very grateful if you could report our problems to them.
I will send you an email with our contact details.
Thanks again.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I signed up with XCoin and Google transactions just as a result of your post. However neither seems to offer the ability to transfer funds from the internet back to your bank account if you are in Europe. Xcoin does it for companies in the USA.
Any suggestions for Europe? I am an artist and sell prints and paintings online.
StatCounter Team Response:
We have also used 2Checkout.com in the past. While the service was not appropriate for our needs on a long term basis, I believe that it allows you to transfer money to a european bank account.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I had closed my paypal account a long time ago because they refused to settle an account that was corrupted. I understand they didn’t settle with the seller either.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Paypal has long been the kind of company I refuse to do business with. They arrange all their interfaces to obscure their charges and increase the likelihood that you will choose services that benefit them but that you don’t really intend to choose AND they are unnecessarily intrusive - having techies prying into customer transactions. I eliminated both my professional and personal accounts with them and will forego a transaction that offers PayPal as their only option.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I’ve never had any issues with them and I hope I never do.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I would like to tell that I ever tried to make business with paypal and after a while, seeing the way they were working (badly) I was finished with them at the moment they asked me to confirm with my Bank Account. For the work or business they are doing, the only think they really need is a credit card. They just need that, I have always refused to confirm with a bank account because they said that they need this bank account to work.. This company is in great demand by the hackers. So pay attention when you are doing business with paypal, don’t always accept what they ask.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I decided to add PayPal to the payment options on my website (against my better judgement but customers like it) and ran into a problem with the install. I e-mailed support and never heard back. A month later I received a survey from customer service regarding how well my problem had been resolved. After giving every question the lowest possible score and sending it off…….I have still heard nothing. I think I’ll just chance losing customers by not having them as a payment option.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
[...] http://blog.statcounter.com/?p=88 [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
[...] http://blog.statcounter.com/?p=88 [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I just want to thank you guys for keeping us informed. I haven’t experienced the issues you’ve mentioned, but I’ll keep my eye on it. And if you ever decide to leave Paypal completely, I’m perfectly willing to set up direct payments from my business credit card. I’m phasing out eBay/Paypal myself.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
very refreshing, this seemingly personal touch from you on the oh so young and still clumsy, variable blob the distant internet will always be.
thanks for the straight forward and clear warning.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I hear ya. I was a victim of PayPal’s once, too. Hope things will get resolved soon for you!
May 29th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
thank you so much for letting us know about this. you are handling the problem in a very professional and courteous manner. thanks!
May 29th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I had to use Paypal recently for a monetary transaction. It is the worst company to deal with. They make arbitrary decisions without any explanation whatsover. I needed to transfer funds from one account to a family members account. I called, and I emailed expecting some form of immediate resolution. I got none. I agree with Andylat, if Paypal is getting in the way of YOUR reputation, it’s time to cut ties off with them and get your own merchant account. I will do every thing in my power never to use Paypal again. They have too much power, and in my mind a monopoly in the 3rd party merchant-vendor industry. You would be surprised how many other 3rd party merchants they own as well. Cut ties before you lose your reputation.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
generally I don’t have problems and I sell about 15 20 items a mont,
However I recently had one instance where i wasn’t informed of an order and the customer had to prompt me direct as to where the goods were and also two instances where payment wasn’t made even though a credit /debit card was logged on the account it took fifteen days for payment to be made and in the meantime i’d made alternative arragements they then paid it again.
I eventually got it sorted out and received a phone call to apoligise for the mix up but I wrote to the chief executive eventually but of course it didn’t reach him/her but at least I got action .
All’s well at present.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Thanks for the warning. I have been a web designer for many years and despite my warnings customers still pay me with PayPal.
I advise them that until the cash is in my hands to spend then the design does not belong to them.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I’ve been using PayPal on my site, inksite.com, since 2000 with zero negative issues. I’m familiar with the paypalsucks and paypalwarning sites, but I’ve never experienced any of the problems reported there. I have never had trouble reaching PayPal by phone on the few occasions when it was necessary. My business uses PayPal as an optional payment method along with Google Checkout and a traditional credit card payment gateway.
I have no particular love for PayPal. I think their fees are on the high side for smaller merchants. (Google Checkout has significantly lower fees for businesses the size of mine.) However, I have no kind words for any of my payment processors. Google Checkout has done a very poor job of making their system work smoothly with third party shopping carts. They don’t allow a comment field to be included with an order despite endless requests over two years. Google’s invoicing system is vastly inferior to PayPal’s. And PayPal has dozens of features that Google does not, including a way to take credit card phone orders. For subscription services like StatCounter, I’m not even sure if Google has a system to handle that.
http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=63440
I realize that StatCounter’s problems with PayPal are recent and very specific to the nature of their transactions. I can understand their frustration as it hampers their ability to conduct business and PayPal is not being responsive. My point is that taken in context, this should not condemn PayPal as a whole because there are millions of satisfied users who tend not to be very vocal about their satisfaction.
Is PayPal great? No. Are they any worse than their competitors? No.
StatCounter Team Response:
Hi Michael,
Many thanks for taking the time to comment. Our post is not intended to condemn Paypal as a whole - instead we hope it will spark enough attention so that these problems get resolved, not only for us, but for all the merchants experiencing difficulties at this time.
We are absolutely willing to give credit where credit is due - and if Paypal start to communicate, satisfactorily resolve all these issues, compensate their merchants and apologise for these problems - then we would be delighted to publicly acknowledge this.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Thanks for making us aware of the problems…
May 29th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
[...] este post, PayPal tiene serios problemas desde su actualización de sistemas el pasado 15 de mayo. Eso, unido [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
[...] Statistik-Dienst. Das ist schon ein gewaltiger Tritt in den Hintern der Paypal. Das tat weh. Mehr dazu siehe im Weblog von statcounter [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
[...] http://blog.statcounter.com/?p=88 [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
For anyone who says they have never had problems with Paypal, stick with them and you will eventually. How about $25 completely disappearing from an account with no evidence that it ever existed? Pfffft. The negative stories about them are all too true.
On the other hand, I love Google Checkout and the merchant rates certainly are much better than Paypal’s. The BS hype that Ebay/Paypal puts out about people preferring Paypal to any other service is just that… hype and BS.
I’ve had only one customer on my website who was not familiar with GC and chose not to use it. When I told her I did not “do” Paypal, we both happily settled on a money order. Nobody NEEDS Paypal.
I no longer do business with anyone who offers only Paypal as their payment service. Paypal really does suck.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Thanks for the email Statcounter.
I agree with you 100%
I have been using paypal for payments on my website for a while now, and I have an ongoing issue with them that they do not seem to be in the slightest bit interested in sorting out.
They are an absolute pain in the neck.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I can’t believe all the whiners complaining that Statcounter sent them an email regarding a potential problem. Maybe they work for Paypal… I wish Paypal had been as proactive when it comes to all the spoof emails I finally grew tired of forwarding to them. Since Statcounter caters to webmasters, why is it so terrible that they would warn their users of a site used by many webmasters? I have a Paypal account, and they haven’t bothered to let me know of these problems. Keep up the good work, folks.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I know of people having had problems with PayPal in the past as well, specifically with e-Bay and discrepancies in purchases or shipping. Both entities make guarantees in this regard, but do little to enforce their warranties, very likely because people with small claims drop them after awhile, the frustration with pursuing them not being worth the effort. I believe e-Bay addressed these issues in the past two years, but obviously PayPal continues to be a problem. One way to get results is to boycott their service, utilizing whatever other method one can, and to be certain they know that is happening.
How about it? How about some good, old-fashioned activism? No better way to have a company sit up and take notice than to hit them where it hurts!
May 29th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Here’s a no fee alternative to paypal!
http://www.revolutionmoneyexchange.com
May 29th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I spent two years building up a network of Safelist Sites. Twenty six of them to be exact. Total membership of over 35,000.
Everything was going good until all of a sudden my monthly payments to my hosting companies started to be turned down.
I sent several e-mails to cutomer support and got their canned replies but no results. I continued to pay my monthly hosting fees via my credit card through PayPal. The same one they said they couldn’t fund my payments with!
