Hi all,
We are writing this post because, despite continued efforts on our part, Paypal have still not resolved an issue that cropped up for us on 15 May and that affects some of you, our members.
If you are an upgraded StatCounter member and you pay us via Paypal, please be aware that you may not receive your StatCounter invoice for some time. This is because Paypal have been unable to provide us with a complete payments file since 15 May.
While we know that all services can experience “bumps” from time-to-time, there is no excuse for repeatedly ignoring your customers over a prolonged period of time.
The apparent absence of concern or interest from Paypal with regard to this issue has severely damaged the reputation of this company in our eyes. Our support tickets to Paypal are answered with a generic “I’m sorry but we don’t have an update for you at this time” – this is simply not acceptable!
Note that to compensate for the poor service being provided by Paypal, we will be manually (!!) creating as many invoices as possible over the coming days, however, we estimate that we will be unable to create invoices for approximately 10% of our Paypal subscribers until such time as Paypal gets its act together.
We are considering removing Paypal as a payment option entirely for new subscribers to StatCounter due to:
- The time and costs that we will incur as a result of the problems with Paypal;
- But in particular as a result of the inconvenience it causes to you our members
Since wasting time and resources on Paypal issues, means we have less time to devote to you and to improving our service… is it time to show Paypal the door?
Update: To avoid confusion we would like to clarify that, we have, of course, been in regular phone contact with Paypal in addition to submitting email tickets. Assistance has not been forthcoming via either contact method.
Update 2: In an effort to make contact with Paypal via another avenue we posted on the Paypal Developer Forum yesterday. There has still been no response from Paypal although it appears that other tickets posted after our one have been answered.
Thanks to Paypal ive lost over $1000 and calls/emails/ to their customer support got me NOWHERE. Even reports to agencies like the BBB didn’t help at all. I will never use them again and will always strongly suggest for others to go elsewhere like Google and their payments system.
Yes, time for Paypal to go. If people still choose to use it for their own personal business transactions, I suppose that is up to them. But for Statcounter, there is the issue of professionalism which needs to be considered more than it would be for an individual. Reliability, trust, and dedication to the client are all part of what it is to be professional. Paypal has none of this. Statcounter should only do business with other professional institutions in order to preserve its own professional integrity, if nothing else.
Aodhán,
Report them to the Better Business Bureau: www.bbb.org
They will cut through the red tape and get results.
RL
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.
Has anyone have them ask for passport information? We have. Crazy, crazy, crazy that they are still in business.
Its a shame Paypal can’t get your problems resolved……..I do hope the people at Paypal read these postings and resolved your issues ASAP. Google Cart is a great alternative payment platform.
Forgot to say:
‘Tell em Paddy sent you!’
You could always nip over to Ballycoolin Business Park in Blanchardstown to have a chat with them! 😉
http://www.breakingnews.ie/text/business/mhgbmhidauau/
Yes the time has came for paypal to go
I have seen several issues with paypal but this one is the biggest i think.
Statcounter has traffic rank (Alexa Rank) more than paypal.
I think Paypal should personally look after the issue of Statcounter.
I hope this gets solved as early as possible
We too, over the years have been ripped off by PayPal. One sale summed up to over $1000.00 that they just lost. We have since set up our own merchant accout and now do it all ourselves, and interestingly our sales have doubled. With this said Paypal need to be investigated and shutdown. Ahhh you may think that this is impossible, think again. If you have had problems with them go to this web address and file a complaint. http://consumeraffairs.com/ they will let you post and even supply access to lawyers for you. Scammers like Paypal need to be stopped and we are the only ones that can do it via action.
Kelley and Susan McGuiness
Defiance Photography
Paypal has been getting worse and worse… It might just be time to drop them!
http://www.askTheAdmin.com has dropped them recently!
I have had issues with Paypal and have heard a lot of people complaining about them recently. Ebay is also getting bad. I hope some better alternatives come soon.
If they don’t do the job, drop them. No matter how big a name they are in internetland.
Dear Statcounter Team,
First let me say I recommend Statcounter to everyone also – you do exactly what you say you’ll do and you do it well. When something’s not right, you fix it.
From what you’ve written here, it sounds like Paypal lost your records with their system update. Someone from Paypal should stand up and take responsibility for resolving the problem. period. Why so many businesses do not take responsibility for errors is beyond me…. it’s sad and frustrating.
Personally, after using Paypal for a number of years, I’ve only had one situation where I had to phone them and this was help getting information setting up an account for a friend in Japan. Ended up Paypal would not help me because the account was not for me (I’m trying to GIVE them a customer and they wouldn’t help me?!?! That’s just plain stupid business practice) So I walked my friend through the set up page by page. Otherwise, my service has been flawless.
My business partner, on the other hand, has his account frozen on a regular basis because he deals with so many foreign payments. He also uses Google Cart with no problems. Why Paypal has to freeze the entire account is beyond me….
Statcounter, you gotta do what you gotta do! That may involve doing your own backup of records so you can handle invoicing if/when Paypal can’t do its job. Or you switch to another company.
I wish you the best!
Lisa
Thank you for your interesting article and replies. I have used Paypal without problems so far. However, I consider using Google Cart in the future.
There’s no doubt that PayPal are the market leader, but if customer service is flagging (remember that PayPal was on top of the game before eBay took it over) maybe it’s nearing time for something like Google Checkout to become top dog.
Can a StatCounter representative please mention the date of the original enquiry about this matter that’s as of yet unresolved? I’m curious about PayPal’s response times… if it’s only a few days and there’s a one-off hacking problem then it’s forgivable, but if it’s been more like a month then I’d be much more concerned.
StatCounter Team Response:
Hi!
We first reported the problem by phone on Monday 19 May – we gave them a few days initially to resolve the problem in case it was just something minor.
It then took 3 days and 9 emails to submit a screenshot to them showing the problem:
All of this adds up to a very poor level of customer service.
(To give the girl on the phone her due, she was doing her best but the problems lie with the Paypal organisation itself.)
Our last two emails are still unanswered and when you phone the only answer you get is that “we are looking into this”. Given that Paypal did a system update on 15 May and this is when all the trouble started, it would seem that the obvious thing to do is just to roll back the update!
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.
I’ve been using PayPal since their inception (I was an X.com user first) and I’ve never had any issues with them whatever. I use them primarily as my bank. As a freelancer, my clients that don’t pay by direct deposit, pay me via PayPal. The only issue I had with them was MY fault by not having a valid phone number on file and when they tried to contact me about a potentially suspicious activity on my PayPal Debit Card, they suspended my debit card until I contacted them with the correct number. I use them for all of my website functions that require payments and my PayPal debit card is my primary source of payments. They have always been top notch at answering my queries, usually within 12 hours.
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