PayPal Promises That It's Changing Its Evil Ways In Wrongly Freezing Legit Accounts... But Does So Almost Immediately Again

from the whoops dept

Last week, of course, there was a big story about PayPal freezing Mailpile's IndieGoGo funds, and then making absolutely insane requests for details about their project, including detailed financials and itemized budget of the project. After the story got some press, PayPal quickly changed course, released the freeze (and contributed $1,000 to the campaign themselves). A PR person from the company reached out to us, and I sent back a series of questions, and was told that answers would be forthcoming. Except, they weren't. Yesterday, I was told (1) that the company spokesman "is unavailable this week" and (2) that they "cannot provide any specifics on a customer account due to PayPal's privacy policy." That seemed odd, because nothing in the questions I asked involved violating any privacy issues. I merely pointed out that IndieGoGo has been around for quite some time, and this couldn't be the first time this came up, so I was hoping for a further explanation over why Mailpile set off the alarm bells.

Instead, the PR person pointed me to two links. The first was a blog post from PayPal's President, David Marcus, promising a more "customer first" approach that avoids those kinds of "false positives." The post -- which was written a few days before PayPal froze Mailpile's account -- notes that the company had gotten away from a customer-centric focus, and they were hearing too many media stories about terrible experiences people were having because of PayPal's screwed up process. There are two specific promises in that blog post which it appears that PayPal totally flopped on when it came to MailPile. First, it insists that they need to "take more risks," by which he means "catch more bad guys and way fewer good guys." In fact, he claims that they've already "tweaked" their system and "Hundreds of thousands of customers who may have experienced holds last year based on our policies are no longer impacted."

The other promise is that PayPal would "be human." It notes that the company has changed its policies and now "gives the benefit of the doubt to the seller." Once again, that didn't seem to work at all when it came to Mailpile. Meanwhile, while I apparently didn't qualify to speak to someone at PayPal, they did send someone out to talk to other sites like Ars Technica and Security Ledger, where they just kept pointing back to that Marcus blog post about how they're really working hard to do a better job.

Except, apparently, they've still got some kinks to work out.

Because here we are, just a few days later, and (oh look!) Paypal has done the same damn thing to yet another IndieGoGo campaign, telling the makers of Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm that they've frozen their account until the game is actually released. PayPal even told the company that they have no option to discuss this and only to contact the company "closer to the release date beginning next year." In this case, the whole situation is even more ridiculous, because the developers had "already provided PayPal with documents providing the bona fides of Nyu Media, the developer, and the campaign."

Of course, a few hours after the media started picking up on this, PayPal once again admitted the error and reversed course. However, relying on media attention as the check and balance in your broken algorithm doesn't seem like the most effective of systems.

I think PayPal might want to go back to tweaking those algorithms. Especially that "be human" one.
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Filed Under: crowdfunding, customer first, customer service, david marcus, frozen funds, funds
Companies: indiegogo, nyu media, paypal


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  • icon
    Vidiot (profile), 10 Sep 2013 @ 10:42am

    Wrong decision, and wrong again

    "Of course, a few hours after the media started picking up on this, PayPal once again admitted the error and reversed course."

    Exactly how automated and hands-off can this shutdown process be, that whenever a second look is requested, human overseers immediately overrule the decision? Or are these decided by interns? Intern-bots?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Rich, 10 Sep 2013 @ 10:44am

      Re: Wrong decision, and wrong again

      Intern-bots? I think they kicked my butt in a FPS once.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That One Guy (profile), 10 Sep 2013 @ 10:50am

      Re: Wrong decision, and wrong again

      Could be as simple as a few managers or higher ups forgetting that their whole job is to act as a middle-man for the money being transferred, and instead deciding to indulge their egos by trying to 'manage' the recipient's business as well. Then when people without such ego problems see what the idiot employee's actions are doing PR wise, they quickly jump into damage control mode and try and pass it off as 'just an accident'.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2019 @ 3:24pm

        Re: Re: Wrong decision, and wrong again

        Paypal is evil and it has totally ruined me and destroyed me !!! When it was run from London, United Kingdom it was a professional outfit, with ethical working professional code of contact. It was regulated , accounted for held responsible and maintained within the world best financial regulatory industry London, United kingdom the world best Financial Hub or any kid of Hub. Because the evil that lies within souls and harbours evil wicked ideas and destruction that is prevalent in evil it could not function properly as an evil entity and the people who ran it or would like to have run it in the future of wanted their evil hands on it struggled to be real evil in London United Kingdom as they could not get away with their nefarious ways and were unable to get away with mismanagement, financial misconduct funds mismanagement and so , u get the idea so they needed to take away to a place where the government was inefficient, unprofessional corrupt and no regulation no accountability and no real management or professional conduct so they took it to corrupt luxemburg where every thing is corrupt to the bones wicked stupid criminal hardcore and unprofessional. they would sell their own grannies for a few euro's never mind look after the millions and millions of its user funds that it has its hands on now.Luxembourg is ideal place to destroy once a nice concept and a new idea by totally changing it structure and making it an evil entity. As paypal's large customer base is western civilisation and mostly English speaking nations Like United Kingdom, United States New zealand, Australia and Canada who expect a high quality of service and will not take corrupt, unprofessionality stupidity ugliness lying still and who would not trust paypal if it had its base in saya well known corrupt evil nasty state like czech republik poland russia iran north and south korea china india pakistan or any african nation or south and central american corrupt evil nations as it would be unacceptable for english speaking nations and governments to allow their citizens and users and their wealth to be managed by these third and fourth world hell holes the people behind the destruction of Paypal decided on a location like Brussels as it is within Central and eastern europe close to western english speaking powerful nations but not fully inside the u.k, u.s.a, Germany, france New Zealand canada to be held accountable for its corruption and evil practicesand criminality to be held accounatble and controlled. Its base is in europe and then it is kind of not if this makes sense to the reader of this message on this paypal based discussion forum.it has the security and freedom of being in Europe, infrastructure knowledge and technology and reputation but it is not a 1st world nation like United Kingdom United States Canada Australia and New Zealand. Brussels like france and other corrupt european nations are like being part of the wolf gang and yet also working hand in hand with the Sheppard and his sheep. Europe is not u.k by the way as alot of american australian and european nations believe it is. United kingdom is a seperate entity totally different from rest on continental europe. United kIngdom is just professional upright and honest and pure where as europe european nations and oragnisations based in corrupt 2-3world nations in europe like paypal are totally corrupt dishonest evil wicked unprofessional and corrupt and cnrimianl as hell. totally like European Union and european Parliament the most corrupt inefficient body of members in the history of planet earth. it is run by criminals dicators evil spawn off springs of killers murderers butchers genocidal maniacs war mongers war crime criminals and savages. Europe will never be free independent and trust worthy and pure and honest professional and it will drag the best advance godly honest beautiful nations like United Kingdom London United States Australia and canada New zealand and any other nation which wishes to come out of the european darkness of criminality corruption and evil and european savagery. If the rest of the normal fun happy pure world like u.k, usa australia canada new zealand wishes to have any type of organisation that functions correctly professionally behaves morally and with the benefit of the customers and its users in mind as top priority as is normal with any organisation then organisations like Paypal and thousands of others that have gone to european way indian way china way far east way and south american way from the hands of its original owners based in western english speaking Nations we need to get them back to our nations where we can correct the stupidity evil mismanagement unprofessional and unethical and evil happenings of foreign host nations have done. soon you will see in news reports about paypal embezzling funds of customers its top amd nmiddle emanagement in europeana nd western nation courts for corruption massive fraud and criminaity or it will be sold to corrupt evil dictator nations and enemy nbnations of western nations like russia china iran saudi arabia india pakistan afghanistan spain mexico brazil where it will be an evil entity more wicked and corrupt and mismanaged then it is now in brussles. I will give u an example of how corrupt criminal and unprofessional paypal is. I was a member of paypal and i tried to withdraw my weekly or monthly funds into my u.k bank account so i can use it to pay rent or buy food and weekly shopping but paypal knew when it was time of the day when i withdrew so it would do every thing possible and illegal to ensure i was unable to withdraw my own money. it was not a large amount say £50 or £24 or £80. it always came up with a reason not to let me access my funds to my bank account from paypal account. it would block every transfer i did citing nonsense about internal security measures, codeof cunduct suspicious activity as how can transfereing £50 from your paypal account into my own U.k bank be a security issue. so when i tried to complain or inquire why was my transfer being pending or blocked paypal came up with the usual bullshit and crap about paypal policies internal security systems and so on. then aft a few day it blocked that payment. second time i tried again they did the same thing and put a hold on it for 72 hours citing the usual crap and then after 90 hrs the blocked the payment. after complaining to paypal stating that i needed to pay my rent and buy food and pay bills paypal froze my account for 2 weeks then when i handed over all the bullshit information they requested they reopened my account and then when i tried to transfer my money from my paypal account to my u.k bank same thing again about pending hold and internal checks. they do this not only to me but to millions of paypal users every moth on a rotating basis which basically means that as paypal has millions an millions and millions of users and each user has alot of funds in their holding paypal account paypal has access to a very large tide sum of money which it holds illegally and without regulation accountability or management or held accountable and it uses this money illegally to make large short term investments in the financial markets shares stocks and short term large global banking accounts which paypal uses to accrue large interest to make large profits which it uses its users funds . this is a highly criminal unethical unprofessional criminal activity that only paypal does as it is based in a corrupt european 2-3 world nation like Belgium Brussels which only has rules regulation accountability only on paper but inot in practice and not in real world life. since this money is being used to gather profits from other large global financial institutions paypal is unable to offer money to its users who like a bank need to withdraw money from paypal to feed pay rent and eat. so what does paypal does. it has set up its systems to ensure every millions of its customers it has targeted this time of cycle to hold funds from which can be in their millions to make sure no matter what happens the funds are not released and is unable to access her/his money. Paypal will put hold on your account freeze your account put fake investigations on your account deliberatly put flase red flags on your paypal account justto ensure the funds are never going to be transferred to its user batch whose turn it is to suffer this cycle of funds holding so paypal can use its money to make large huge amounts of profits illegally. it also ensures the batch of paypal users whose turn it is this cycle of fund withdrawal limitation will also suffer by ensuring the paypal users suffering from not being allowed to access their funds are unable to contact paypal customer service or its resolution teams or live chat agents by increasing the time held waiting from 3 minutes to 2.5 hours or the live agents are not available for past 8 days as i am experiencing as i am one of the paypal users this time around whose funds are being used by paypal illegally. it states we can email payal but whenu email paypal all paypal does is to send u an auto response with the usual criminal legal repetitive crap of terms of policy. once suer is experiencing thsi unethical unprofessiona criminal bahaviour at the hands of paypal there is nothing u can do to get it fixed as it your own money and you have done nothing wrong. the paypal account is same as befor and always the same with similar funds going in and similar funds going out. as it is based in brussels for this very reason out side the juristiction of u.k, u.s.a and canadian and australian nations governments ministers and financial enforcement agencies paypal users facing thsiillegal paypal activity have no help what so ever and have to sit on their hands waiting for paypal to make the profit it needs to make with in the given time frame by the investor using paypal users funds and then as soon as it has done so paypal will start functioning again and the system will automatically start functioning again agents will be available time waiting on calls will be reduced from 3 hours to 2 minutes and so on and now it will be the time to paypal to state that the so called "investigation" is over. No other finacial institution does this in any 1st world western english speaking nations. and a pattern is detected that paypal always does this to u.k, u.s.a , australian new zealand citizens as they have no jurisdiction in brussles backed by the evil corrupt nepotist european union n european court. English western nations who need to see an ned to this need to demand form our prime ministers presidents senators to put an end to this foreign illegal criminal practices and unprofessional dangerous ways. after reading analysis of many western based investigative reports this happens a lot in foreign non english speaking nations like brussels sweden and other european nations. we need to keep our organisations technology and business in our own nations hands run by our own financial institutions who are monitored by english american australian canadian american governments and law enforcement agencies and not be held hostage for our own money by foreign enemy nations and criminal corrupt "business" leaders

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Rikuo (profile), 10 Sep 2013 @ 10:46am

    First, wouldn't Yatagarasu need the money in their Paypal account to complete the game?
    Second...I read the letter and it talks something about making sure no-one's scamming Paypal. Thing is, these stories always end up with PP releasing the funds more or less immediately after a media shitstorm. If there were actual security or criminal concerns, then releasing the funds immediately would actually be a bad thing, since then you're not sure about the money. Since PP is releasing the money more or less immediately, then it's pretty obvious there are no such concerns.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 11 Sep 2013 @ 2:32am

      Re:

      That's not entirely fair. It's all a risk/reward tradeoff. The obvious risk is a media shitstorm and to shut that down they have little choice. This doesn't mean the original freeze reason wasn't legitimate.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    SolkeshNaranek (profile), 10 Sep 2013 @ 10:46am

    Good old Paypal

    They have all the arrogance of big business, all the empathy of Mitt Romney, and willingness to help that's on par with a disconnected 800 number.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2013 @ 10:51am

    I'm more concerned about their blocking wikileaks donations

    Wikileaks is a bigger concern then Paypal doing this stuff to Indiegogo projects. At least they get their accounts unlocked after a few hours of bad PR for PayPal, Wikileaks isn't so lucky years later, Paypal and others in that case are basically engaged in censorship.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2013 @ 10:52am

    Come to think of it, its not a bad idea for automatically identifying gaps in your processes. Write a web scrape and monitor popular social media sites for your company name with words like "FUCK YOU", "WORST SERVICE", "SCREWED", "DISPUTE" etc. and automatically flag accounts which are gathering the most attention for a expedited review.

    Maybe I should patent it?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ninja (profile), 10 Sep 2013 @ 11:06am

    Don't do business with PayPal would be the way to go. The issue is: what are the non-American alternatives that are as versatile as PayPal is? I wonder if flattr could take them on this front?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 10 Sep 2013 @ 11:15am

    Artificial leopards can change their spots, but are still predators.

    Those all-powerful algorithms! Used to explain without explaining.

    Then there's the characteristically revealing notion that all a profit-hungry mega-corporation needs do is pretend to "be human". Actually, corporations need heavy regulation to (get and) keep them worried about executives being tossed into jail. Back in the days when corporations were heavily regulated (and income taxes were high as 90%), the economy was great and social justice was increasing. It's no coincidence trends have reversed under the "laissez-faire" do-nothing libertarian/fascism since. The "efficiency" canard no longer flies as excuse for letting corporations run wild, because any corporation defines "efficiency" as maximizing its profits, not serving customers.

    Anyhoo, specifically here: we're left to yet again wonder WHY Paypal consistently does this. In my opinion, a large cause is deliberately exerting control to see how much they can get away with.

    And again, WHY isn't there another corporation competing with Paypal? Why just the ONE in a manifestly lucrative area? -- In my opinion, just that puts notions about "the Internet" being a free market in question.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2013 @ 11:19am

    Free clue: Paypal is evil

    How many times must this lesson be taught? Really, I have no more sympathy left to expend on people who haven't, by September 2013, grasped this. If you use Payal, you DESERVE to be ripped off. You DESERVE to lose your money. You DESERVE to suffer.

    Why?

    Because that's what they do.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    jackn, 10 Sep 2013 @ 11:27am

    They should do like other processors and require a rolling reserve. This is not uncommon in the real world and it could be applied equitably and consistently. Also, it would minimize the risk that paypal is worried about.

    Of course, alot of people are going to thing this evil, but they will always think that - and those types won't be in business long.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Lord Binky, 10 Sep 2013 @ 11:37am

    I find it odd, paypal says it puts in place these things to protect itself from the various liabilities that apply to them from the many countries they operate within. Maybe I'm mistaken but I believe those countries don't have secret laws that are applying to paypal, so why is it paypal can't publish the rules they require their customers to follow. They say it is so that the rules aren't circumvented to do nefarious deeds, but how is it they get clear rules for their behavior but they can't provide clear rules for others? Obviously they are just that bad and figuring out what to do, but that still is beyond the point in the process that paypal should release it's rules so people know what NOT to do, including those villainous sorts that the rules are there for.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    PRMan, 10 Sep 2013 @ 11:59am

    Wait, when was that?

    "the company had gotten away from a customer-centric focus"

    Was that 5 minutes after Elon Musk invented it?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    PopeRatzo (profile), 10 Sep 2013 @ 11:59am

    Don't use PayPal

    I run a non-profit and I would never use PayPal for anything important. Now that there are lots of alternatives, I am comfortable pointing our donors away from PayPal until they reform themselves.

