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.
The only time I ever had a Paypal problem, I called them and they resolved it but not in a timely way. Your situation is much more serious. I do still use Paypal for my client purchases but they are few compared with yours.
If I were you, I would ditch them. Stick with the major credit card companies.
I am a paypal subscriber but would be happy to change to another annual method ( cr card, etc). Paypal has got seriously expensive anyway and yes I agree with all the bloggers – they ALWAYS side with the buyers – to them sellers are just open wallets. Get rid as soon as possible.
I dropped paypal as a payment option on my website over a year ago and haven’t looked back.
I don’t beleive you need it, the internet will still work if paypal aren’t around….and payments will still be processed without them.
Say no to paypal is my answer 🙂
Drop Paypal. They are awful. Maybe 2Checkout or use your own software.
I was thinking of using Paypal for credit card services on a new web site I am building. After reading the above comments and remembering the negative past experiences I have had with Paypal and Ebay.., I will not be using their services. I suggest that you drop them too. They are amazingly arrogant when dealing with customers.
I like the idea of getting a discount for prepaying 6 or 12 months. Automatic payments via a credit card is another nice way to go. Paypal is not needed.
I stopped using PayPal a long time ago. They messed up my account, were unable to fix the problem, and I spent days emailing and trying to contact them, to no avail. fortunately there was no money in my account, and that is how it will stay. Had there been any money there, it would have been “lost” just like my (still) inaccessible Paypal account.
I’ve had major issues with PayPal and, personally, I wish I could stop using them myself. Their fees suck, customer service is inconsistent and just sucks overall. I am producing a documentary film on my own, which is totally driven by donations as I’m not an “insider” or have financial backing. Because of PayPal, I just had to deny about $300 in donations and email the donors to request them to re-donate using my personal account and not the professional account. It may not seem like a big deal, but that’s a lot of money to me and it makes me look ridiculous and unprofessional. I can only hope they’ll re-donate, but I have no guarantees. And these were the only donations I had because I’ve not received any other funding. I’m furious right now and incredibly defeated. Thanks, PayPal.
My bottom line? Scrap them immediately.
Good choice to drop Pay Pal they will always have an issue with someone’s account at all times. I dropped them after they refunded one of my ebay customers even though i specified i did not ship international. they refunded the cost and deducted it from my account. then told me i was wrong for not shipping the product international even though I specifically don’t do so. I have also lost a lot of funds due to transactions the buyer disputed for various reasons (most where suspicious) this is when I learned that paypal will always side with the buyers on ebay. so i quit using them both an Im having much better success with alternatives.
google check out, there is loads of good options out there but paypal, i´ve had my issues with them as well
Paypal’s just misunderstood;-) Actually, I was thinking StatCounter wasn’t all of that hot for several weeks with how often webpage stats are inaccessible;-(
As long as you have paying with a credit / debit card, then not having PayPal as a payment option would work. You may want to complain on Twitter.
thanks super
lower the price and make it a 6 or 12 months per pay. 🙂 (Paypal is to BIG to be neglected. Nobody can do a thing about it…)
Have come across similar behaviour from Paypal. There is a company called feepay.ie – is this an alternative?
I also had problems with paypal. Their computer system flagged a few purchases as suspicious. And in spite of both me and the customer showing that the purchases were legit, their computer returned the money anyway. Both me and my customers were very annoyed at the inconvenience.
Unfortunately, I’m a very small business, and I can’t find any other payment processor anywhere near as inexpensive as paypal.
here’s my feedback: please, feel free to say goodbye to PayPal.
I don’t have a good opinion about it, because of an ebay shopping I made a couple of years back and it didn’t work out.
Why dont you just use moneybookers?
It similar to Pay Pal but better….
Hello….
You’ve asked for feedback. I’m a merchant retailer that has sold millions in subscriptions and product. I’ve used both private bank merchant services and PAYPAL.
I’m almost positive you are speaking about chargebacks and how Paypal handles them!
YES YES YES!@!! I agree. I have received few chargebacks since starting with Paypal.
However, there is something very peculiar and somewhat racketeering reminscent of their handling.
The problem I have encountered is that on occassion a client that has actually become satisfied and called their BANK and confirmed a REVERSAL of a chargeback has never impacted the final result of Paypals supposed investigations.
WORSE YET…. the money seems to be debited from both the clients account in the end (as it should be) and debited from OUR account.
Hence, these funds are disappearing. I suspect remaining with Paypal as some resource or dividend to them!!!!
I’m mad as hell about it too.
Alan Castro
CEO
I’ve been hearing this same type of complaint from my friends who are merchants lately, as well. You wanna ditch them, I’m fine with that.
Paypal/eBay doesn’t care for anyone but the stockholders. If you need to stop using paypal, feel free, don’t let me stop you from doing what should or needs to be done. Paypal’s poor customer service history repeats itself, and it is not in the customers best interest. Paypal/eBay is a corporation too big for it’s britches, so give them an appropriately sized wedgie and send them on their way. Be sure to post your reasons widely and boldly.