WOW. What a messed up day. Let me say this right off the bat. PAYPAL SUCKS. They are evil and should be punished for their what seems to be ILLEGAL tactics. They have a license to steal as they do not follow the laws and rules of banking institutions. They are not officially a bank so they can do this.

Let me rewind back to about 6 years ago. Back in 2003 I had a paypal account and I bought and sold high end audio equipment. I used my paypal account for over a year with some pretty high dollar amount transactions. One transaction I had was for a used high end Sony CD Player. It was their first Super Audio CD Player, the SCD-1. New, they sold for $5000. Used, they brought in around $2300. I purchased a mint used SCD-1 for $1900 and listed it for sale at $2500. I sold it for $2300 and shipped it out after the customer sent me the paypal funds.

I double boxed the unit with rigid foam in between the double boxes. The unit itself was strapped inside the original box with no way of shifting or moving. It could of been tossed down a flight of stairs and survived. I had a rep for great packaging and shipping.

Anyway, the buyer gets the unit AND, get this, sends me an e-mail that it was great and he loved it! A week later paypal deducts $2300 from my account and tells me the customer was disputing the purchase because he said it arrived damaged. He told paypal the corner was busted and it did not work! I immediately forwarded paypal the e-mail he sent to me telling me it was great and he loved it. He never mentioned damage to me? I was confused??

I was confident that paypal would reverse and give me the money back. Well, I was right. A week later and they put the $2300 back in to my acct and said I won the dispute. I guess the guy never complained to UPS and the e-mail he sent to me saying he loved it clinched it. The truth is he was a fraud trying to get a free $2300 CD Player and it almost worked!

That whole thing spooked me so I ended up pulling all of my money out of paypal and I opened my own merchant  account to accept my own credit card sales. This way I would be assured that paypal could not just take my money when they felt like it. I am glad I did.

A week or two later I logged in to my paypal acct to close the acct and it showed a NEGATIVE $2300 balance! The same guy disputed again with paypal, this time telling them the CD player stopped working and still had damage. Now keep in mind, all this time the buyer NEVER contacted me about damage. He never put in a damage claim with UPS and he had a few negative feedback comments on e-bay and another big audio site.

Somehow, someway, paypal gave him his money back but he never sent me the so called “defective, damaged” CD player back. I was SHOCKED! I was harassed by paypal for months. I told them to kiss my ass and there was NO WAY I was depositing that $2300 to my PP acct while the buyer had the merchandise. They would not let me close the acct. After a while their calls stopped and that was that.

Here is the kicker. That guy that bought my CDP had it listed on AUDIOGON for $2800 just a month later in MINT condition. Not only did he get his money back from paypal, he was reselling the CD player. What a scam.

I was happy that I got out with my money. What a relief.

STUPID ME, I RETURN TO PAYPAL...

For 6 years I did without a paypal account. Anytime I had to sell something I either used my merchant account or insisted on a check or MO. Last year I sold my business so I no longer had my merchant account. Selling my camera gear all of the sudden became a hassle. No one wants to send a check or MO these days. They all want to use PAYPAL.

After I put this site up 6 months ago I decided to open a new account. I moved to a new state, I had a new bank account, and a new phone number. My old paypal account was under my business name and this new account would be a personal account. I was concerned that they would not let me open an account due to the nightmare 6 years earlier but they did. For the last 6 months I have used  the account and had zero issues. I sold a couple of M8’s and some lenses. I was saving up for the future Leica M9 and had my cash all ready with $2900 of that cash still IN PAYPAL.

FAST FORWARD TO THE PRESENT DAY - SAT - AUGUST 29th 2009

I wake up, get my coffee and check my e-mail. I see an e-mail from paypal saying my account is “limited” - I click on how to resolve it and  they said my account has been linked with my old account and I needed to resolve the issues with that account to un-freeze my acct. I log in to the old acct and its just locked and says there is nothing I can do about it.

I call paypal, stay on hold for TWO HOURS and they never get on the line. I have a busy day ahead of me so I decide to call later.

I tried again and just say here for 30 minutes on hold. Finally, I get someone. They said all they can tell me is that my account is limited due to my old account. I asked how I could solve this. She said “log in to the old account and resolve the issues with it”. I tell her that when I log in to that account it just has one screen and says it has been locked and there are no options for me to do anything. She then says there is nothing she can do. WHAT???? I then get connected to someone else who says I have to pay $2300 in order for them to “consider” releasing my $2900 back to me. Did I just enter the twilight zone?

UNBELIEVABLE.