    It's been over a year now. I won't use PayPal for anything important.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2019 @ 3:29pm

      Re: Don't use PayPal

      Paypal is evil and it has totally ruined me and destroyed me !!! When it was run from London, United Kingdom it was a professional outfit, with ethical working professional code of contact. It was regulated , accounted for held responsible and maintained within the world best financial regulatory industry London, United kingdom the world best Financial Hub or any kid of Hub. Because the evil that lies within souls and harbours evil wicked ideas and destruction that is prevalent in evil it could not function properly as an evil entity and the people who ran it or would like to have run it in the future of wanted their evil hands on it struggled to be real evil in London United Kingdom as they could not get away with their nefarious ways and were unable to get away with mismanagement, financial misconduct funds mismanagement and so , u get the idea so they needed to take away to a place where the government was inefficient, unprofessional corrupt and no regulation no accountability and no real management or professional conduct so they took it to corrupt luxemburg where every thing is corrupt to the bones wicked stupid criminal hardcore and unprofessional. they would sell their own grannies for a few euro's never mind look after the millions and millions of its user funds that it has its hands on now.Luxembourg is ideal place to destroy once a nice concept and a new idea by totally changing it structure and making it an evil entity. As paypal's large customer base is western civilisation and mostly English speaking nations Like United Kingdom, United States New zealand, Australia and Canada who expect a high quality of service and will not take corrupt, unprofessionality stupidity ugliness lying still and who would not trust paypal if it had its base in saya well known corrupt evil nasty state like czech republik poland russia iran north and south korea china india pakistan or any african nation or south and central american corrupt evil nations as it would be unacceptable for english speaking nations and governments to allow their citizens and users and their wealth to be managed by these third and fourth world hell holes the people behind the destruction of Paypal decided on a location like Brussels as it is within Central and eastern europe close to western english speaking powerful nations but not fully inside the u.k, u.s.a, Germany, france New Zealand canada to be held accountable for its corruption and evil practicesand criminality to be held accounatble and controlled. Its base is in europe and then it is kind of not if this makes sense to the reader of this message on this paypal based discussion forum.it has the security and freedom of being in Europe, infrastructure knowledge and technology and reputation but it is not a 1st world nation like United Kingdom United States Canada Australia and New Zealand. Brussels like france and other corrupt european nations are like being part of the wolf gang and yet also working hand in hand with the Sheppard and his sheep. Europe is not u.k by the way as alot of american australian and european nations believe it is. United kingdom is a seperate entity totally different from rest on continental europe. United kIngdom is just professional upright and honest and pure where as europe european nations and oragnisations based in corrupt 2-3world nations in europe like paypal are totally corrupt dishonest evil wicked unprofessional and corrupt and cnrimianl as hell. totally like European Union and european Parliament the most corrupt inefficient body of members in the history of planet earth. it is run by criminals dicators evil spawn off springs of killers murderers butchers genocidal maniacs war mongers war crime criminals and savages. Europe will never be free independent and trust worthy and pure and honest professional and it will drag the best advance godly honest beautiful nations like United Kingdom London United States Australia and canada New zealand and any other nation which wishes to come out of the european darkness of criminality corruption and evil and european savagery. If the rest of the normal fun happy pure world like u.k, usa australia canada new zealand wishes to have any type of organisation that functions correctly professionally behaves morally and with the benefit of the customers and its users in mind as top priority as is normal with any organisation then organisations like Paypal and thousands of others that have gone to european way indian way china way far east way and south american way from the hands of its original owners based in western english speaking Nations we need to get them back to our nations where we can correct the stupidity evil mismanagement unprofessional and unethical and evil happenings of foreign host nations have done. soon you will see in news reports about paypal embezzling funds of customers its top amd nmiddle emanagement in europeana nd western nation courts for corruption massive fraud and criminaity or it will be sold to corrupt evil dictator nations and enemy nbnations of western nations like russia china iran saudi arabia india pakistan afghanistan spain mexico brazil where it will be an evil entity more wicked and corrupt and mismanaged then it is now in brussles. I will give u an example of how corrupt criminal and unprofessional paypal is. I was a member of paypal and i tried to withdraw my weekly or monthly funds into my u.k bank account so i can use it to pay rent or buy food and weekly shopping but paypal knew when it was time of the day when i withdrew so it would do every thing possible and illegal to ensure i was unable to withdraw my own money. it was not a large amount say £50 or £24 or £80. it always came up with a reason not to let me access my funds to my bank account from paypal account. it would block every transfer i did citing nonsense about internal security measures, codeof cunduct suspicious activity as how can transfereing £50 from your paypal account into my own U.k bank be a security issue. so when i tried to complain or inquire why was my transfer being pending or blocked paypal came up with the usual bullshit and crap about paypal policies internal security systems and so on. then aft a few day it blocked that payment. second time i tried again they did the same thing and put a hold on it for 72 hours citing the usual crap and then after 90 hrs the blocked the payment. after complaining to paypal stating that i needed to pay my rent and buy food and pay bills paypal froze my account for 2 weeks then when i handed over all the bullshit information they requested they reopened my account and then when i tried to transfer my money from my paypal account to my u.k bank same thing again about pending hold and internal checks. they do this not only to me but to millions of paypal users every moth on a rotating basis which basically means that as paypal has millions an millions and millions of users and each user has alot of funds in their holding paypal account paypal has access to a very large tide sum of money which it holds illegally and without regulation accountability or management or held accountable and it uses this money illegally to make large short term investments in the financial markets shares stocks and short term large global banking accounts which paypal uses to accrue large interest to make large profits which it uses its users funds . this is a highly criminal unethical unprofessional criminal activity that only paypal does as it is based in a corrupt european 2-3 world nation like Belgium Brussels which only has rules regulation accountability only on paper but inot in practice and not in real world life. since this money is being used to gather profits from other large global financial institutions paypal is unable to offer money to its users who like a bank need to withdraw money from paypal to feed pay rent and eat. so what does paypal does. it has set up its systems to ensure every millions of its customers it has targeted this time of cycle to hold funds from which can be in their millions to make sure no matter what happens the funds are not released and is unable to access her/his money. Paypal will put hold on your account freeze your account put fake investigations on your account deliberatly put flase red flags on your paypal account justto ensure the funds are never going to be transferred to its user batch whose turn it is to suffer this cycle of funds holding so paypal can use its money to make large huge amounts of profits illegally. it also ensures the batch of paypal users whose turn it is this cycle of fund withdrawal limitation will also suffer by ensuring the paypal users suffering from not being allowed to access their funds are unable to contact paypal customer service or its resolution teams or live chat agents by increasing the time held waiting from 3 minutes to 2.5 hours or the live agents are not available for past 8 days as i am experiencing as i am one of the paypal users this time around whose funds are being used by paypal illegally. it states we can email payal but whenu email paypal all paypal does is to send u an auto response with the usual criminal legal repetitive crap of terms of policy. once suer is experiencing thsi unethical unprofessiona criminal bahaviour at the hands of paypal there is nothing u can do to get it fixed as it your own money and you have done nothing wrong. the paypal account is same as befor and always the same with similar funds going in and similar funds going out. as it is based in brussels for this very reason out side the juristiction of u.k, u.s.a and canadian and australian nations governments ministers and financial enforcement agencies paypal users facing thsiillegal paypal activity have no help what so ever and have to sit on their hands waiting for paypal to make the profit it needs to make with in the given time frame by the investor using paypal users funds and then as soon as it has done so paypal will start functioning again and the system will automatically start functioning again agents will be available time waiting on calls will be reduced from 3 hours to 2 minutes and so on and now it will be the time to paypal to state that the so called "investigation" is over. No other finacial institution does this in any 1st world western english speaking nations. and a pattern is detected that paypal always does this to u.k, u.s.a , australian new zealand citizens as they have no jurisdiction in brussles backed by the evil corrupt nepotist european union n european court. English western nations who need to see an ned to this need to demand form our prime ministers presidents senators to put an end to this foreign illegal criminal practices and unprofessional dangerous ways. after reading analysis of many western based investigative reports this happens a lot in foreign non english speaking nations like brussels sweden and other european nations. we need to keep our organisations technology and business in our own nations hands run by our own financial institutions who are monitored by english american australian canadian american governments and law enforcement agencies and not be held hostage for our own money by foreign enemy nations and criminal corrupt "business" leaders. What are the alternatives to paypal as i sell on ebay and amazon ??? paypal has made me homeless and i have lost every thing due to the corrupt european savages and inbred european criminal sub human retards who run criminal nepotist demon infested hateful primitive hate filled europe and european union and european criminal parliament. we are glad britian is leaving the e.u thank u western white goddesses for that !!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2013 @ 12:04pm