I called PayPal Customer support, and spoke to someone that I could barely understand. After an hour and a half of a long distant cell phone call, I was informed he had found the problem. PayPal had changed something in their system and apparently my account information had been deleted from their system. It was very hard to understand the explanation but the bottom line was he admitted that PayPal had caused the problem and the only thing I could do was to start over with my lists.
PayPal destroyed two years of work and thought nothing of it.
I have closed my account and will never - ever - use PayPal again!.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I have had issues with PayPal and ZenCart - clients cannot choose to pay from their PayPal account - they can only pay with an eCheck. Contacted PayPal and they responded right away and said it works fine on their end. I responded and said it isn’t working. I had 4 people test it and ALL were only given the eCheck option. Again they responded that it worked for them. Well it doesn’t work for those that I need it to work for and they haven’t responded since.
Back in April I did have one person pay for an item I was selling on another site and it went through 2 times. I just refunded her second (duplicated) payment with no problems.
Many sellers are going to Revolution Money Exchange. While they do not have the “shopping cart” feature in place yet they are working on it. Transactions (buying and selling) are absolutely FREE. I believe this is a great alternative to PayPal especially for small business owners. I was hesitant to try them out but now that I have been with them for almost 2 months I am completely happy with their services!
Oh and you get $25.00 for signing up with them - no catches - $25.00 FREE in your account. Refer someone and you get $10! (restrictions apply)
They have “Buy it Now” buttons you can put on your site and “Grab It’ buttons where the customer can put in their total (if purchasing multiple items). You control ALL money received and sent. You must approve any money sent to you!
Check them out - click on my name up there to go to their website! It truly is the better alternative and like I said once they get their shopping cart active for their users… say goodbye to PayPal!!
May 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Have you tried Google Checkout? I switched to that service, seems much slicker and more reliable than PaPal.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I have used Paypal for several years with only minors glitches here & there, as with any banking institution.
This week I had a customer who was charged 5 times for her purchase by Paypal. It showed up only once on my account. Not sure how this will turn out.
Paypal is expensive but offers many valuable services, such as the virtual terminal. Until I can find a comparable merchant service I’ll continue to use them.
I appreciate the heads up on possible problems & will monitor my account more closely. Please keep us informed of the outcome of your situation.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I too have had problems with Paypal. I had an account with them when they first started out, never used it, and so I cancelled it. Or so I thought. It actually took a certified registered letter sent by an attorney to get them to send me written verification that the account was closed and that any charges accumulated on it would be their responsibility, not mine.
Needless to say, I don’t use Paypal, ever, for anything. To those of you who say that there is no alternative, you are wrong! There is a very powerful alternative!! That alternative is to tell the party you want to do business with that you don’t use Paypal because they are untrustworthy. Tell them that if you can’t complete the transaction another way that you will take your business elsewhere because trust is more important than convenience. The more people tell businesses that they won’t use Paypal, the quicker they will get the message and quit requiring it. (I have not had one single business decline to make other arrangements yet, btw.)
Thanks for keeping us posted, StatCounter. Sorry you had to join the “Paypal Sucks Club”, but many of us understand completely and don’t hold it against you.
May 29th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I have had many problems with paypal over the last year, I now have accounts with moneybookers and nochecks, their fees are far less and they don’t freeze your account when some disgruntled customer complains about you. . . unfortunately there are still far to many people who only have paypal so I have to keep the paypal account going. . . . .
May 29th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
This is yet another example why so many people refuse to use paypal to buy anything online. It’s also reinforcement to me that anything I sell online I’d better offer the ability to make a purchase through means other than (or in addition to) paypal because so many simply refuse to use paypal. Thank you for being so “out in the open” about this issue StatCounter and I’ll continue to support you and your great system.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I have not used StatCounter for years. Why send this to me?
StatCounter Team Response:
Hi Jeff,
Your email address is linked to three active StatCounter accounts. This is why you received the email. Please use the opt out link at the bottom of the email to be removed from future mails.
Apologies for any inconvenience.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Hmm, I joined paypal earlier this week with a view to introducing online sales to my website but I had a number of questions regarding currency issues.
Although paypal did respond I was not satisfied with their response as it dealt with everything but what I had asked which I deemed unprofessional.
I think I will pursue other options now, does anyone have any suggestions for shopping cart & merchant account that can deal in Malaysian currency?
tia.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Hi folks,
Nothing new, this message regarding the Paypal issue.
We have websites in 9 countries, in which we have a payment module in each and every one of them. Our psp processes the payments, and gives us feedback in real time about the payment status of our clients, enabling us to connect the account details to the payment status.
In the beginning, about 2 years ago, we tried to work with paypal as well, but they can not report in real time, everything went completely wrong, and no assistance at all. And I mean, none what so ever.
So, I am not surprised about this.
Good luck to you guys, and thanks for the great services you provide.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Just a quick comment on the email you sent. This part:
“Please note that these problems have been ongoing since 15 May and arise
not only in relation to payments made to StatCounter but in relation to ANY
Paypal payments that you make.”
is dangerous for you, my favourite stats counter.
You highlighted “ANY”, an all-inclusive term that allows them to sue you out of business. And they have the means. I hope they don’t but I would advise you to email everyone that the problem you faced MAY affect other payments, as Paypal recognised. And start papering the file with testimonials from other merchants for His Honour’s edification.
Or give His Honour a subscription to Paypal and encourage him to use it to buy presents for his wife’s birthday
StatCounter Team Response:
Many thanks for your comment Francois.
As you will see from some of the comments in this blog, many people are happy with the service that Paypal provide. The point we are trying to make is that the Paypal issues we describe are NOT just arising for StatCounter members - they are arising for numerous merchants across the globe as evidenced by various website articles and blogs. There is a risk that ANY payment you make could be affected. Thanks for allowing us to clarify this.
While not ALL Paypal payments are affected, without any comment to the contrary from Paypal, we can only assume that ANY payments could be affected. We await clarification from Paypal in this regard.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Thanks for the heads up, guys. I have used Paypal for several years without problem but my use is minimal and I haven’t had any problems but it never hurts to watch carefully. You folks run a great service, by the way, with Statcounter and I really enjoy the features. My site is strictly volunteer so I’m not a paying member but I really appreciate it.
Don
May 29th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I’ve used paypal for the last two years - for tiny amounts of money. I would never consider them for handling anything large or frequent amount of monies. I always use my own Merchant account for that. I would recommend anyone doing serious business on the internet to utilise their own merchant accounts for payments - even if it is additional work at least you know paypal cannot lock up your money for 6 months whilst they ‘resolve’ whatever the it is.
Just my 2 C.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I stopped using paypal years ago for my business merchant trasactions. Their “protect themselves and no one else” approach lost me over $5,500 in one transaction. I was involved in a class action suit with them but never did hear how it ended if it did truly end. At least Amex, Visa and Mastercard have a fair process for chargebacks that usually ends fairly and justly.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Apart from these there is another issue which paypal never solved. I made a payment using my credit card via paypal as the merchant only accepted paypal. This was when the exchange rate was Rs 37 for US$ 1. they reversed the transaction and again charged me 3 months later when the exchange rate was Rs 41 for US$1, which means I lost Rs 4 per US$ the amount was 200 US$ and hence effectively I paid Rs 800 extra ie nearly 10% of the cost of the item I bought for no mistake of mine, so be more careful when the transaction involves different currencies.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Just a note. I run 7 servers with 16-20 websites on them at any give month. I USED to require the sites to use paypal for the donation to pay for their server use. Then because one site had a photo of a boy without a shirt on it, paypal froze my account! It took a month to get it resolved. Then a year later, we noted the balances were always off by just a few dollars… but add that up over 20 websites and a years time and it was a lot!
Now for 2 years we have used AMAZON HONOR PAY, where a member clicks on the ‘donate’ button. gives a donation. money is auto transferred evry 14 days to my bank or I can intiate it to xfer at any time.
No hidden fees and it simply WORKS!
