"Paypal Sucks"
Some people really hate Paypal. I have a love-hate relationship with them: I love that it's easy and secure to move money around online without having to type in credit card numbers on a site with dubious security. I hate that Paypal tries to dodge federal regulation by insisting it's not a bank, when it probably really is. Indeed, their customer service is very bank like -- it sucks!
I haven't had any horror stories with them, but there are so many horror stories about Paypal that there's a popular web site called Paypal Sucks that's helping press a lawsuit against the eBay-owned company.
Juan Zamora probably would say that "Paypal sucks". The Spokane, Washington, man pulled into a gas station and used his Paypal-issued debit card to buy fuel. He knew he had $90 in his Paypal account -- more than enough to fill his '94 Camero.
After putting in $26 worth of go-juice, he went on his way. But Paypal debited his account not $26, not the entire $90 he had in his account, but $81,400,836,908. He found out because Paypal left him a voicemail message asking him to confirm the transaction.
Yeah, gas prices are up, but not that much!
"That's a B, as in billions!" an astounded Zamora told the local newspaper, the Tri-City Herald in Kennewick.
Worried that Paypal would drain his other bank accounts to cover the "overdraft", Zamora called Paypal customer service. That was probably a mistake.
"Somebody from a foreign country who spoke in broken English argued with me for 10 to 15 minutes," Zamora said. The customer service rep actually asked him, "Did you get the gas?" he said. Well yeah, but not that much gas! "Like I had to prove that I didn't pump $81,400,836,908 in gas!"
It got cleared up, apparently without Zamora having to make up the difference.
(Source)
Paypal customer service gave me the runaround recently too.
Readers can buy upgraded subscriptions to my weekly This is True weird-news newsletter. If they don't want to have to bother with renewals every year, I have an auto-renewal button that sets up a "recurring" annual subscription using Paypal. That's cool: I don't have to send them renewal notices, and they don't have to bother doing anything to renew every year.
But now and then people need to cancel their subscription, and they often write to me for directions on how to cancel. I used to have a link to Paypal's help system that gave them directions -- they set up the subscription, and it's easy for them to cancel it, but it's sometimes hard to find exactly where to find that cancel link.
That was great -- until Paypal changed their help system, which broke the link. So I went searching for the new one, and absolutely could not find it. Their help system now uses dynamic URLs: it uses the "session ID" to keep the context, which means I can't give someone a URL, they have to drill down the help menus themselves to find the information. Not very helpful!
So I clicked on the "Contact Us" button and asked Paypal: what's a link that I can give to my subscribers so they can cancel their subscriptions?
Here's my message:
Subject: How do I link to an answer? Additional Information: You have a nice help page, "solutionId=#####", which tells people how to cancel a recurring subscription. But the link to it is ridiculously huge, with a session-id and more garbage embedded. I want to be able to link people to pull it right up WITHOUT it having to wrap in an e-mail. Please provide a link I can actually USE for this purpose to reduce my AND YOUR support loads. Thanks.
And sure enough, in due course I got a reply:
| Dear Randy Cassingham,
Thanks for contacting PayPal. My name is Carolyn and I appreciate the opportunity to assist you with your questions. You can cancel your subscription through your PayPal history log. Here's how:
If your subscription period is over, the following cancellation message will be posted "Subscription Completion." Additional subscription payments will not be taken from your PayPal account unless you renew or start a new subscription with a seller or service. Here's more information:
It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal. Sincerely, |
Notice anything? Yeah: they're telling me how to cancel "my" subscription. I don't have one! See, I don't have to pay for my own newsletter. They saw "how to cancel subscription" and replied with a boilerplate reply to get on with their day. It didn't answer my question at all. So I replied:
This doesn't answer my question AT ALL. How do I ***LINK*** to this information to help my customers?!
Two days later I got the reply:
| Dear Randy Cassingham,
Thank you for taking the time to write to us with your concerns. I apologize for the difficulty you've experienced. I will try my best to assist you with your inquiries. In regard to your query, I believed what you're trying to point out is that you wanted to set up a subscription wherein you can send automatic payments to your customers. If that's the case, please see details below on how you can do that. To use the button designer, your web browser must be JavaScript enabled.
Note: After creating your first button, click "Go to My saved buttons" and bookmark this page for easy access to your saved buttons. The Website Payments Standard Integration Guide is a comprehensive manual that includes instructions for incorporating PayPal payments into a merchant's website. Included in the guide is information relating to:
Here's how to locate the Website Payments Integration Guide:
I would like to let you know that you are valuable to us, and it is always my priority to help you resolve your concern. If you do feel that this information is not enough, please do not hesitate to email us back or call us at 1-888-221-1161 so we can assist you directly. Sincerely, |
Translation: "Oh, our first assumption wasn't the answer to your question? Let us assume something else that had nothing to do with your question."
I replied again:
NO. Can't you just READ my original message rather than just guess what it's about and sending ridiculous boilerplate replies that don't even come close to the topic?I want a LINK that I can give to my customers that tells THEM how to cancel recurring subscriptions. Your stupid "help" system throws all sorts of "Session ID" garbage on links that don't work when removed. I need a CLEAR and PERMANENT link that won't break in e-mail which I can send to users who need help.