    the problem with PayPal is that it thinks it is 'too big to fail', just like the banks. on top of that, they are not in the least bit interested in the customer and being in cahoots with ebay now has made things even worse. when ebay started, it was a good idea and people used it because they could get a pretty good deal. that changed and money became the most important thing, instead of being an important thing. PayPal joined the scene and then people had to pay two fees to two companies that were actually part of one whole. fees went up, service went down! and there it stayed. try getting any sense out of a PayPal rep. you'll be more than lucky!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Mongusa (profile), 10 Sep 2013 @ 12:17pm

    Sounds like a business model

    PayPal is freezing those accounts so they can hold onto the money and profit off the interest. It's a business model.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    PlagueSD (profile), 10 Sep 2013 @ 12:25pm

    Well, if you take the quote, "To err is human..." then PayPal is well on their way to being "more human".

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Do_I_care, 10 Sep 2013 @ 12:26pm

    This is why nobody wants Paypal touching their bitcoin with a 10 foot pole.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2013 @ 12:33pm

    Payfall should be the name of people who trust PayPal.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    wec, 10 Sep 2013 @ 12:58pm

    Did you ever think that invest that money like a bank and the longer they keep it the more money they earn?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2013 @ 1:43pm

    Yeah right

    These sleaze bags don't give a fat furry rat's ass about anything except making money and trying to look non-sleazy.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Jeffry Houser (profile), 10 Sep 2013 @ 2:02pm

    Dreamfall Chapters..

    They've done it to Dreamfall Chapters by Red Thread games too. Dreamfall Chapters was another Million+ funded Kickstarter project. I think they're using Paypal to sell tickets for putting on a conference.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Rekrul, 10 Sep 2013 @ 3:39pm

    PayPal is run by criminals. Someone should file criminal charges of theft against them.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Dan Tobias, 10 Sep 2013 @ 6:12pm

    When did they ever have a "customer-centric focus"? The Paypal horror stories of bogusly frozen accounts and great difficulty getting any human being with authority to fix the problem to take notice go back over ten years.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    BK, 10 Sep 2013 @ 8:13pm

    I had never heard anything bad about paypal before this, but I'm glad I read this...crazy!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      BapstPR, 11 Sep 2013 @ 8:56am

      Re:

      You don't get out much, do you?

      You wouldn't happen to have any rooms for rent under that rock would you? I wouldn't mind relocating myself.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Sep 2013 @ 12:18am

    Definition of PayPal:

    A place where you deposit money, but have no idea when, or if, you'll ever be able to withdraw that money again.