May 29th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Hi. Thanks for the information. Really pleased that you are monitoring our needs and have informed us of these ongoing issues. The service you provide for me is free as my current needs are very basic however, if this were to change your customer care will get my vote and money.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I dont’ understand why you don’t mention that you will remove the option to pay by PayPal. PayPal has been known to be totally horrible with customer service and not responding to issues, as well as keeping merchant’s money and locking their account erroneously. Why in the world would you still give PayPal business knowing their lack of integrity, customer service, and total lack of concern for their customers?
StatCounter Team Response:
Note 4 beneath our blog post explains VL!
Thanks for your comment.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Why not just get a real merchant account?
StatCounter Team Response:
We have one John! We also accept check payments and money transfers…some of our members though prefer to use Paypal.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
We had issues with them too but we decided that there is no better option. Here is a funny cartoon about PayPal staff
http://www.jpgbox.com/page/71
May 29th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I trusted PayPal once several years ago and that is the last time I have ever dealt with them. Now if I meet a merchant who uses PayPal, I will find another way to settle the finances or simply not deal with the merchant at all and will shop elsewhere to find a merchant that is less limiting.
Why? Several years ago before Spam was the problem it is now, I used PayPal to purchase attendance to a technical class (1 time) and shortly after that, I began receiving spam at that email address. I had a strict policy about spam and which email addresses I used (even back then) but thought I had good reasons for breaking from that policy just this one time. And PayPal obviously thought nothing of it and distributed my email address thus violating my trust of them as a vendor. There was no other possible source for the leak of information. I will not use them.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I wonder if PayPal will ever get their customer service in order? You may be interested in this PayPal saga…make sure to read from the starting post…
http://success.grownupgeek.com/index.php/2008/05/27/paypal-reinstated/
May 29th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Had a double payment taken from my account recently but I had a refund processed before I’d even noticed it.
Personally, I’ve never had any problem with them but then that’s the same as any company around the globe - some people will have problems, some people won’t and you’re more likely to hear about it from those who do.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Just another instance of the dreaded PayPal monopoly trying to penalise and impede a respected and well-conducted business. The alternative will come. They are BEGGING for competition. Best of luck!
May 29th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Thanks for informing us! Don’t be disheartened by the few negative responses. Whistleblowers always get attacked by people who don’t want to know and are driven by obscure moral convictions.
StatCounter Team Response:
Many thanks for your kind comments Abby.
We don’t like to speak badly of anyone, but in this case, when we found ourselves being blamed for things beyond our control we felt we had no option but to take action.
If the problem was “just” affecting StatCounter we could live with that (e.g. if payment to our bank account was delayed) but since this problem impacts on our members also, Paypal’s lack of action is simply unacceptable. We’re not asking for a miracle, we would be happy with a simple acknowledgement and an estimated date for resolution of these issues.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
PAYPAL IS A BULLY OF A COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good for you for speaking up! I have had nothing but problems with Paypal…. funny thing is “we” use them to be protected but when something actually happens their protection is minimal at best and actually bordering on ridiculous. It is somewhat ironic to even use them in the first place for buyer protection.. Unfortunately, Paypal is very convenient to use and for business owners to implement, but when something goes wrong your eyes get opened to the sad truth about their business practices. They hide behind a wall of legal mumbo jumbo that pretty much borders on illegal practices imo….
Best of luck
May 29th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Hi guys. I’m also with PayPal, and have had similar issues, most notbaly where I don’t get an Instant Payment Notification, and then I have to hear from my customers “I bought the product, where IS it?”. I have also registered several calls with PayPal about this, but NONE of them has resulted in it being addressed.
I am looking at replacing PayPal as a payment provider as well. Good luck to you!
g
May 29th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Paypal is going way down, I have an account since a couple of years, Now I earned more than € 1000 and they asked avery kind of information, I had to send them very personal details to Frankfurt/Germany in the end without result. I even had to wait about one month to get all my money back. And now my account is very restricted and they refuse to close it. Folks, hands off - no Paypal for serious business!!!!!
May 29th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
“We would be very grateful for your patience at this time as we wait for
Paypal to resolve these issues.”
Statcounter Team: Please accept this fact right now: You are on your own and they will not help you.
They promise protection - but when you request a refund for an item not received, etc. - they bluntly refuse to help. After quoting their own terms of service to them (proving they were obligated to help me), they just gave some bullcrap answer that had nothing to do with their obligations. I eventually ended up sending a complaint to my credit card company who refunded the error. This is the primary reason that:
1. I don’t trust PayPal
2. I always use a credit card through their service - and not a direct transfer from my account. In the event of a problem, paypal will not live up to their obligation. Using a credit card gives me a way out - another 3rd party who is at least reasonable in making refund decisions.
So just remember paypal sucks - and it’s overpriced anyway. A merchant account will probably be more cost effective. Paypal’s rates are highly inflated.
Best,
–Rob
May 29th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Switch to Google Checkout, and offer your subscribers an opportunity to sign up.
May 29th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I’m so glad I checked my spam filter and saw this. I’m so sorry you all are having issues with them. I’m not trying to pimp my blog, but I just posted like two posts ago (here: http://www.baby-faith.com/?p=954) because Pay Pal basically told me their while they understood and they would keep my claim open.. it wouldn’t do any good.. no protection, I was basically screwed - but they understood.. So what is the benefit now of using Pay Pal over a credit card?
None.
I will most likely be closing my Pay Pal account.. especially after reading the whole policy change on eBay (unrelated.. but still crappy) about buyers no longer being able to leave negative or neutral feedback. They’re just turning Pay Pal/eBay into one ginormous scam where you have no voice.. you just shut up, bend over - and take your chances. Like it or not.
Okay, I added nothing of value here. I am sorry!!!! I hope you all get this figured out.. I am actually going to the Post Office now to try and figure mine out - in the middle of a cross country move no less. Thank you, Pay Pal.. I appreciate your hard work. F’ers!!
May 29th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
[...] Hi , We at StatCounter are having ongoing, critical problems with Paypal. In view of the complete lack of assistance from Paypal in this regard and the gravity of the problems, we have decided that we have no option but to inform you, our members, about the facts of the situation. This will allow you to make an informed decision about whether to use (or whether to continue to use) Paypal. Please note that these problems have been ongoing since 15 May and may arise not only in relation to payments made to StatCounter but in relation to ANY Paypal payments that you make. We hope that our communications will equip you with the information necessary to make sure that YOU do not become another victim of this ongoing Paypal saga. The two major issues affecting StatCounter Paypal subscribers are: - Delayed issuing of invoices - Instances of double billing At StatCounter we have tried phoning, emailing, posting on the Paypal forums… Many of our contacts are ignored, but even when we do get an answer all we are told is that “Upon review of your account, unfortunately we do not have a time frame for a resolution to your issue we are currently actively investigating your issue with subscriptions.” Folks - we sincerely regret any problems you are experiencing and assure you that we are doing our best to get all of these issues resolved for you. We strive to offer a high level of customer service and pride ourselves on being responsive to the needs and suggestions of our members. To have our hands “tied” in this way as a result of Paypals inaction is frustrating to say the least. We would be very grateful for your patience at this time as we wait for Paypal to resolve these issues. We would also ask you to be patient with any of our fellow internet merchants experiencing difficulties with Paypal at this time. For further information or to post a question or a comment, please visit our blog. http://blog.statcounter.com/?p=88 [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
We have had major issues with paypal Europe
We were told agust LAST YEAR that we ahd to much money on the account and that our account was suspended. Three months later, after sending in the required documentation FOUR times (and over 50 emails and contacts!), we got an email from Paypal saying - all sorted, we ahve it, accoutn no longe suspended.
We thought GREAT - all sorted. But no, the account (6 months later!!!) is still suspended. We send them copies of thier email saying all is OK. But we NEVER hear back from them!
May 29th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
You are dead on regarding PayPal. They suck and they always have sucked. I refuse to have anything to do with them. I avoid any online purchasing that requires them. I refused to let them screw around with my bank account with that penny in your bank account scheme and so we remained at odds until they finally closed my account. I appreciate knowing that someone else views them with the same disdain.
May 29th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Thanks so much for this. I really appreciate the heads up.
