To Paypal or NOT to Paypal…

Quite unbelievably, despite reporting a problem to Paypal on 26 August, we have STILL not received confirmation that this problem has been resolved. Here’s the background…

    On 26 August we identified a serious problem with Paypal.

    StatCounter members who had upgraded in the previous few days had NOT been appropriately upgraded as the Paypal system stopped sending out subscription payment notifications. In fact new subscriptions were no longer created at all and payments received were not linked to StatCounter accounts.

    In short, we were receiving hundreds of Paypal payments which we couldn’t link to any StatCounter account. As you can imagine, this caused serious difficulties for us.

    We reported the problem to Paypal with as much supporting evidence as possible to assist them in quickly identifying the problem… but, as we have come to expect, the first response from Paypal completely ignored the information we supplied and denied the problem.

    It’s now 5 WEEKS since we reported this issue to Paypal and we have STILL not received confirmation that this problem has been resolved. We feel we have been more than patient at this stage and remain astounded that any company can treat its customers with such disregard.

While we understand that ALL services can have problems from time to time we find Paypal’s habit of ignoring its customers to be abhorrent. We are particularly upset that Paypal’s poor behaviour can and does impact on you, our members, and also unfairly reflects on us.


Our Position
As a result of this Paypal problem, we had to manually examine hundreds of payments, attempt to link these to StatCounter accounts and where this wasn’t possible we had to contact the payees individually to request their StatCounter usernames. As you can imagine, this had a high cost for us in terms of time and resources. Further, although these problems were caused by Paypal, StatCounter has absorbed all the costs of this problem. We also felt it was only right for us to offer all affected members a free upgrade for one month to make amends for the problems. Paypal, of course, offered us (their customer) absolutely nothing by way of assistance for the trouble they caused us.

Unfortunately, we have been here before… At that time, we decided NOT to remove Paypal as a payment option for new subscribers. This was because we highly value each of our members and, despite OUR poor opinion of Paypal, we have to cater to what YOU, our members want. However, we are now again considering our position in relation to Paypal…

Your Feedback Please
Due to the problems outlined above, Paypal has been suspended as a payment option (for NEW subscriptions) on StatCounter since 26 August and remains so. We can’t possibly reactivate it until such time as Paypal confirms that the problems introduced in August have been fixed… but we have no idea when that will be. In the meantime, we’d like to ask you, our members, for your thoughts on this.

Both problems we have had with PayPal have been with their subscription payments. During this problem and the last one, regular Paypal manual payments appeared to be functioning normally. On this basis, we are wondering if we should STOP accepting PayPal subscriptions and accept only manual payments instead? Manual payments *would* require our upgraded customers to log in to Paypal every time a payment falls due… so perhaps we will have to restrict Paypal upgrades to quarterly or yearly – logging in every month to pay could be a bit too time consuming! We’re not sure about this idea, so do let us know your thoughts!

We’d also love to know what alternative payment options we can introduce to cater for your payment preferences.

Here are our initial thoughts…

  • We need to accept Discover cards – if you can recommend an acquirer for a European company, please let us know
  • We need to accept AMEX for USD payments – currently we can only accept AMEX directly for EUR payments
  • We need to accept echecks – please let us know if you can recommend any echeck processors

Note that we already accept VISA, Mastercard, AMEX (for EUR payments), wire/bank transfer, EUR/USD checks/cheques.

Please post below with any other card or payment method you think we should accept and feel free to share any comments or suggestions you may have. Thanks folks.

UPDATE: Please note that existing, active Paypal subscriptions are not affected by the suspension of Paypal on StatCounter – this affects NEW subscriptions only.

537 Comments

  1. Paypal MUST go, Paypal is renowned for horrible customer service (being absent mostly..)
    This is not the first time and probably not the last time this will happen with Paypal.

    An easy and cheap option is to accept moneytransfers from bank to bank within the EU zone. If payment is in Euros and the cost division is put to “shared” the transfer is free for all parties!

  2. I hate Paypal. I use them only because it seems necessary for so many people. I have had conversations with vice presidents of paypal in order to correct issues I have had. I have waited months for payments. Currently on 1ceware.com i offer two payment methods; paypal and google checkout. Google may be getting too big to care about customers also… The problem with both paypal and google is that they had been ripped off so many times, they have had to be overly cautious and eventually the customer stopped being important. As with the evolution of business, something new will be along soon and paypal will fall quickly.

  3. I have multiple sites with you, have for years, never had a problem. As long as MC or Visa is avail as a payment option then I will stay right here. I’ve not had problems with Paypal but if you do then credit card works for me.

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  5. Ditch them. I have. They are quite appalling!! The world will be a much happier stress free place without them!

  6. Good choice to drop Pay Pal they will always have an issue with someone’s account at all times. some one all use the card by bank

  7. @Robert what are the alternative payment processors you’ve found that work well? I’m sure most of us, including StatCounter team would like to know.