    See:

    Blackhole
    Account Freeze
    Stress

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2013 @ 3:34pm

    Boycott paypal.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jim Young, 2 May 2014 @ 11:44am

    Paypal sucks

    Bull crap, they have not changed a bit. I had an account set up and had sent orders and then I get a frozen account saying I needed to get a landline so they can verify my address, send them my DL, utility bill, and social security no. Fuck them. I did a charge back on my purchases totaling what I had in the account and they can keep the money. I thought they had stopped this crap but obviously not. I will never open an account and I also killed my CC so I will not be paying my Ebay charges for listing. Screw em both. I will never use them again.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jim young, 7 May 2014 @ 11:10am

    Paypal SUCKS

    Bull shit they are changing their ways. I started a Paypal account after fighting with these fuck tards years ago, thinking they were different. I accumulated 157 dollars in teh account and they froze it. I am now doing charge backs on several things to get my money. Fuck these fools.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Auction Essistance, 18 Mar 2015 @ 11:22am

    Horrible

    Relying on PayPal for all of your transactions is the worst thing you can do for your business. It is always best to get a merchant account or another payment method as a back up.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Meh, 21 Sep 2015 @ 11:27am

    If you like being sacked in the crotch Paypal will do it. Their draconian management of transactions is the digital equivalent of a law suit waiting to happen every ten minutes. Its like UPS you have no bleeping clue where your orders go or if you will ever get your delivery.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Sam Judie (profile), 8 Mar 2016 @ 8:31am

    PayPal is EVIL?

    I am long time occupant on the internet since the 1980's and have built over 200 websites! For friends all over the world! Taught FREE Computer Classes to over 1000 Seniors including one Nuclear Physicist who wanted to learn how to do EMAIL! But........the entire 'concept' of PAYPAL is EVIL! I no longer want anything to do even remotely associated with PayPal! EVER AGAIN! .....Sam Judie in Henderson, Nevada

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    jacqueline, 20 Mar 2016 @ 10:56am

    paypal ripoff

    Couldn't agree more, they have taken a refund I'm entitled to and have constantly argued and lied over this, instead of just apologising for their mistake, they carry on compounding it by refusing to pay me the money they owe me, they are the worse possible company to get involved with, and as for the person who says we deserve to be ripped of by them, that's very cruel and nasty thing to say, its not nice to lose money its even worse for someone to make light of anybody misfortune, no one deserves to get ripped of by PayPal perhaps if it happened to someone you know you might not be so self righteous and smug about it, on this forum

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Remus, 26 Mar 2016 @ 10:57am

    Could not agree more about this. I had myself a charge back from Romania and they solved the case to that retard in Romania favor. I just could not believe. Every rep I have spoken look to me like on drugs or something. Whats going on there have no idea absolutely. They lied to me all way long it is now discussing to remember. Will never call them again and will take them to the court it is just ridiculous. Stay AWAY.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Edward Boothe, 21 Aug 2017 @ 2:34pm

    Paypal evil

    Paypal uses every tactic that they have learned over 4000 years of screwing people out of their money to squeeze the last penny out of the middle class in the US that they have destroyed.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jill, 29 May 2018 @ 8:12am

    Paypal can't be trusted

    Yea well they can promise all they want, but we all know that they will never do what they promised.

    If anything, I read a bunch of reports on https://www.aspkin.com/forums/paypal-limited/

    That more people are having trouble with them.
    The only way forward is still making stealth accounts from what I've seen

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Tom, 12 Dec 2018 @ 7:16am

    That was 2013. It is now 2018 and nothing has changed

    The title says it all really. PayPal is still intrusive, arrogant, money-grubbing and contemptuous of its users.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    nas pierce, 22 Sep 2019 @ 3:20pm

    paypal has destroyed me !!!!!!!