May 29th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Here’s an alternative to Paypal, for managing subscription payments.
http://ccbill.com
May 29th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
PayPal is EVIL. I had my identity stolen on Ebay and the thief used my PayPal account and bought about $1500 of stuff. I did everything in my power to stop payments, stop shipping, I even called the post offices. No help anywhere. To make matters worse, PayPal told me that it was done from my own house and it was my repsonsibility to pay for the charges.
My bank quickly charged back whatever was on their system (haha u JERKS at PayPal). But I also had a PayPal Buyer Credit account with a charge of $550.00… and I was forced to pay it, or have my credit ruined. I couldn’t afford a lawyer.
PayPal is a symbol of what is wrong with America. Corporate greed, lies, corruption, and monopolies. Who else can compete with the big boys? None.
Now I use Ebay to find stuff I wanna buy… and then I call the vendor and do the transaction outside of Ebay/PayPal. hahahahahahaha PayPal you lost a customer for life. And I tell everyone I know too.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I hate PayPal they’ve gotten away with this for years. The post above says it all ;o)
Stick it to them guys…
May 29th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Regarding the PayPal problems. If you didn’t recieve my payment it’s probably my own fault for my creditcard expired (got a new one with same nr. but new expiry date) and I moved to another adress.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I appreciate the email notice of the problems you’ve had with Paypal. Honestly. I would try and call an eBay number to get forwarded to someone.
I have used Paypal for 6 years, mostly for selling merchandise. I have had no problems with them except for occasional problems in receiving payment notices. And recently had two problems - one failure to notify me that a payment was made to my account, delaying my shipping of the product and another time they deposited a payment into my bank twice. They emailed me and informed me that they would deduct the overpayment, and they did. I saw that it all got resolved fast (of course they were the ones out of the money! :O)
I know that occasionally some customer will have a problem starting an account at times. But rarely.
I just wanted to put in one positive thing here, since nothing is all bad really. There are millions upon millions of people who use Paypal successfully. And I don’t deny problems crop up. And (knock on wood) I certainly hope I don’t have any future problems with them.
I just suggest that you call eBay since they own and operate Paypal and that might be a way to more directly get ahold of someone who can resolve things. And if one customer service person isn’t handling matters with what seems like a proper concern, ask for their supervisor.
Good luck in getting this situation sorted out effectively.
StatCounter Team Response:
Thanks for taking the time to post Mary.
We do appreciate a “balancing” opinion. We do hope that you continue to receive a high level of service from Paypal and wish you all the best.
We would also be delighted to hear from Paypal themselves. The invitation remains open for them to contact us. We would be more than happy to post their official response on the blog. Errors happen! A response from Paypal in relation to these errors though is now long overdue.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
[...] to the StatCounter blog (more here) there are some problems in the PayPal kingdom. It seems that following an update on PayPal’s [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I had a buyer complain so paypal froze my account and took £185 of me.
To keep things going I opened a ‘moneybookers’ account, and then emailed paypal everyday asking for my money back, when I finally asked or the postal address to put on the county court small claims papers they decided I was in the right and gave my money back. . but until then they just strung me along saying they ‘were still looking in to it’
May 29th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Ohhh.. this kills me. My Mother has been having issues with them on invoices… and I have 2 subscriptions that are failing… I suppose… its nice to know its not just us, but still this is crazy!! Needs to be fixed NOW!
May 29th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
…..saved this page in the folder: paypal_THIEVES
THX 4 the warning
I avoid using paypay about 90% of the time.
another system NEEDS 2 knock the %$#@* outta these THIEVES!
God Bless all
May 29th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
PayPal .. Until recently I have had no problem with them. That is until a bunch of my subscriptions that I pay through PayPal auto-cancelled because any time a company was trying to get their subscription money out of my PayPal account, it would e-mail me a warning that my backup funding source ‘wasn’t available’ (which it was) and subsequently would after a few days automagically cancel that subscription. It has become a major pain and I am thinking about pursuing legal action …
May 29th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I contacted PayPal to inform them of rogue phishing emails and got a similar standard waste of time response.
Also, trying to convince them I wanted to stop being a merchant on eBay was impossible.
I avoid PayPal and I avoid eBay now.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
PayPal is screwed up for one reason - they are owned by Ebay! And anyone associated with Ebay knows that they are trying to run their business into the ground with their most recent changes…why they are doing this is a mystery.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Anything monopolistic is really dangerous.
I’ve not been hit yet but more and more forums are filled by people being ignored by paypal.
Do they have a customer service ?
By the way, congratulation for your work Aodhan !
I’m a free, unregular user of statcounter but I recommand your site around me.
I do appreciate your site & service and I’m not the only one. Remember the BusinessWeek Young Entrepreneur Award !
Harold
May 29th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Thanks so much for the email. I immediately went to my paypal account and found that an order had been sitting in there since May 10th and I never received the notification! So they’ve been hanging onto the money and not letting me know about the order.
I’m going to have to find another way to do online payments.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Thanks for publishing this about Paypal and may I extend it to include other useless service providers out there. Many times, I’ve had your same frustrations, but have never had a public forum to air my frustrations. Thanks for getting this out in the public domain i.e. I couldn’t have put it any better myself
I will be paying you directly from now on and will close my Paypal account.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I’m amazed PayPal are allowed to stay in business, I’m amazed people still use them, and I’m most amazed at all that people just don’t realise what a bunch of incompetent criminals are running it. They should be arrested for fraud IMO.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
This is the first time any user with your status has gone public about PayPal in this way in a mailing to me as one of its users.
I don’t much care if some of the people feeding back here consider you are smearing them.
They deserve it. Maybe more PayPal account holders should stand up and be counted. currently the only effectively way out seems to be the door, and that is what I recently decided to do - i.e. stop using both Ebay and Paypal altogether.
I had some unpleasant experiences with payments (or lack thereof), and neither of these organisations could effectively address the problems.
Their so-called “customer service” is a joke and communicating with them is like playing footsie with robots.
Another thing that worries me about Paypal is that it seems to be widely misused by scammers and other criminals. Paypal do not seem to be able to prevent it. One wonders if they - or some of their staff - are themselves involved in shady dealings.
I am very happy with statcounter. Keep up the good work. It’s important when establishing a brand to keep it clean and you would do well to find another payment collection system.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
As a seller who accepts Paypay on my web site, I totally sympathize. A year ago PayPal froze my account for absolutely no reason that it could or would adequately explain. After more than a month of utter frustration and lost business (and what amounted to a demand for ransom from PayPal to unfreeze my account) at the worst possible time, I filed a complaint with the consumer protection unit office of my State Attorney General’s office. A few days later, a representative from that office called PayPal on my behalf, and my account was UNfrozen immediately.
PayPal sucks beyond measure. The more attention you bring to this issue the better as far as I’m concerned. Good luck!
May 29th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
For those of you who think you are stuck with a PayPal account that you do not want; Simply contact your credit card company, ask them to cancel the account with that number and issue a new card with a different number. I got so feed up with their dishonest ways of not responding, etc. I did that over a year ago. In using PayPal you are only paying more and more to eBay because PayPal and eBay are one and the same. After all the fees you pay IN THE NAME OF eBAY, why pay it again and even be charged for the postage you have had to charge your customers in order to ship them their merchandise??????
May 29th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Have ben with PayPal for years and never had an once of trouble. But everyone must be very careful to update the expiry date and the last three numbers on the back of the card when a new card is issued. But double billing sounds bad. I really reaaly want Sat Counter to stay with PayPal for good and have the issues cleared up.
Rolf
May 29th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I try not to use Paypal whenever possible for one reason and one reason alone. They are anti-gun, and my website is an online firearms auction site. Statcounter is a very handy service and I’ve benefitted from their free offering. Please get away from Paypal whenever you can. They are leftist garbage in my humble opinion and very antagonistic to the Constitution of the United States. I understand people will continue to use it, and I still offer it on my website, but only because they are so widely used.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Everyone needs to go to http://www.nopaypal.com This problem is widespread. I used to have an account a few years back with Paypal, until my account was hi-jacked by someone in Ukraine! I received huge credit card bills showing Paypal User accounts. Without verifying with me, someone in the Ukraine was able to change my paypal mailing address to them and they went ahead, leaving my CC number the same!!! I was able to contact the Paypal user account names thru Ebay, because they used the same user names, and was able to stop some future charges. It took me a half year to clear this nightmare up, phone calls to the Secret Service (!) to track down the Ukraine ISP/user and weeks to finally get Paypal to cancel my account.