I am so sick. There goes my money. There goes my future M9 (if it is announced and released as rumored). The only good thing about this is that I already withdrew the money from my lens and one M8 sale and all I had in the paypal account was $2900 instead of $7000. Still, without that $2900, no M9. So today is a CRAP ASS day. Thanks paypal for ruining my day, my week, my month.

paypalsucks.com

Here are some facts about paypal directly FROM paypalsucks.com:

“1. According to PayPal accepting their ToS (Terms of Service) in effect means you waive your rights to credit card consumer protection laws if you want to use their service, and that you may not issue a chargeback for unauthorized use of your credit card and PayPal account, or if you do, then they have the right to limit your account. Is this legal? We don't know. But it's how Paypal operates. See my credit card waiver page for more information.

2. Their customer service is horrible. They used to hide their telephone number, (intentionally - by their own admission) and only provided support via "form" emails:

"As for the customer service, Sollitto said they intentionally make the phone number very difficult to find in order to save costs."

This is confirmed in the book "PayPal Wars". If you have a problem, you are at their mercy! (And you will eventually have a problem.) The only reason their number can be found now is because they were forced to by law (EFTA Electronic Funds Transaction Act) due to complaints from users of this website. You can also click on our FAQs page. Just scroll down a bit, and you'll find their phone numbers, plus their toll free numbers as well, plus a huge list of unpublished PayPal phone numbers.

3. Their terms of service are not completely disclosed upon signup and some key "conditions" are not disclosed. They fail to mention their total lack of security to prevent your account from being compromised by phishing & spoof sites. That if your account is accessed by a criminal using one of these methods, PayPal will hold YOU monetarily & legally responsible! Also, no place do they openly tell potential members that their money is 100% at risk. That PayPal can, will, and has in the past, completely cleaned out customers' accounts, (including your checking or savings account) with no appeals process available. Instead they bury in the fine print of 37 pages of their "Terms of Service" (ToS) where they disclose to you that PayPal can close your account for any reason what-so-ever, or no reason, and then you have to wait 180 days to get your money. Think that'll never happen? Think again. That's what everyone thinks till it happens to them.

4. If PayPal feels your actions are questionable, PayPal is the investigator, judge, jury and executioner. "Telling your side" of what happened, in most cases seems to be irrelevant. They also refuse to provide you with the details of their investigation and withhold documents they relied upon to make their decisions. Your only contact will be an email that says:

Thank you for contacting PayPal. We apologize for the delay in respondingto your service request.

After review, the decision has been made to keep your account locked. This decision cannot be appealed.

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email.

That will be the end of it as far as PayPal is concerned. You can email back, but you'll just get more of the same. Oh yea, and you'll have to wait 180 days to get your money.

5. If you are a bona fide, up-standing individual with hundreds of successful transactions, but someone pays you with a stolen credit card, your account (by PayPal's own admission) is immediately flagged as being "criminal behavior" and any money in that account is confiscated. If a customer "disputes" the charge, same thing happens. (See email above.) PayPal claims that they will fight chargebacks, but read this before you fall for that one.

6. 6.Paypal's fees for NON-credit card funding are the same as for credit cards! This is the single biggest rippoff on their site. We understand Paypal charging a fee when you fund your account with a credit card. After all, they are being charged by Visa/Mastercard, etc. And we understand there is a lot of fraud with credit card funding. However, most of the money sent within the Paypal system no longer comes from credit card funding. However, money spent from PayPal account to PayPal account is subject to the exact same fees credit card purchases are! This money has been in the system for years and is "clean." That is, there are no fees at all to Paypal, and there is almost no fraud at all with this money, but Paypal charges the SAME fees to transactions with NON-credit card funds! Thus every transaction makes PayPal money, but it's nothing more than an entry in a computer database on their system. No money has actually moved, and there are no costs to Paypal. They are just skimming the gravy.”
   

Again, the above was taken from PAYPALSUCKS.COM

So beware of paypal. If you have that one un-lucky transaction like I did it you could end up with whatever money you have in your acct STOLEN by them.

So. What can I do? Apparently not much. Sure I can get a lawyer and sue but at what cost? I have talked with others today who this has happened to as well with one guy having his account locked with over $20,000 in it. Amazing. No more paypal or e-bay for me. EVER. This was an expensive lesson.

Even though I will not be able to buy my own M9 now (after selling my M8.2) due to this loss I will still have a review, again, if it is announced and released as rumored :)

UPDATE - Just spoke with a “collection agency” for paypal who says they have been trying to collect this money from me for all of these years. Funny because it never affected my A1 credit rating. They told me if I paid them $2300 they would tell paypal to release my $2900. I told them to just go ahead and use the balance in my current paypal account to pay the $2300. This way I would be done with it and at least get back $600 right? WRONG!

She said they can not do that and I would have to give her a current credit card# to pay the $2300! This way I am now out $5300 and I would only HOPE that paypal would release my current $2900, which they already told me they would only “consider” doing after I paid the now $2300.

All of this from a guy who ripped ME off on a $3000 CD player 6 years ago by scamming to get the CD player and his money back. Still in shock here and pissed off beyond belief. Guess crime does pay for some!