    Paypal is evil. When it was run from London, United Kingdom it was a professional outfit, with ethical working professional code of contact. It was regulated , accounted for held responsible and maintained within the world best financial regulatory industry London, United kingdom the world best Financial Hub or any kid of Hub. Because the evil that lies within souls and harbours evil wicked ideas and destruction that is prevalent in evil it could not function properly as an evil entity and the people who ran it or would like to have run it in the future of wanted their evil hands on it struggled to be real evil in London United Kingdom as they could not get away with their nefarious ways and were unable to get away with mismanagement, financial misconduct funds mismanagement and so , u get the idea so they needed to take away to a place where the government was inefficient, unprofessional corrupt and no regulation no accountability and no real management or professioanl conduct so they took it to corrupt luxemburg where every thing is corrupt to the bones wicked stupid criminal hardcore and unprofessional. they would sell their own grannies for a few euro's never mind look after the millions and millions of its user funds that it has its hands on now.Luxembourg is ideal place to destroy once a nice concept and a new idea by totally changing it structure and making it an evil entity. As paypal's large customer base is western civilisation and mostly English speaking nations Like United Kingdom, United States New zealand, Australia and Canada who expect a high quality of service and will not take corrupt, unprofessionality stupidity ugliness lying still and who would not tyrust payoal if it had its base in saya well known corrupt evil nasty state like czech republik poland russia iran north and south korea china india pakistan or any african nation or south and central american corrupt evil nations as it would be unacceptable for english speaking nations and governments to allow their citizens and users and their wealth to be managed by these third and fourth world hell holes the people behind the destruction of Paypal decided on a location like Brussels as it is within Central and eastern europe close to western english speaking powerful nations but not fully inside the u.k, u.s.a, Germany, france New Zealand canada to be held accountable for its corruption and evil practicesand criminality to be held accounatble and controlled. Its base is in europe and then it is kind of not if this makes sense to the reader of this message on this paypal based discussion forum.it has the security and freedom of being in Europe, infrastructure knowledge and technology and reputation but it is not a 1st world nation like United Kingdom United States Canada Australia and New Zealand. Brussels liek france and other corrupt european nations are like being part of the wolf gang and yet also working hand in hand with the Sheppard and his sheep. Europe is not u.k by the way as alot of american australian and european nations believe it is. United kingdom is a seperate entity totally different from rest on continental europe. United kIngdom is just professional upright and honest and pure where as europe european nations and oragnisations based in corrupt 2-3world nations in europe like paypal are totally corrupt dishonest evil wicked unprofessional and corrupt and cnrimianl as hell. totally like European Union and european Parliament the most corrupt inefficient body of members in the history of planet earth. it is run by criminals dicatoors evil spawn off springs of killers murderers butchers genocidal maniacs war mongers war crime criminals and savages. Europe will never be free independent and trust worthy and pure and honest professional and it will drag the best advance godly honest beautiful nations like United Kingdom London United States Australia and canadaNew zeland and any other nation which wishes to come out of the european darkness of criminality corruption and evil and european savagery. If the rest of the normal fun happy pure world like u.k, usa australia canada new zealand wishes to have any type of organisation that functions correctly professionally behaves morally and with the benefit of the customers and its users in mind as top priority as is normal with any organisation then organisations like Paypal and thousands of others that have gone to european way indian way china way far east way and south american way from the hands of its original owners based in western english speaking Nations we need to get them back to our nations where we can correct the stupidity evil mismanagement unprofessional and unethical and evil happenings of foreign host nations have done. soon you will see in news reports about paypal embezzling funds of customers its top amd nmiddle emanagement in europeana nd western nation courts for corruption massive fraud and criminaity or it will be sold to corrupt evil dictator nations and enemy nbnations of western nations like russia china iran saudi arabia india pakistan afghanistan spain mexico brazil where it will be an evil entity more wicked and corrupt and mismanaged then it is now in brussles. I will give u an example of how corrupt criminal and unprofessional paypal is. I was a member of paypal and i tried to withdraw my weekly or monthly funds into my u.k bank account so i can use it to pay rent or buy food and weekly shopping but paypal knew when it was time of the day when i withdrew so it would do every thing possible and illegal to ensure i was unable to withdraw my own money. it was not a large amount say £50 or £24 or £80. it always came up with a reason not to let me access my funds to my bank account from paypal account. it would block every transfer i did citing nonsense about internal security measures, codeof cunduct suspicious activity as how can transfereing £50 from your paypal account into my own U.k bank be a security issue. so when i tried to complain or inquire why was my transfer being pending or blocked paypal came up with the usual bullshit and crap about paypal policies internal security systems and so on. then aft a few day it blocked that payment. second time i tried again they did the same thing and put a hold on it for 72 hours citing the usual crap and then after 90 hrs the blocked the payment. after complaining topaypal stating that i needed to pay my rent and buy food and pay bills paypal froze my account for 2 weeks then when i handed over all the bullshit information they requested they reopened my account and then when i tried to transfer my money from my paypal account to my u.k bank same thing again about pending hold and internal checks. they do thi snot only to me but to millions of paypal users every moth on a rotating basis which basically mean sthat as paypal has millions an milions and millions of users and each user has alot of funds in their holding paypal account paypal has access to a very large tide sum of money which it holds illegally and without regulation accountability or management or held accountable and it uses this money illegally to make large short term investments in the financial markets shares stcoks and shirtterm large global banking accounts which paypal uses to accrue large interest to make large profits which it uses its users funds . this is a highly criminal unethical unprofessional criminal activity that only paypal does as it is based in a corrupt european 2-3 world nation like Belgium Brussels which only has rules regulation accountability only on paper but inot in practice and not in real world life. since this money is being used to gather profits from other large global financial institutions payapl is unable to offer money to its users who like a bank need to withdraw money from paytpal to feed pay rent and eat. so what does paypal does. it has set up its systems toensure every millions of its customers it has targeted this time of cycle to hold funds from which can be in their millions to make sure no matter what happens the funds are not released and is unable to access her/his money. Paypal will put hold on your account freeze your account put fake investigations on your account deliberatly put flase red flags on your paypal account justto ensure the funds are never going to be transferred to its user batch whose turn it is to suffer this cycle of funds holding so paypal can use its money to make large huge amounts of profits illegally. it also ensures the batch of paypal users whose turn it is this cycle of fund withdrawal limitation will also suffer by ensuring the paypal users suffering from not being allowed to access their funds are unable to contact paypal customer service or its resolution teams or live chat agents by increasing the time held waiting from 3 minutes to 2.5 hours or the live agents are not available for past 8 days as i am experiencing as i am one of the paypal users this time around whose funds are being used by paypal illegally. it states we can email payal but whenu email paypal all paypal does is to send u an auto response with the usual criminal legal repetitive crap of terms of policy. once suer is experiencing thsi unethical unprofessiona criminal bahaviour at the hands of paypal there is nothing u can do to get it fixed as it your own money and you have done nothing wrong. the paypal account is same as befor and always the same with similar funds going in and similar funds going out. as it is based in brussels for this very reason out side the juristiction of u.k, u.s.a and canadian and australian nations governments ministers and financial enforcement agencies paypal users facing thsiillegal paypal activity have no help what so ever and have to sit on their hands waiting for paypal to make the profit it needs to make with in the given time frame by the investor using paypal users funds and then as soon as it has done so paypal will start functioning again and the system will automatically start functioning again agents will be available time waiting on calls will be reduced from 3 hours to 2 minutes and so on and now it will be the time to paypal to state that the so called "investigation" is over. No other finacial institution does this in any 1st world western english speaking nations. and a pattern is detected that paypal always does this to u.k, u.s.a , australian new zealand citizens as they have no jurisdiction in brussles backed by the evil corrupt nepotist european union n european court. English western nations who need to see an ned to this need to demand form our prime ministers presidents senators to put an end to this foreign illegal criminal practices and unprofessional dangerous ways. after reading analysis of many western based investigative reports this happens a lot in foreign non english speaking nation slike brusslels sweden and other european nations. we need to keep our organisations technology and business in our own nations hands run by our own financial institutions who are monitored by english american australian canadian american governments and law enforcement agencies and not be held hostage for our own money by foreign enemy nations and criminal corrupt "business" leaders

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    nas pierce, 22 Sep 2019 @ 3:32pm

    paypal has destroyed me !!!!!!!