Beware!!! Go to nopaypal.com
May 29th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Baby I got your money don’t you worry ?
I am cancelling my PP account forthwith, but where do I go now….. for the ebay moneys
Dear STAzicounters, welcome to the world where your Mum doesnt know the manager !!!!!
whoever your mum turns out to be……
SUGST U
bite it with the rest of us.
XkxXXX
BAAhAAAhhH
May 29th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Its a sad thing that a company can grow so big off the backs of you and me but when the chips are down they will not help or listen. This is a small story about my experience with paypal and although not related to your problem, it may help you and your members come to a decision about paypal. Through ebay, I ordered 3 items from China, they where £9.99 each and the postage was £52.00. The items delivered where different to the ones I ordered. Following paypal procedure, I contacted the seller who refused to cooperate so I started a claim through paypal. at the end of the day paypal would cancel my claim if I did not return the goods to China using ‘tracked postage’ which would have cost me £97.00 and could not guarantee they could recover all of my initial payment, if any of it. This is a vague description but I would have been out of pocket had I returned the goods as I am out of pocket now. On all ebay listings it is stated on the right hand side ‘Free protection up to £500 when you pay with PayPal. See terms’ In my case I had no protection from paypal because they made it easy for the con artist to operate and difficult and drawn out for me to put my case. They had automated reply’s that only give you two choices, BAD and WORSE. They either did not read my mail, couldn’t add up or just didn’t care. I am very reluctant to use paypal now but have to from time to time and would like to see an alternative form of payment system.
Gary P
May 29th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Paypal sucks. They are not safe nor honest.
Their system has been hacked and they have not disclosed to their users. They have had massive user data leaks. they have failed to correct criticaL safety flaws for 2 whole years. Recently they were found to have the xxs flaw on their site.
They are also having massive amounts of ’site issues’ and numerous uncorrected problems interfacing with the ebay users.
There is also that huge controversy about the global ebay payment service scheme, along with the calls for Global Boycott of Paypal and ebay both due to the monopolistic aspects and other unpleasant things as of late.
Really too many things to mention here.
People might want to go look on youtube about things like their customer service and repeated data leaks etc. You might be surprised.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
We have found that Paypal is horrible. Many people have mentioned the paypalsucks.com website for reading horror stories, and there are several ex-Paypal employees and whistleblowers who have related similar tales.
We are no exception. We stopped using Paypal many years ago when we got frustrated with the lack of customer service from them, especially as it relates to overseas transactions. We sold an item to someone overseas, and they paid in their native currency, which we converted and deposited. However, on the exact day that a claim could be filed, this person filed it, and was completely unresponsive to e-mail and phone requests. We even had our attorney attempt to locate this person, but there was no responce, leading us to believe he was engaging in fraud.
Naturally, Paypal claimed that first we needed to get a signature confirmation, which is, of course, impossible overseas, as nothing like that exists. Then, when confronted with that fact, they said that Paypal “encourages” its users not to do business overseas, but yet, they will gladly accept multiple currencies. So, how does one “encourage” you to not do overseas business, but at the same time, take money from the very country it says they “encourage” you to not do business in (this was England, by the way). Fortunately, we had no money in the account, but their lack of any assistance was the final straw, and from what we have been reading, it looks like Paypal is using their non-FDIC status to the full extent they can, holding funds for no other reason then they can (and at the same time, conveniently collecting interest during this hold…).
For European money, we recommend PPPay.com, and our site (sfpincchicago.com) lists on its landing page several different payment sites that we have found to have superb customer service, many of them are actually based in the US, which is a rarity these days.
For Google checkout users, we looked into them, but found the lack of a telephone number to call customer service to be disconcerting. We prefer to always be able to have a phone number to call a live person, as e-mail communications are shaky at best, and you never get a problem resolved, not to mention going and sending multiple e-mails back and forth with a different person answering each time, spouting off a “stock” response similar to, “Thank you for your e-mail blah, blah, blah, We hope you continue to use us”, but never actually answering the question asked.
We have checked every aspect of the payment methods we accept thoroughly, especially since we have several customers from outside of the U.S., so finding a good payment service was mandatory.
We hope you will check out our site (sfpincchicago.com), and look at our payment services, and consider them for yourself.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Hi,
I have never had a problem with PayPal, ever. I think the world of them, so I hope and pray that all gets solved quickly for you and that there be peace with you and them. It was probably an honest mistake. Mistakes do happen and we all need to give a little grace whenever we can because all humans are fighting some kind of battle, whether it be emotionally, physically, in business, or even things that happen in this world mistakenly. Things happen. I’m an ebayer and have used PayPal for at least 5 yrs and I haven’t had a problem that they haven’t solved for me and it was just a very small thing that I can’t even remember what it was exactly, some typo or something but all was solved quickly and to my satisfactory. They were very professional about it and you all seem to be very professional as well. I think things happen for a greater reason and usually to make you stop and think about what is really tragic in this world, such as our precious troups being in the war daily. Yes, there are worse things happening so let us all count our blessings and be thankful for all the things that PayPal and You do that are right instead of focusing on a wrong or a mishap.
Believing for Good Things,
KK
May 29th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Hi !
May i suggest to use http://www.clickandbuy.com/US/en/
instead of paypal ?
I had a bad experience with paypal…
and i appreciate the professionnalism of clickandbuy.
Regards,
Ray.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Hi Guys,
Sorry about your dilemna.
I just recently signed on with a company in Canada using an American based funder. While the fees are a bit stiff for a small business like mine, I have nothing but good things to say about the service. I’m not sure if they can handle an acccount in Ireland, but you may want to contact
Voctor DeSilva
POS Systems
1-866-222-7997 ext 526
vdasilva@collectivepos.com
Good luck.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Hi,
We got your messages through the Enterprise Ireland email list today.
We’ve experienced a few problems ourselves in the last week or so with double billing and no notification of purchases on our Irish Over Thirties site.
No probs whatsoever on our UK site.
All seems well now after a quick call to their Lo call number in Dublin, so maybe just a temporary glitch?
Hope it all works out for you all.
Susie
StatCounter Team Response:
Hi Susie,
We’re glad to hear that your problems have been sorted.
Unfortunately our problems have been going on since 15 May and the double billing issue persists despite numerous calls and emails to Paypal.
We remain hopeful that the issues will be resolved. Thanks for your comment!
May 29th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Yes I sent a Antique table to someone they bought it of EBAY for $285 I sent it courier in Australia from Brisbane to NSW. It was delivered on a Monday and SIGNED FOR and on the TUESDAY the customer lodged a not delivered complaint with Paypal.
I sent a fax to Paypal with a copy of the couriers signed paperwork of the customers signiture and thought nothing more of it as that was proof of delivery.
But no I was wrong 10 days later I went to transfer my money in paypal to my bank account and noticed I was $285 down contacted paypal and was told they had REFUNED THE CUSTOMER as they did not reconize COURIERS PLEASE AS A LEGITMITE AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP. I FOUGHT FOR THIS MONEY BACK BUT DID NOT SUCEED.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
We support our StatCounter Friends! No worries!!!!
May 30th, 2008 at 12:13 am
By the way - EVERYONE who is getting shafted by PayPal should launch a formal complaint via the Better Business Bureau’s website and MAKE PayPal respond. If 500 complaints are filed - THEN they will respond!! HAHAHAHA! It will absolutely KICK their asses! File with your local BBB - so they have to respond in YOUR jurisdiction.
Never give up, never surrender!
Cheers -
Jonathan
May 30th, 2008 at 12:17 am
As from June 16 we in Australia who use ebay will have no choice but to use paypal.
All other payment methods will be banned.
This of course is a test case. if they get away with it it will become worldwide.
So! Come on Aussies, hit them where it hurts.
There are many submissions to the ACCC against this move (a government agency against crime, corruption and monopolies) the submissions are from banks, credit providers and loads of other organizations.