I may as well have been talking to a wall. In fact, I was. Another two days for their reply:
| Dear Randy Cassingham,
Thank you for taking the time to write to us with your concerns. I am happy to assist you further. I am sorry for the inconvenience that this has caused you. Actually the buyer cancel this subscription on their PayPal account. Please forward this information to your buyers. You can cancel your subscription through your PayPal history log. Here's how:
If your subscription period is over, the following cancellation message will be posted "Subscription Completion." Additional subscription payments will not be taken from your PayPal account unless you renew or start a new subscription with a seller or service. Here's more information:
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again. Sincerely, |
Un-freaking-believeable! They can't just say they don't have a URL? I replied:
Incredible.A URL. I want a URL with instructions. You can't provide a URL? I've asked what, FIVE TIMES now for a URL and you can't provide that? And you call it "help"? Unbelievable!
They were apparently even more pissy than I was -- there was no reply from Paypal's "customer service".
I'll tell you what Paypal needs. No, I'm not going to say "account managers" or "better customer support" or even "smart customer support".
No, what Paypal needs is a strong competitor.
Feel free to tell your Paypal horror story using the Comments form.
>:-(
Randy Cassingham is the author of This is True and the True Stella Awards, and is the founder of Cranky Customer.
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Comments
I hardly know where to start! I will try to make it as short and sweet as I can, but that won't be easy. Let's see - there was the first time about 2 years ago. I was a DIE HARD Paypal fan and didn't understand why anyone would complain about them... then I found out for myself. Paypal got some kind of a "hiccup" and double-debited my bank account for every one of my eBay purchases that week. May not sound like much to most people, but I LOVE eBay and bought a lot of things that week. The purchases amounted to several hundred dollars which was DOUBLED when the charges came out of my bank. I didn't HAVE that big of a cushion in the account to protect me in case of a large error like that, so all of my bills bounced before I realized anything was wrong. (Why would I worry, anyway? They told me that Paypal is PERFECTLY safe and NEVER makes mistakes.) I contacted Paypal and they were happy to put the money back – but REFUSED to pay for the overdraft charges they had cost me at the bank. Now, wait a minute! The error was THEIRS. I shouldn't have to pay for it. I spoke to customer service reps, their supervisors, the supervisors' supervisors all the way from here to India. (Literally – most with such broken English that I wasn't even sure they understood what I was saying.) They put the amount in error back into my account – but it was eaten up with more overdraft charges as all the bills tried to come through again. It was like an avalanche that just would NOT STOP.
The bank finally advised me to get a letter from Paypal indicating what had happened and they would reverse the overdraft charges and get everything cleared up. Paypal refused to put anything in writing admitting their error. That isn't their "policy" to do something like that, I was told. I finally had to close my bank account (which I had in good standing for YEARS prior to that), pay the overdraft charges out of my own pocket and open a new bank account just to get straightened out again. At the time we closed it, the balance was more than $700 OVERDRAWN!!!!! That doesn't count the NSF fees I had to pay on all of the bills that never did clear the account.
Wait – it gets BETTER! After that Paypal started trying to debit the account again (apparently the error hadn't been fixed and their computer thought it hadn't been paid) but since the account was closed, they were refused. I started getting messages from the sellers I had done business with asking me what happened. Apparently Paypal took the money I had paid them back OUT of their accounts (thinking my payments had bounced). So, they froze my Paypal account and started sending me BILLS through the mail. Somehow the records got all turned around at their end to indicate that now I owed THEM money because the bank wouldn't let them debit again (for money they had already been paid, anyway). I swore I would NEVER use Paypal again. Bunch of crooks! I shopped on eBay with money orders and checks for 2 years.
Then eBay started this new rule some months ago where sellers may ONLY accept Paypal payments – no more checks and money orders. I wasn't happy about it, but didn't want to stop shopping on eBay. I LOVE eBay! So, I thought what happened before might be an isolated incident – a freak occurrence that would never happen again. I tried to open another Paypal account. By now I have a different bank account, a different address and even a different phone number. They still made the connection, though. They sent me an email basically saying "You can have another account once you pay us hundreds of dollars that you owe from a previous account." I decided not to fight it out with them again this time. Too much trouble and I'm not that young anymore. I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and told them I think Paypal is violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and shouldn't be allowed to enforce their "Paypal only" rule. We'll see if anything happens. In the meantime, I wish Paypal worked like they are supposed to work. If they really WERE what they advertise themselves to be, they would be incredible instead of the nightmare that is reality.
Posted by: Melanee Hemet, CA | May 22, 2009 5:19 PM
I'm happy to use Google Checkout when businesses offer it. I've had my own issues with PayPal. I bought a collection of web site templates and software, which upon inspection had copyright notices, and I was able to confirm with one of the copyright owners that the merchant had no right to sell this. I complained to PayPal that the merchant was breaking the law and that he was selling stolen merchandise. PayPal's sole criteria for whether to reverse the charge was: "was the merchandise delivered?" Despite the fact that it was illegal for him to sell it and it would be illegal for me to use it, they sided with the thief and let him keep the money. I even appealed it and they sided with him. I was flabbergasted.
The only reason I use Paypal is because sometimes they're the only game in town. But, seriously, the feds should totally clamp down on them.
Posted by: Tom, Washington | May 22, 2009 6:14 PM
I don't know why you are carping about PayPal specifically when there are virtually no companies in the United States with anything resembling decent customer service. I have no complaint about PayPal's service and I have been using them long before eBay bought them out.
On the other hand, as you said, companies like PayPal need competitors. Without competition major companies have so many customers that they do not give a shit about losing a few thousand patrons here and there. Perhaps, the new Google roll-out will provide PayPal with a slap in the face. If Paypal does not shape up soon then they might find themselves holding the short end of the stick.
It matters not to me who I do business with as long as they treat me well if I have a problem.
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The idea here, John, is to call out companies when they've done something specific to earn the rag. Yeah, I have a lifetime of potential material. -rc
Posted by: John, Texas | May 22, 2009 6:42 PM