    Paypal is evil. When it was run from London, United Kingdom it was a professional outfit, with ethical working professional code of contact. It was regulated , accounted for held responsible and maintained within the world best financial regulatory industry London, United kingdom the world best Financial Hub or any kid of Hub. Because the evil that lies within souls and harbours evil wicked ideas and destruction that is prevalent in evil it could not function properly as an evil entity and the people who ran it or would like to have run it in the future of wanted their evil hands on it struggled to be real evil in London United Kingdom as they could not get away with their nefarious ways and were unable to get away with mismanagement, financial misconduct funds mismanagement and so , u get the idea so they needed to take away to a place where the government was inefficient, unprofessional corrupt and no regulation no accountability and no real management or professioanl conduct so they took it to corrupt luxemburg where every thing is corrupt to the bones wicked stupid criminal hardcore and unprofessional. they would sell their own grannies for a few euro's never mind look after the millions and millions of its user funds that it has its hands on now.Luxembourg is ideal place to destroy once a nice concept and a new idea by totally changing it structure and making it an evil entity. As paypal's large customer base is western civilisation and mostly English speaking nations Like United Kingdom, United States New zealand, Australia and Canada who expect a high quality of service and will not take corrupt, unprofessionality stupidity ugliness lying still and who would not trust paypal if it had its base in say a well known corrupt evil nasty state like czech republik poland russia iran north and south korea china india pakistan or any african nation or south and central american corrupt evil nations as it would be unacceptable for english speaking nations and governments to allow their citizens and users and their wealth to be managed by these third and fourth world hell holes the people behind the destruction of Paypal decided on a location like Brussels as it is within Central and eastern europe close to western english speaking powerful nations but not fully inside the u.k, u.s.a, Germany, france New Zealand canada to be held accountable for its corruption and evil practice sand criminality to be held accountable and controlled. Its base is in europe and then it is kind of not if this makes sense to the reader of this message on this paypal based discussion forum.it has the security and freedom of being in Europe, infrastructure knowledge and technology and reputation but it is not a 1st world nation like United Kingdom United States Canada Australia and New Zealand. Brussels like france and other corrupt european nations are like being part of the wolf gang and yet also working hand in hand with the Sheppard and his sheep. Europe is not u.k by the way as alot of american australian and european nations believe it is. United kingdom is a seperate entity totally different from rest on continental europe. United kIngdom is just professional upright and honest and pure where as europe european nations and oragnisations based in corrupt 2-3world nations in europe like paypal are totally corrupt dishonest evil wicked unprofessional and corrupt and cnrimianl as hell. totally like European Union and european Parliament the most corrupt inefficient body of members in the history of planet earth. it is run by criminals dicatoors evil spawn off springs of killers murderers butchers genocidal maniacs war mongers war crime criminals and savages. Europe will never be free independent and trust worthy and pure and honest professional and it will drag the best advance godly honest beautiful nations like United Kingdom London United States Australia and canadaNew zeland and any other nation which wishes to come out of the european darkness of criminality corruption and evil and european savagery. If the rest of the normal fun happy pure world like u.k, usa australia canada new zealand wishes to have any type of organisation that functions correctly professionally behaves morally and with the benefit of the customers and its users in mind as top priority as is normal with any organisation then organisations like Paypal and thousands of others that have gone to european way indian way china way far east way and south american way from the hands of its original owners based in western english speaking Nations we need to get them back to our nations where we can correct the stupidity evil mismanagement unprofessional and unethical and evil happenings of foreign host nations have done. soon you will see in news reports about paypal embezzling funds of customers its top amd nmiddle emanagement in europeana nd western nation courts for corruption massive fraud and criminaity or it will be sold to corrupt evil dictator nations and enemy nbnations of western nations like russia china iran saudi arabia india pakistan afghanistan spain mexico brazil where it will be an evil entity more wicked and corrupt and mismanaged then it is now in brussles.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2019 @ 3:42pm

    find out where the current criminal leadrs and high corrupt management of paypal live and their famiies live and the global members of paypal users who have been destroyed by paypal and its criminal behaviour need to pay them a visit and explain it to them in a clear concise language they understand that it i snot o.k for a corrupt brussels regime and its evil nation and corrupt european bureaucrats and ministers to hold western english speaking nations hostage and hold their money freedom and liberty to ransom byholding their funds illegally for months years and decades. they need to be taught a lesson. any one know the top ten owners and ma top management of paypal that we can pay a visit locate them track them and grab them and make them change their evil ways. they have ruined millions of lives and livelihoods by destroying incomes and funds for illegal nefarious paypal european corrupt criminal practices..... you cannot get away with this in this day and age especially against british american australian and new zealand and canadian citizens. they can fuck their own kind up dowhat ever they want we brits americans aussies dont care but do not try to fuck with us paypal. we will destroy u allu corrupt evil nasty demon infested sub human ugly criminal horde. find out who are the top 25 people in paypal and hunt them and put their private and personal details on the net and their will be thousand if not millions of paypal users in the west who will hunt them and execute them and rightly so. i am pretty certain this is being done as we speak. this is why evil forces removed paypal from london to Evil shitty criminal european brussles

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2019 @ 3:58pm

    it should be called we are your "pals" when u pay money into paypal but we are your worst enemy when u try to take your own money out. how dare you. this is corrupt european criminal ways and culture.... Brusslel savages... Brussels needs to be nuked by western english speaking nations who europe and paypal try to screw all the time.... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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