Personally, I’ve never used paypal and never will, so it looks like Goodbye ebay. I’ll go to hell before I let them stand over me.
Sellers are flooding to an Australian auction site called Oztion. There are no listing fees and the final value fee is much lower, plus there are varying payment methods.
I wish the ACCC would kick them both out of Australia.
May 30th, 2008 at 12:44 am
For anyone who wants the Oztion site, here it is,
http://www.oztion.com.au/buy/
May 30th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Unfortunately, companies like Paypal who abuse their position in the marketplace stutus as an oligopoly (or more realistically…a monopoly)…never learn a lesson unless they lose subscribers en masse. Paypal’s carefree attitude regarding this and similar situations is truly unfortunate and is in poor taste. I’m not sure how much good writing on a blog is going to do…unless, you take the message to the mass media.
May 30th, 2008 at 12:59 am
I agree 1000,000 percent. PayPal (and Ebay & others) are criminal. I’ve lost alot of money due to their practices.
Among which, here’s proof in a nutshell of seller fraud:
http://junkjunk.atspace.com/refurb.html
Yet, does Ebay allow people to post links in their Feedback - as pictorial proof of fraud, to discourage scams? No way! Links are rejected in Feedback - welcome to the USSR of PayPal/Ebay, both of whom:
SPECIALIZE IN SOCIALIZED BOILERPLATE FORM LETTERS, CLOAKED IN A CLOYINGLY SWEET VENEER OF SO-CALLED “COURTEOUSNESS”.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:05 am
I gave Paypal and Paymate away a few years ago. I have my own merchant acount with my bank. I am fully in control of all transactions and all orders come to me personally - where the buck stops!
I have had issues with another payment receiver in the USA and now steer clear of any third party money receiver like Paypal. Although clickbank who I buy through occasionally have been good.
Paypal and Paymate are just a third party pain. It’s more cost effective to get your own merchant account with your bank and then you are totally in control. Also I would not use Paypal to buy anything - and have you seen the crap on ebay?
It looks as though Paypal has outgrown itself and is now dysfunctional - very much the same story with large corporations.
There is no effective management in larger companies - just try to deal with any Government department - most of these should be shut down.
I know this seems to be leading to bashing government departments but like all larger corporations they are run by ill trained people with management and workers who don’t really care about their jobs and don’t want to be there - so why not do everyone a favour and do something else in life where they are happy - life is too short to stay in a miserable job - it’s just complacency!
And - Yes, stay clear of Paypal and use company merchant account payment systems - that is, where you can pay direct with your card to the vendor of the goods.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:09 am
[...] To pay or not to… Paypal? 30 Mai 2008 4:06 Paypalul si-a luat o frumoasa lovitura de curand.. pe un blog. Si inca de la ce blog! Blogul Statcounter. [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 1:09 am
P.S. People suggest contacting the Better Business Bureau.
Well I already did that (I sent them my above-site as proof of fraud) but never heard from them.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Maybe it’s time to try Revolution MoneyExchange. It’s free to send and receive money or transfer to your bank account.
Check it out, I’ve started offering it as form of payment on my websites and have received favorable response. Since so many people dislike PayPal and their fees.
Here’s the referral link: Just copy and paste into your browser.
https://www.revolutionmoneyexchange.com/ReferAFriend/Refer
AFriend_landing.aspx?referreremail=lisaw64@embarqmail.com
May 30th, 2008 at 1:52 am
I sympathize with the frustration you are experiencing. I have had an ongoing issue with PayPal now for many months. I have emailed them and telephoned them but they seem unable or unwilling to listen to what I say. Eventually I asked them simply to cancel my account, but they won’t even do that. I have told them they can keep it open for the next 100 years if they wish but I shall NEVER use it again.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:56 am
StatCounter,
I feel for you! A few years ago I had a problem with Paypal. I have not had anything to do with them since then. I do lots of on-line business. However, each time I see any particular activity associated with Paypal where I have to submit “money” to receive the particular service, I go else where. If I can not submit “money” directly to the service I want I immediately close my browser, and clear their address from my computer. I don’t want to have ANYTHING to do with Paypal. They have been allowed to get away with incompetence for too long! StatCounter, you poor soul. DUMP PAYPAL the first chance you get!
May 30th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Guys,
I’ve been a “free” user of your services for about 10 years. No Complaints with your great organization.
Thanks for having the guts to keep your customers updated on the events at PayPal.
I’m surprised that Ebay hasn’t leveraged the issue to put pressure for a timely resolution.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:58 am
I feel your pain. I have a subscription that I have been unable to cancel because I can’t contact the site owner with the email address provided by PayPal. And since PayPal has no mechanism for these sorts of problem, I am stuck with paying the monthly fee.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:05 am
A processor as large as Paypal (Ebay) can have problems like this. I dont know that a draconian “dump them” measure is really warranted. Our company had a processing issue with Wells Fargo last year but it was resolved in due course and all is well. It’s unfortunate that Paypal doesnt have a better mechinism to alert merchants and customers to issues that take place after enhancements to their systems, but this is really nothing new. Dropping Paypal from your system would be a dumb move.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:07 am
I never saw a so bad campaing for destroy just, may be lact from people to use the right way, understand or read about what you are doing, and so on.
I already have a problem with a credit card use through Paypal. Credit card was in error. I had Paypal the same day, in my native language, on phone !
They call themselves the Bank, resolve the problem very fast and invite mysself to recal if ever any other problem.
I use Paypal since many years and what I saw is people trying to caught others, but not Paypal in fault or lack of courtesy.
When you see a compagny growing some may not imagine that they may do with honesty and sincerity.
So my questions is, if some people may not imagine a capitalist compagny which would be honnest and consideration for customers, may be it is those peoples arent honnest and so bad they just may not see others may be differents of themselves.
Thank you for saying what your are thinking and let see how much peoples likes to destroy or back without knowledge, just for they need to back wrong people and words.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:27 am
I grew tired of PayPal about a year ago. Lost 170 dollars using them. I now use moneybookers, and have no problems so far.
http://www.moneybookers.com
Wish you accepted them.
cheers
May 30th, 2008 at 2:48 am
1and1 is a financial nightmare for its customers. Pay Pal or otherwise they are incompetent at processing, or asking for payments. The very fact that they have a collection agency, NCO Financial, and the 2nd option on their billing phone menu is enough for one to know that their financial model requires bilking customers out of money.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:14 am
Ehm..it’s make me harder to believe one payment processor over internet, I have bad issue about E-Gold and even moneybookers also.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:26 am
[...] StatCounter complains - At StatCounter we have tried phoning, emailing, posting on the Paypal forums… Many of our contacts are ignored, but even when we do get an answer all we are told is that “Upon review of your account, unfortunately we do not have a time frame for a resolution to your issue we are currently actively investigating your issue with subscriptions.” [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 3:32 am
I think its time paypal heeded all the comments in this page and resolve the problems. Otherwise it will earn not only a bad name within the statcounter family and customers but will the rest of the internet world too. The less said the better about it.
Since you have been offering free and high-class service to all of us, we, in turn should help you in this problem. Please seek our help, if any, statcounter authorities. I, and the 175 before me, and hopefully another 175 after me, will be ready to offer our help!!!
May 30th, 2008 at 4:18 am
PAIN in the ASS PAL. Paypal has become to huge. They just keep gobbling up companies and everytime the service becomes terrible after Paypal digs in it’s claws. They took over Veri Sign. I am an internet merchant. Occaisionally I had problems with transactions. All I had to do was pick up the phone and call VERISIGN. i got a live person and the problem was fixed ASAP. With PAIN PAL all I get is GRIEF! Phone calls - FORGET IT. emails FORGET IT, self help web site is like getting lost in Home depot -FORGET IT! I wish there was an alternative but they have us by the gonads. My recommendation if you need to transfer money with PayPal FORGET IT FORGET IT FORGET IT FORGET IT FORGET IT fORGET IT!
May 30th, 2008 at 4:33 am
There’s a very simple answer to all this. Refuse to accept “pay me more and more.pal”
http://au.geocities.com/rayfo34/vacs.html
May 30th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Why PAIN PAL will not put pressure on eBay to make corrections. eBay Inc. is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping Web site in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. In addition to its original U.S. Web site, eBay has established localized Web sites in thirty other countries. eBay Inc also owns PayPal, Skype,[1] StubHub, and other businesses.
Watch out. Minority investor eBay (EBAY) sued craig’s List on Apr. 22. EBay owns just under 25% of craigslist—down from 28.4%, according to a court filing that alleges craigslist, among other things, improperly diluted its stake. Craigslist, which is readying its legal response, has mostly restricted comment to two of Buckmaster’s blog posts. In one he wrote that eBay had no cause for fear “unless they’re planning a hostile takeover of craigslist, or the sale of eBay’s stake to an unfriendly party.”
But eBay’s move into low-cost classifieds via its kijiji.com unit clearly rankled. In July, 2007, the lawsuit says, Buckmaster cited kijiji’s U.S. expansion to express “a wish to explore our options for repurchase, or otherwise [find] a new home” for eBay’s stake. EBay’s then-CEO Meg Whitman responded that eBay would like to buy craigslist when craigslist was ready.
i wish they woould buy me. they already treat me like they own me LOL
May 30th, 2008 at 4:41 am
[...] you look for “website counter.” Well, recently, they posted this about PayPal “A Warning from Paypal.” It simply goes to show much they along with many other companies simply don’t put [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 5:37 am
PAYPAL ADMIN SUPPORT SUCKS….MAJORLY SUCKS. THEY COULD GIVE ONE FUCKING IDOTA SHIT ABOUT YOU AND ME THEIR CUSTOMERS. PASS THE BUCK…PASS THE BUCK…..SO I SAY TO ALL OF U. STOP USING PAYPAL…..FIND ANOTHER WAY DUDES. ITS EASY. LATER.
May 30th, 2008 at 5:59 am
paypal is an ebay company and it sucks……
May 30th, 2008 at 6:21 am
I’ve had my share of problems with paypal too. I am based in India, and when I requested them for assistance for a missing cheque, they responded only after multiple emails and coaxing. When they did respond their answer was not helpful, and did not match their online DECLARED policy.
When i send them repeated emails, they started forwarding me standard replies which asked me to call the US assistance number. When I called the US assistance number I was kept going in circles by automated response and never could reach a real live person.
I THINK PAYPAL IS A CHEAT. I HAVE VOWED NEVER TO USE PAYPAL AGAIN.
Please avoid using Paypal. They’re a fraud.
Thanks
Shruti Gupta
May 30th, 2008 at 6:33 am
[...] http://blog.statcounter.com/?p=88 StatCounter having issues with paypal !! [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 7:04 am
[...] http://blog.statcounter.com/?p=88 [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 7:15 am
[...] http://blog.statcounter.com/?p=88 [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 7:21 am
The have my money, I cannot access my paypal account to retrieve or send the money to anyone else, all because I reached a ‘limit’ of expenditure and cannot lift the limit due to not having a bank account assigned to the PP account. How bloody ridiculous is that!?!
Paypal is a mafia setup that needs to be exposed. I have over $500 stuck in their pockets and have no means of retrieving it. They are the most untrustworthy company on the internet ever. We must do a major online campaign of exposure and exploitation of the companies carefless-ness in order to make them change their ways.
Google checkout <<<< lets all move.
May 30th, 2008 at 7:31 am
HURRY UP!
CUT ALL TIES with PAYPAL!
They are part of eBay, and eBay by now is considered a “criminal organisation” by the European authorities! It is only a matter of time until this entire house of cards will collapse !
Just recently eBay Europe have moved their headquarter from (the small) Switzerland to the even smaller Liechtenstein because the chief judge against white collar crime was about to start an investigation!
eBay Europe is on the run. Paypal is their “partner in crime” and there are countless victims of their business proceedings as it is.
DONT BECOME ONE OF THEM! BACK OUT as fast as you can!
Read more at http://www.ebay-home4crooks.com
May 30th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Ah, folks — http://www.screw-paypal.com
That’s all there is to it. I’m not here to plug this guy’s site but this site is the MONSTER of them all, the king of all “go to hell” paypal sites.
check it out because it’s got a lot of information on what PayPal really is and what you can do about it. it’s not just about whining, they actually show you how you can get your account fixed.
thanks guys!
May 30th, 2008 at 8:14 am
hi
Thanks for mailing me
May 30th, 2008 at 8:26 am
This is just typical of an arogant compny like PayPal. I onluy ever hear good things about Stat Counter, so Im sure your customer base would remain loyal if you decided to change providers…
Dump PayPal and find someone else… (please)
May 30th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Why don ‘t you use 2CO ? (they also accept paypal payments)
May 30th, 2008 at 9:27 am
i haven’t used paypal personally or professionally for over 3 years. not one good thing to say about them at any level.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I never used it, but still, thanks!
The rare occasions I paid by way of Internet I split my creditcard# in two random pieces and spent two mails on it - a bit verbose, I admit, but safe.
For domestic payments I use the facilities of my private bank (it’s called Ideal) or just the regular Internet banking, in which case they charge you for payments outside Europe. Banks …
*\jk
May 30th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Hi all,
Paypal sucks.
They also send wrong verification codes when you try to add a new credit card. I don’t use paypal anymore.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Is there a good alternative for Paypal for transactions all over the world?
The 4% fee is anoying me a long time already.
May 30th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I dont care as PayPal is not supporting PAKISTAN…
May 30th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
They are all tring to make easy money! They don’t care about you or the product they are offering as long as they have huge profits! This is the american style and their super ability to foul you through thier advertisements!
May 30th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Google displays “horror stories” at the following URL: http://www.aboutpaypal.org/
May 30th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I had problems too…
3 months ago I’ve purchased something online and Paypal took the money 2 times on my account. Asked the seller to refund one of the payments, he told me he would but never did
Contacted Paypal they said it’s a problem between the seller and me, and that they can’t do anything. I was angry since I never gave any authorization for them to take money 2 times.
Paypal don’t answer anymore about this issue. They’ve deleted the issue I cannot track it anymore under my paypal account. I sit on my $300 they are lost
Since then I don’t use anymore paypal (I was using it as a merchant with around $3000 in sales per months) so they lost fees
ciao
May 30th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I am not at least surprised.
I am located in Poland and I found PayPal offered me their services with “no complaints” policy meaning I had no means to litigate them for their misactions.
I find Moneybookers far more reliable and accountable.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Great, Im glad you are finally getting some progress!! I had just come on here to stick up for Paypal - because I have always sworn by them (Although I did understand you were obviously having problems) So Im glad they are finally sorting the problem out!!!!!
May 30th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Well it looks like your blog did the trick in that Paypal have decided to communicate. I, on the other hand have asked questions to Paypal of which I have yet to receive a reply.
Their method of solving issues is to play a waiting game and hope you go away which doesn’t make sense as they would ultimately lose custom.
I have set up several Paypal accounts for clients of mine and they treat me with contempt by not answering any, not one, query.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I’ve been using PayPal for nearly 5 years, and I process between $10k and $15k (US) every month. I’ve had only one problem to speak of with PayPal… and it was a fraudulent purchase of $1000. They initially could not verify if the purchase was fraudulent or not… and asked me for additional documentation that I had to do some of my own digging to get. The $1000 was fully refunded immediately after I faxed in the documentation I finally obtained.
Not only have PayPal been extremely responsive to any phone inquiries I’ve made over the years, but they’ve actually been pro-active on several issues with me… calling be back about situations that ended up helping me in my business.
I’ve also tried the merchant account route and was positively put off by the high fees.
PayPal provides great customer service as far as THIS merchant is concerned. I find it a bit arrogant that StatCounter felt it appropriate to blast PayPal publicly… but each to his own. The bottom line is that you are getting excellent customer service from PayPal now. And I believe that StatCounter could have achieved the same result without crying so loud and publicly about it.
StatCounter Team Response:
Many thanks for your comments Tim. We are glad that you have had a good experience with Paypal.
While we have received great service from two individuals at Paypal within the last 12 hours, this does not excuse the lack of communication or assistance that we were forced to endure in the previous two weeks. We remain distinctly dissatisfied with the way Paypal have handled this situation.
