12th November, 2006

Does PayPal Sucks?   

Posted in random, hacking | by evilbitz |



I’m using PayPal for more than a year now, the service is great but there are some flaws with it. I’m selling some digital products and I had some issues with serial refunders, those people who tries to get things for free. I’m not going to describe all the methods I know they use but there are methods that can cost you a lot and you (almost) always lose.

The most annoying thing is when the buyer doesn’t ask for a refund but rather just cancels his credit card transaction. When a buyer does this you can issue a charge-back, the first thing PayPal does is subtracting the amount that was canceled from your account. Then, a long 90 day journey begins where PayPal does you a “favor” and tries to get your money back. Along the way, you would find out that PayPal charged you $10 to handle this charge-back “as it is said in the user agreement”, but they don’t tell you this before you issue the charge-back. PayPal pays the credit card company in order to open a complaint against the buyer. The funny thing is, PayPal charges you with another $2.xx fee on those $10!! I don’t see the reason here…

If you sell digital products, issuing a charge-back would always turn out to be the wrong thing to do, as you will be paying some extra bucks and the buyer already got his reward. It is the credit card company interest to keep it’s customers satisfied, so no justice would be done. The bright side of the story is that you get the buyer’s name along with the transaction, so you can find your resort and send him anthrax to his house ;-)

I wonder if you can open a PayPal account, sell a digital product for $5,000 and buy it with your own credit card. then, all you need to do is close the PayPal account (withdraw the money) and cancel the credit card transaction…
Just kidding. kids, don’t try this at home :-)




This entry was posted on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 11:17 pm and is filed under random, hacking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 6 responses to “Does PayPal Sucks?”

Why not let us know what you think by adding your own comment! Your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, so come on... let us know what you think.

  1. 1 On December 12th, 2006, evilbitz said:

    Here is part of the reply,
    “”"
    Unfortunately, we do not control the outcome of the chargeback decision reached by the buyer’s issuing bank in a credit card transaction. By accepting the terms of the PayPal User Agreement, you agreed to accept the decision of the issuing bank as final and legally binding for this type of dispute.
    “”"

  2. 2 On April 5th, 2007, John Daniel said:

    PayPal Definetly sucks and even though my PayPal debit card info got taken and i reported the card stolen they still authorised charges made on it as authorized and would not credit my account back or stop the Charges,payPal does not protect the seller or the Buyer just themselves. Beware!!!

  3. 3 On May 23rd, 2007, Omni said:

    I know exactly what you mean. I had made a payment of 319.99 to a person on paypal. Due to unforeseen circumstances, their was a backorder and I was offered a refund from the user. The refund was issued but was taken from the individuals bank account and as paypal, in their infinite wisdom states, that they will not process the funds to you until they have cleared.
    The odd thing is, when you make a payment through the same process but as a new payment they will give you the funds immediately. Their is no wisdom to this process and only draws to aggravate the ppl involved. In my opinion paypal should take the funds from the ppl that it was sent to in order to issue a refund to the person it is owed.

  4. 4 On May 31st, 2007, joe said:

    Paypal sucks so bad. No customer service to speak of. Their system is broken.. won’t let me finish resolution and email inqueries to them come back with form letters saying to complete the process. IT’S BROKEN!!! Duh!!!

    Any HUMANS working at Paypal anymore? The vagaries of monopolies!!!!

  5. 5 On December 8th, 2007, bjh said:

    i do lots of online surveying andd at home product research and marketing consultation…so a sight that i belong to will only issue the funds you are accumulating thru pay pal because in their words…it’s instantaneous, but its been 3 weeks and my funds have yet to arrive…how in the hell is that instananeous. paypal truly sucks!!! i’m glad to finally be able to voice my aggrevation…thankd for the opportunity.bjhHOUSTON

  6. 6 On January 26th, 2008, tom said:

    Hi. I know the problems and the grief that Paypal can cause one. The automaited messages you receive for a reply are worthless , because they do not answer any of the question (s) in the email you sent to them. I think that Paypal simply does not care about the sellers. I can’t put it in any other words. I know that many of us buyers and sellers are honest , however ; if a dis-honest buyer chose to , all they have to do is claim that they didn’t receive the item they paid for via Paypal and most of the time they will receive a refund and of course keep the item. Paypal will take the money for the didpute from the balance in your Paypal account , if you leave any balance in it. It’s too bad , because they could really be a good source of income for both parties. Paypal cannot take money out of your checking account . I suggest that the instant you receive a paymet from Paypal , you take it out of your Paypal account and move it into your checking account. Also,if you are selling on Ebay and you are suspended from Ebay ; Paypal will lock your Paypal account for 180 days. They will make a decision on what the out-come will be about your money. One more thing ; if you are paying for your Ebay fees by having Paypal take the money out of your paypal account , i suggest you stop doing this. You can pay your Ebay fees by having Ebay charging your charge card each month for the money you owe them for selling fees. Good luck . Who needs the aggravation ? Thanks for reading this. Tom

Leave a Reply

Top »
"If you can't join them, beat them!"
Search Evilbitz: