Paypal Violin Update

As an update to the Violin destruction incident that was featured heavily in the blogosphere earlier this year, I felt that it was important to let the people over at Paypal have a chance to voice their side of what happened and give an explanation about why they ordered the destruction of an antique violin before determining whether it was genuine or not.

There was much debate online in many different forums: about paypal, musicians forums and also in general forums. Some people said that it was because it may be illegal to post a counterfeit item. This was reiterated in a statement by a paypal employee:

A spokesperson for PayPal said: “While we cannot talk about this particular case due to PayPal’s privacy policy, we carefully review each case, and in general we may ask a buyer to destroy counterfeit goods if they supply signed evidence from a knowledgeable third party that the goods are indeed counterfeit. The reason why we reserve the option to ask the buyer to destroy the goods is that in many countries, including the US, it is a criminal offence to mail counterfeit goods back to a seller.”

taken from the Guardian newspaper

But in reality this is nothing but a smokescreen by paypal. Before establishing the veracity of the claim, the violin is a bit of a Schrodinger’s cat. Is it real? Is it counterfeit? Before they know, how can it be a problem to post it? Would the buyer post it to an expert for authentication? The seller had a certificate from a luthier to show that it was authentic but paypal chose to ignore this because all sellers are cheating, lying, underworld criminals trying to hoodwink the poor, helpless buyer at every turn!

But, I sent off an email to a contact at paypal customer services nevertheless to try and find out the result of the enquiries they had conducted.

Dear ‘Customer Services‘,

Earlier this year, there was a story about a suposedly antique violin which had been ordered to be destroyed by Paypal. It was widely reported that you were conducting your own enquiries into the matter.

Since several months have now passed, I was wondering whether you had come to any conclusions regarding this matter.

 This is the reply I received several days ago and have not heard anything back since:

Thank you for contacting PayPal Customer Service.

In an effort to assist you as quickly and efficiently as possible,

please direct all customer service inquires through our website. Click

on the hyperlink below to go to the PayPal website. To ask a question

that is specific to your account, you must log in to your account. If

you indicate the type of question you have with as much detail as you

can, we will be able to provide you with the best customer service

possible.

If your email program is unable to open hyperlinks, please copy and

paste this URL into the address bar of your browser.

https://www.paypal.com/ewf/f=default

If you are contacting PayPal because you are unable to log into your

account, please use the contact form below.

https://www.paypal.com/ewf/f=default

Thank you for choosing PayPal!

This email is sent to you by the contracting entity to your User

Agreement, either PayPal Inc, PayPal Pte. Ltd or PayPal (Europe) S.à

r.l. & Cie, S.C.A. Société en Commandite par Actions, Registered Office:

5th Floor 22-24 Boulevard Royal L-2449, Luxembourg RCS Luxembourg B 118

349.

 

How to Survive Being Limited by Paypal 1: The First Rejection

In the fairytale of our lives, eBay and Paypal are the spiteful ugly stepsisters!
At anytime they choose, they can take their toys away and make you go and sweep out the cinders, poor and alone and dejected.

They do not need to give you a reason, it is all there in their terms and conditions so that the moment you sign up, you are at their mercy.

Paypal is not a bank. It is an intermediary which transfers payments between a buyer and a seller so that the buyer does not have to give out their credit card details online.

When you sign up to their service, you give them permission to access your credit history and to check up on you in any way that they see fit. In the second paragraph of their terms and conditions, they state that any money you keep in their system will be pooled along with other users and put all together into a bank account to earn interest. This interest is paypal’s interest and you have nothing to do with it. Herein lies the major problem, set out in black and white right at the beginning of their T & C. They use your money to earn interest.

So, obviously, it is in their interest to keep your money for as long as possible.

There are two types of limitation by paypal and both of them allow paypal to lock you out of your account for 6 months.

A temporary limitation is subject to your providing any details that they ask for. There may be a certain transaction that they are unsure about, or they may ask you to prove where you got the goods that you are selling by sending them invoices for the items you are listing.

By logging in to your paypal account, it will be possible to see what sorts of documents they want to see to help you to unlimit your account. With over 15 million users in the UK, it is impossible to see how they can investigate each case properly and much of it must be automated. Nevertheless, if you do as they ask, then your account can be usually unlimited.

 The other type of limitation is the permanent kind. In this case, Paypal will send you a cryptic email saying that your account is limited because you have breached their violations policy and this means that you will be permanently suspended with no way of getting your account back. They will hold you funds for 6 months so that they can pay any fees or disgruntled buyers, and then finally, they will let you have your money and send you a ‘Parting of ways’ email.

The eyes of eBay and Paypal are full of shards from the devil’s mirror and they can only see foulness and corruption around them, everywhere they look (The Snow Queen, Hans Christian Anderson (1805-1875), and because of this they clamp down hard on anyone who goes against their rules and instead of giving people the benefit of the doubt or taking each case on an individual basis, they just use the same strict criteria to judge everyone.

The problem is that Paypal has become such a universal and easy way to pay that, for many people, it seems that there is no way that life will survive without it. Freelancers, online retailers and other service providers depend on paypal for their livelihood. And often the only payment that buyers will prefer is paypal because, as one buyer said to me, they only trust paypal as a way of sending money online because it is thought to be very safe.

A permanent paypal limitation is a double blow because firstly it hits your income hard. Many thousands of people have taken to online retailing as a way to make ends meet between jobs, or even given up the day job to sell things online.Without this income stream, they can feel hopeless and helpless.

Secondly, it is a complete rejection. When they reject you, they use words which make you feel like a criminal. In many cases they give you no reason why you have been thrown out, only that you have ‘violated’ something. They have thrown you out of their exclusive and popular club and shut the door in your face, and no amount of begging and pleading on your part will make them open it again. This makes it even harder to turn around and walk away. You do not get to have the last word and there are no ways to make them listen. You really do feel like a gnat trying to make the elephant notice it. And a criminal gnat at that.

In part two of this series, I will highlight how people try to get around this problem…

 

How to Survive as a Paypal user

Paypal is not a bank. It is a middle man between a buyer and a seller.

As such, although they are regulated by some of the same laws as banks, they are free to make up any of their own rules as they want, so it is very important to read the Terms and Conditions.

After you sign up with them, then you will need to link a bank account or credit card to your PayPal account. This is very easy to do and to verify that it is actually your account, Paypal will put some small deposits in. Once you see these deposits in your account, then you can enter them in and your account will be verified.

As a buyer

Paypal is used on thousands of websites around the world. It is incredibly easy to buy something and pay for it almost immediately as long as there are funds in your account. If there are not enough funds, then PayPal can easily access your bank account and withdraw as much as it needs to complete the transaction.

Just like a credit card purchase, a PayPal purchase is protected if there should be anything wrong, such as the item does not arrive, or it is faulty in any way. All it takes is usually a complaint to PayPal and they will open a case to investigate.

As a Seller

Paypal is very easy to use. They allow you to put a button up on your website which lets people buy your products and services easily and quickly. The fees to receive a payment depend on where in the world you are, but for the U.K. They are 3.4% plus 20p of the Payment up to £1,500 and a tiered reduced rate for higher payments.

Unfortunately, although they actually started as a way to help the world,Paypal have been a bit arbitrary in their judgements over the years and a little heavy handed in their control of their own reputation, so I think it is necessary to have a strict policy when dealing with them.

Like everything else on the Internet, it is a good idea to do a quick search to see if they are any good and a search through Google, using the term “PayPal problem” brings up nearly half a billion web pages. Of course many of these will be duplicate content and some will be things like, ” I had a huge problem and PayPal fixed it for me”. but still, half a billion.

* Don’t keep a large balance in your PayPal account. Withdraw the funds into your bank account as soon as possible.

* Because all buyers are so protected under the Paypal system, your dealings and business are vulnerable on two sides, Paypal keeps an eye on all their sellers’ activity, and, as they say in their T&Cs at any time, they can do anything with your money, with your account, with your business and therefore, with your life. Secondly, buyers know that they are protected, so they can play all sorts of tricks to get their money back: non-delivery, faulty/broken item, problem, even weeks later, so it is vital to protect yourself as much as possible by using track able postage and accurate descriptions as much as possible.

* Do not forget the real world! In this country, there is a financial ombudsman, there are all sorts of agencies, there is the small claims court and, may e as a last resort, there are the police. It is a mistake to think that if it happens online, the. It stays online. If you have been badly treated by a buyer or by Paypal, then it is possible to get recourse through offline actions.