Please note that all our problems have been resolved within 24 hours of our blog post DESPITE the problems having been ongoing for 2 weeks prior to that during which time we made countless phonecalls and sent numerous emails to Paypal. Funny that.
As we have emphasised previously if the problems had been “just” affecting StatCounter we could have lived with that (e.g. if payment to our bank account was delayed) but since these problems have impacted on our members also, Paypal’s lack of action was simply unacceptable to us. We value our members and we could not stand idly by while some were being double billed.
We are delighted that these issues have now been resolved but the “fix” should never have taken so long to be implemented nor should we have been obligated to draw attention to this matter via our blog. In the face of inaction from Paypal, however, we were left with no choice.
If “arrogance” involves exhausting every avenue possible to protect your members from double billing and other problems, then we are guilty as charged.
May 30th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
[...] http://blog.statcounter.com/?p=88 [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Wow, am I the only one who just does not get this ?
May 30th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Happened to me three times: when I hit PAY for items, it would hang, or a cryptic warning window would appear, and clicking on things to try to get out resulted in paying the seller twice. They won’t fix it, they put the onus on ME to contact the sellers and ask THEM to refund the extra payment. PayPal can do no wrong apparently. They also told me that “nobody else” had reported the problem. I’ve since installed OSX, since the problem was occuring under Classic OS9.2. I suspect they tried to install one of those lousy new flash 8 programs that only work on Vista and OSX…
May 30th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Glad to see that the problem was resolved but it should NEVER have taken them so long to address the problem. My vote is still against PayPal.
May 30th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I am delighted to see that all problems have been resolved…….its a shame this could not have been taken care of two weeks ago……….
May 30th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
This is great that they resolved it, but now I can’t login to statcounter. Hmm…
StatCounter Team Response:
Apologies Mark!
You should be able to log in but there are currently problems with two partitions which means that you may not be able to view stats for some of your projects - we are investigating at the moment and you can keep an eye on our service status forum for updates.
Thanks for your patience.
UPDATE: All fixed!
May 30th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
[...] http://blog.statcounter.com/?p=88 [...]
May 31st, 2008 at 6:04 am
PayPal is a faceless uselss organisation that does NOT care about its customers! They still have mony of mine which they have had for 2 years now. I gave up in the end faxing useless emails from them when no action was ever taken.
I absolutely refuse to use PayPal to buy anything and if the vendor insists I juts go somewhere else.
In short, NEVER USE PAYPAL if you value your time, they will certainly make your life hard!
May 31st, 2008 at 7:21 am
Well it looks like your blog did the trick in that Paypal have decided to communicate. I, on the other hand have asked questions to Paypal of which I have yet to receive a reply.
Their method of solving issues is to play a waiting game and hope you go away which doesn’t make sense as they would ultimately lose custom.
I have set up several Paypal accounts for clients of mine and they treat me with contempt by not answering any, not one, query.
May 31st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Glad to see Statcounter to pro-active steps and glad to see matters have been resolved.
May 31st, 2008 at 2:51 pm
PayPal is ridiculous and unsafe! I have been a stat counter user for many, many years and would like to recommend the new “google checkout” service to everyone here. I switched to them last year after PayPal allowed fraudulent chargebacks to my account. I have not even used my PayPal account since December 2007 yet coincidentally, this morning I received a fraudulent email that supposedly came from my account! PayPal is the subject of several lawsuits and cannot be trusted. I started a petition to get the government to investigate these people, please feel free to sign it if you want to try and get some resolution for consumers. (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/paypalcomplaints)
May 31st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
TIM:
Keeping quiet is exactly why PayPal can get away with stuff all the time, not to mention the countless other companies out there taking advantage of those w/out a voice…
Just b/c the problem isn’t blatantly apparent to you, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. And to think that you can “publicly” chastise a larger merchant than yourself as arrogant b/c they blew the whistle after being ignored for so long, is in my opinion, “a bit arrogant”………..but hey to each his own.
May 31st, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Its a good news. Congrats
May 31st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
[...] Sursa: Email de la StatCounter [...]
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Atlast !!
Its a great news for statcounter users and owners
I think the blogpost made them aware
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:28 am
I pay few freelancers via PayPal, few of my last payment to them was doubled because of the double billing issue and PayPal wouldn’t address my issue, but I am glad I work with honest individuals who sent me back the second transaction.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
thanks. super site. I can’t believe all the whiners complaining that Statcounter sent them an email regarding a potential problem. Maybe they work for Paypal… I wish Paypal had been as proactive when it comes to all the spoof emails I finally grew tired of forwarding to them. Since Statcounter caters to webmasters, why is it so terrible that they would warn their users of a site used by many webmasters? I have a Paypal account, and they haven’t bothered to let me know of these problems. Keep up the good work, folks.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Glad to see
June 4th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Frankly: You make me happy. I’ve spent Years warning everyone about them, they are THE single most criminal thing on the Internet; your “problems” with PP and lack of resolution merely Illustrate how criminal they are; sending e–mail to all your accounts will help spread the word.
The only Actual “problem”: whatever money that has accrued in your PP account is at a level they decided would be good for them –to toss into a giant CD, along with anyone else who they claim used a “stolen” credit card –so they could/did drain the person’s bank account. All that money will sit in their name, gathering interest; the “problems” will magically “clear up” in 90 or in 180 days, whereupon they will collect the interest on the jumbo CD, they will instantly “find” the “missing” papers you/everyone sent, many times, and your money will be returned to you/”stolen” credit card will be ‘unfrozen.’
In 2006: PaythePals “earned” $100 million bucks –IN INTEREST, pulling this scam; they function LIKE a bank, but: do NOT obey the banking laws of ANY country nor the federal regs of any part of the US financial, investment or SEC system.
PayPal: the biggest thieves in the world. All your e-mail REALLY says: it’s YOUR turn for them to rip you off.
What now? First: Google PP –see the suits they’ve lost, the rage against them, the forums –where ex employees give insider info.
-Then: talk to your lawyer;
-contact US federal agencies, including members of Congress –file complaint;
-hire a Very good PR person to organize a press conference –get BBC and any/all print, broadcast media to show up: and expose them.
Don’t: expect your money to be returned until the jumbo CD pays them; expect anything but grief;
wait for someone else to expose them.
PP has been stealing –for years, ever since they bought the once-excellent PP and turned it into Vulture Supreme. Expose them, for everyone’s benefit PLEASE.
Poppy
June 6th, 2008 at 7:49 am
grate tools for website and blog.
June 7th, 2008 at 1:37 am
Just follow up your instinct and people will believe you.
June 8th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
[...] Ora il problema sembrerebbe ora essere stato risolto da Paypal come evidenziato nel blog di Statcounter. [...]
June 17th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I’m glade that this problem had been resolved, seems that there is no one payment processor that never disappointed their user. Hope I won’t ever get in that situation
June 18th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Pay pal can be very difficult sometimes… many times too difficult. I can understand where your coming from. let me know if i can help
June 18th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I have not been impressed with Pay Pal for a long time. Same issues as many - fail to reply to inquiries, bad service etc. I don’t use them and just try to deal with secure websites that accept cc pmts. A better alternative to PayPal is needed (there may be some already but I haven’t researched it). PayPal has been criticized in the media as well and does not have to adhere to the same rules that apply to ‘real’ banks and financial institutions. Perhaps they should be made to, then thing would hopefully improve.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
if they are big they can afford anything … we’ve all been tricked in several ways with paypal
June 26th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
My preference would be to pay by Ukash or e-Gold because I’m the sort that doesn’t like handing over credit card / personal info into the internet.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Paypal suck - that’s all i got to say.
July 11th, 2008 at 10:10 am
hi we were thinking about using paypal on our new site,after you have had the issue resolved would you now recommend paypal or steer clear and find another provider,
Thanks Seamus
July 14th, 2008 at 5:49 am
PayPal can be a tough nut - however they’re the largest out there and the most recognized name in website payment options. Until someone else comes along and knocks PayPal down a few pegs, don’t expect much to change.
Someone else WILL come along