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:
- This post is not intended to alarm, instead it is intended to inform.
- We at StatCounter do not take any pleasure in having to report these issues to you, rather we feel at this point that we have no option but to do so.
- While we hope that this post will generate media attention which may force Paypal to finally act and respond to the various problems outlined above, it is not the intention of the post to generate publicity for StatCounter.
- As we like to try to accomodate the needs of our members Paypal is still currently available as a payment option on StatCounter for new upgraded account subscribers. This position is currently under review and opinions from our members in this regard are being sought here.
- Paypal, of course, have a right of reply to this post and should they wish to contact us, we would be happy to post their response here.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 …
…..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
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!
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’
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.
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.
I hate PayPal they’ve gotten away with this for years. The post above says it all ;o)
Stick it to them guys…
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.
Here’s an alternative to Paypal, for managing subscription payments.
http://ccbill.com
Thanks so much for this. I really appreciate the heads up.
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.
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!