    @StatCounter I know I’ve heard some horror stories about Paypal, and I know someone who had a similar glitch with subscriptions around the time you did with this one. I’ve been quite lucky with Paypal so far, but their customer service absolutely sucks, for sure! I totally understand your position. Paypal fills a very important role, but the shoddy way they implement it at times, and deal with problems leaves an opportunity for someone else to come along and fill the same need, but much better. Let’s just all hope that something better comes along soon, and if they have already and someone out there has found a better international payment processor – please let us all know!

    For me, Paypal is convenient, but as long as I can pay by Visa/Mastercard it’s fine. I’m in the Asia/Pacific region, so as long as whatever solution you come up with supports that it’s good with me.

  8. Since most of our payments come in through PayPal, they are the most convenient for us. However, As long as I can pay with a major CC, I’m OK either way. PayPal can be a pain…

  9. haha, I’m loving all the cheeky link bait in the comments.

    Most people hate paypal, most people hate ebay, but sadly most people use paypal and most people use ebay.

    I’m afraid they’re too big to be ignored, you may find customers walk away in the absence of paypal. Remember, your average customer doesn’t sit here reading blogs and stuff, they just pay and use your service.

  10. Guys! Consider using Moneybookers (Moneybookers.com) instead of PayPal. They are really good and popular in EU.

  11. Great stuff – check my site also if you have a minute. Spartacus Season 2

  12. I’ve watched PayPal slip since ’98. Their acquisition by eBay should never have been allowed as that created a monopoly. And since eBay is anti-gun, PayPal is as well. Many horror stories surround those that rely on firearms sales. Some have even had transactions held hostage or later denied after PayPal realizes they’re parts for firearms. PayPal has also played politics and showed their anti-Jew side by demanding Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs to remove her PayPal payment button, calling it a ‘hate’ site. PayPal has gotten so big that they just don’t need the little guys anymore, similar to eBay’s abandonment of those who helped propel them to the top. Businesses should keep it all business and stay out of peoples personal lives. The firearms industry has started using GPal (GunPal) as a primary payment processor. Atlas and InfoWars have also added their buttons. My site as well!

  13. I used to accept paypal payments for my business including card payments, but i have found paypal are not all that great i had numerous issues with them just freezing my whole account when ever they felt like it sometimes for up to 7 days whlst they carried out a standard limitation revue they would always in the end put the account back to normal but this caused major disruption to my business and if i am honest towards the end of my time of using them to takre payments they very nearlly folded my business, they come back with an excuse of that they are strictly regulated by the financial services authority but i have heard too many times from people includng my friends who used to take paypal payments of the same and similar problems. I in the end applied for a merchant account with natwest streamline and have had no problems what so ever since, paypal say they are better because the customers card details are protected but with most ecom merchant accounts now you can invoice your customers via email with a pay by link option where they enter there card detailson a secure webpage for the transaction rather than paying over the phone i have the option to give my customers the choice, paypal also say that they protect the buyer with offering chargeback facilities but with mastercard and visa etc you can do exactly the same and make a chargeback if goods or services are not recieved, paypal charge 4% per transaction which was costng me in the region of 400 pound a month in paypal fees i pay nat west streamline 20.00 a month foor the same facility which in actual fact is better. I would strongly advise against paypal.

  14. It is a shame that you are being treated like this as PayPal are quite good. You guys would not need to deal with Credit cards expiring etc

  15. Our site is experiencing similar problems. Thanks to PayPal’s inaccurate reports, our notification system is in chaos. !!!!

  16. I just need to be able to use my business amex to pay….which you didn’t have before, but thankfully did have with paypal…I don’t care who teh provisder is, but I need to use my business card!!! America Express please for US businesses!

  17. too many bad news about PP, i think its better to move another payment processor that available for global country 🙂

    regards

  18. I have a small company also that sells fishing gear, boating gear and hunting gear. Myfishgear.com. Now I have had PayPal for 3 years and really never had an issue with them. Through PayPal you can pay by Amex and Discover because they take all of the cards for payment. If I were a large company then I too might have the same problem Statcounter is having. I would contact Bank of America’s Irish counterpart and see if they can help with this issue. Good Luck! Yea Statcounter!!!!!

    1. Be prepared for an abrupt disconnect with PayPal if they ever notice ammunition or firearms related transactions. They’re not firearms friendly whatsoever. I’m in the industry and can tell you many stories of frozen accounts, denied transactions, delays, etc. Nowhere in their TOS does it warn you of this. You may want to look into GPal (GunPal) and at least have an account verified and ready if the need arises. The developer is highly pro-gun and has surrounded himself with other pro-gunners to compete directly with PayPal. I wish every gun and sports enthusiast in the country would make the switch but most don’t find this info out until they’ve been affected.

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