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…
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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.
I have not done, thanks
This is really great. Keep doing what you’re doing!!
Hi,
I sell troughout the world using multiple languages (and using statcounter) on multiple sites.
Paypal is not quick, not pro-active as my own company tries to do with its own customers.
But this is not the forum to complain, better is to get around the problem.
I have 2 solutions to propose: Ogone (works well over here) and IBAN payments.
I use Paypal and Iban payments and can give some feedback on the customers perception and the advantages of the proposed choice (see my email).
Im confused by the problem, surely paypal are a funds processor, your system for allocating or crediting an account is part of your business. But, I suspect I didnt understand your problem correctly.
Here is a suggestion, make new accounts open a contract/yearly subscription with paypal, similar with what yahoo do. The customer goes to paypal enters their password and clicks the button only to come back to your sign up page, then a single button is asked to be clicked and the customer does not even have to leave statcounter domain, the payment is made between you and paypal under the users authority, and your user is now safely still on your site. I think paypal is a masterful and excellent resource, if only they charged less than 2.5%…kinda greedy, but its a good service. To get more succinct answers to nagging problems, fly to 1-95.com
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I stopped using Paypal a while ago for the very reasons you write about. They showed total indifference to the problems I ran into because of their incompetence and business methods. I no longer deal with anyone who only accepts PayPal. Visa is far better.
I understand the frustration with PayPal. Approximately two years ago I suddenly had my Merchant PayPal account locked. As you know, to establish a secure merchant account with PayPal, you have to give them everything but your wife and dog.
Suspicious activity was the reason. Large amounts were deposited into my account and I had no idea where they were coming from so I contacted PayPal. Result, I got my account closed down. I could not access funding to process orders I had received. So I know the frustration involved with such things.
The “only” reason I continued to use PayPal is because it is as you have stated, what the customer prefers that matters, and most prefer using PayPal.
I had to submit so much additional documentation in order to get my Merchant account reinstated. I pulled from my personal savings to fulfill my customer orders. Being locked out of my account, I was unable to get proper information on those who had paid in to the account and had to do as you, spend many hours and resources contacting each and every customer.
I feel that PayPal should reimburse you for your resources and time spent on a glitch of theirs, however, that will never happen.
Most sorry to hear that you have had this difficulty.
Respectfully,
Dale Hyde
Capital One automobile loan terms include 30, 60 and 72 months. Capital A single, as opposed to other organizations I’ve carried out home business with is completely rigid when it comes to adjusting there fees. Even when the enormous charges are resulting from all with the very small hidden charges they’ve. Money A single Financial can be involved with instalment lending, healthcare financing, and little internet business lending activities.
Perhaps, PayPal didn’t notify StatCounter in a timely manner, thought a large web based company like StatCounter would understand PayPal, being a mega web operation has numerous doors to go thru in order for a decision to be confirmed. All decision-makers are on CYA mode. Its like “Putting their head on the chopping block”. Be sure that when the dust settles, PayPal will do the right thing……Ah…Let me ask my boss! Merry-Go-Round….If you need a little R&R check out atomicintimatetoys.
I hate Paypal and have never trusted them at all! I would be much more inclined to do business with you if Paypal were not an option.
I have had paypal for years…I had one problem and it was resolved right away so I can’t and won’t say anything against them. I hope you resolve it because I am not inclinded to do any other type of payment with you unless you force me to…and then I will try to find something else to use before I abandone a company that has worked for me for years as both a buyer and seller.
I have been using PayPal Pro for online sales for almost four years with no problems. Like everyone else they outsource their customer service to some third world hole in the wall, so I guess if you do have issues you’re out of luck.
Your story about client relations is soo familiar…
We already dropped Paypal. But, we are still in search for a replacement.
MoneyBookers is in consideration. Good luck,
BR,
We had similar problems with PayPal and finally had to move to another MSP. We suggest you do the same as quickly as you can. Market forces should have eliminated PayPal for transactions outside of ebay a long time ago.
I dont like using my cc anywhere if I can avoid it, preferring a payment processor. But, I, too, once had serious problems with paypal:
A Must Read if You Use Paypal
Anyways, I had to bury the hatchet because I needed them for my business but they put me, and countless others, through hell. Why doesn’t it surprise me they’d do the same to you. If you can’t match the people to their funds, you should quietly give the complainers some free statcounting and use the money you received to file a suit against paypal. It’s the only language they understand.
Best wishes,
Sam
Maybe it’s just me, but we started with paypal in February 06 and have had hardly any problems in that time. When we do get the occasional hiccup a phone call quickly sorts it out.
However, I’ve read reviews elsewhere and people have been disatisfied with paypal..
I suppose the problem with finding a new online payment taker is that your customers, generally, would need to subscribe to that service in some way.
I have a client in Pakistan, where paypal is not permitted, and for this one person I started an account with MoneyBookers. A great service, but a lot of fiddling about to get up and running.
Good luck with paypal.
I have been using PayPal for years and found their service satisfactory but I am talking as a person who is buying products; not selling them. I have had several cases where I went through the procedure of getting my money back from sellers who didn’t deliver as they advertised and, for the most part, I was very satisfied. It is a learning process however to catch on to the method for getting such rebates but it can be done.
I am going to see what Google Checkout is all about. I had never heard of it before and I would be willing to change over if it is a viable service.
I am a former power seller on ebay. I quit ebay and went back to work because of Paypal’s policies with merchants. They are horrible and RUN AWAY from them as fast as you can. Google checkout is MUCH BETTER. They are legalized thieves and change complaint policies at random with no help for you.
Dissolve Paypal.
You are not alone. Is there any business that has not had frustrations with PayPal? PayPal’s methodology is inherently anti-client.
We have used PayPal across a number of our online business models and are now exploring doing business with Moneybooker (Visit Moneybooker web site) – perhaps that is another option for you as well?
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Thank you
Thomas Crown and Company
Google Checkout or Amazon Payments would be better. I have never liked Paypal’s customer service.
Also Moneybookers has been great whenever I have used it.