PayPal Is Threatening to Suspend My Account

Windows7forever on 30/11/2016 - 04:51

I just received this legit email from them:

Dear XXXX,
We’ve noticed that you’ve had a higher than average rate of issues with your PayPal transactions. Such problems may include claims you have initiated with PayPal or through your financial institution or bank.
We want you to be happy with your purchases, but we may find it necessary to suspend your PayPal account privileges if we continue to notice a high number of problems with your PayPal transactions. Pending further review, we may also suspend any outstanding and future buyer protection claims, and we reserve the right to deny these claims.
We simply wanted to give you a chance to reassess your account activity for the future. You don’t need to take any action, and we don’t require a response to this message.
Thanks,
PayPal

I have only opened a few disputes within paypal in the last 12 months for problem transactions; 3 for items not received and 1 for item significantly not as described. Generally the seller will pre-emptively refund the money once they see a negative feedback or if I open a dispute for a transaction. I have only had to escalate 1 case in this time to get my money back; the others were all voluntarily resolved between myself and the seller. I have never had to initiated chargebacks through my bank account. These disputed payments were all small amounts of money (< $10).

It seems Paypal trying to bully me into not opening future disputes but that crap is not gonna work with me.
They are potentially reneging on their buyer protection policy. If they end up terminating my account I will be taking them to the Ombudsman and appealing it. It has happened before (over a different PP matter) and I beat them at their own game.

Is there a limit to the number of disputes you can open per year?
Should I be opening disputes in ebay instead? I've been initiating them in PP for years long before ebay had a dispute resolution system.

Only they know what sort of convoluted criteria they use to assess these things and leave their customers in the dark. I have hated this company for many years but unfortunately we still need them.

Financial

Comments

  • whooah1979 on 30/11/2016 - 05:58
    +2

    I have only opened a few disputes within paypal in the last 12 months for problem transactions; 3 for items not received and 1 for item significantly not as described.

    It's easy to see why pp is cracking down on you. One dispute every three months based on how transactions?

    Their algorithm has flag your account because of you're are in top percentile in disputes.

  • djmatt24 on 30/11/2016 - 06:27
    -1

    4 disputes in a year probably puts you in the top 1% of paypal users with issues. Seems fair to let you know this.

    If you contact the seller directly, aren't they able to administer a refund without having you needing to raise a dispute?

    • whooah1979 on 30/11/2016 - 06:35
      +2

      If you contact the seller directly, aren't they able to administer a refund without having you needing to raise a dispute?

      many buyers always use the stick no matter what. they don't realising that the carrot will get things done quicker, while keeping both parties happy in the process.

    • [Deactivated] on 30/11/2016 - 12:10

      4 disputes is the top 1%?
      Where did you pull this bs from?

      You don't even know how many purchases he's made.

      • djmatt24 on 30/11/2016 - 15:11
        -2

        No data, but using a bit of common sense. There's actually probably far less than 1 in every 100 (1%) who have 4 disputes in a year, regardless of how many transactions (though of course, I don't have the data, so it's all speculation).

        • [Deactivated] on 30/11/2016 - 18:42

          But if he has 4 disputes out of 10,000 transactions… 0.04% dispute rate

          Compare that to someone who has 4 disputes out of 10 transactions… 40% dispute rate

          So you're not using common sense, you're making shit up.

        • djmatt24 on 30/11/2016 - 22:26

          @Drew22: I said it's all speculation, and your comment is speculative too. (10,000 transactions/year…~30/day, seriously??!)

        • [Deactivated] on 30/11/2016 - 22:27

          @djmatt24:

          It's called an exaggeration

  • [Deactivated] on 30/11/2016 - 07:09

    Yes, you should be using the ebay escalation as your first resort.

  • Indie on 30/11/2016 - 07:16
    +2

    I always assumed that any dispute with ebay starts with contacting the seller first to see if they can resolve the matter (this was my first step when something I puchased did'nt arrive a few months back). There is a generic "ask the seller" questions list for doing this. If this fails then you open a dispute with ebay. I'm not sure opening a dispute with paypal as a first step allows the seller to rectify any issues.

    As whooah1979 asked, how many paypal transactions in total you have made in the last 12 months?

    • Kangal on 30/11/2016 - 09:30
      -1

      To be honest, I prefer that people keep abusing PayPal.
      It's because I friggen hate that "Ask Seller a Question" button.

      It is WAAYYY complicated.
      How?
      Have you tried looking for the button before?
      Some auctions actually DON'T have it !
      Why?
      I don't know why, it's eBay.
      And so if you contact a seller from their Online Store page, guess what?
      They have NO IDEA what you're talking about because the message is not linked to that particular item.
      You need to physically type in which item you were looking at.
      Or link to the eBay url/item number.
      Not only that, Online Stores can be customised.
      So you can't find the button half the time, because things have been moved.
      So what do you do?
      You click on a DIFFERENT item, and send a message through there.
      And you have to explain that you're actually asking about another item.
      …you see, complicated !

      It is because eBay does NOT want the buyer to communicate with the seller.
      They want buyers to buy items online.
      Pay immediately through their PayPal system.
      And hope to receive the item sooner or later.

      Sounds stupid, but this is their entire business model.

      • Windows7forever on 30/11/2016 - 19:39
        +1

        I'm not sure why you were negged but I tend to agree with you. Ebay and PP are both crooks and all they care about is profits. These two companies treat seller with the utmost contempt and buyers only marginally better.

        • illumination on 01/12/2016 - 22:27

          There aren't too many companies out there that call themselves companies that don't prioritise profits.

          The only one I can think of is "Charity".

          I'm not saying that customer service is not important, but what I am saying is that the sole reason for their existence is to make money. The service they offer you is largely secondary. It sucks, but it's life.

        • Windows7forever on 02/12/2016 - 01:32

          @illumination: you're taking my wording too literally.

  • [Deactivated] on 30/11/2016 - 08:17

    please tell us more about this previous PayPal matter.

  • hashtagbargain on 30/11/2016 - 09:37
    +2

    Or get ahead of the whole issue by creating a new paypal account.

    • altomic on 30/11/2016 - 09:39
      +2

      Created an account just to "+" this comment

      • illumination on 01/12/2016 - 22:28

        Member Since
        19/10/2010

        What a liar lol

        .. or did you mean you created a PayPal account then plus'd that comment?

    • Windows7forever on 30/11/2016 - 19:40

      But it will be linked to your legal name and IP address so they will just ban you when they notice multiple PP accounts for the same entity. I think they call it "fraud detection".

  • timmypete on 30/11/2016 - 10:49

    Slightly off-topic, but Paypal has flagged my account for address confirmation >15 times in the last fortnight. Within seconds of accepting my home address, I get another automated email asking me to confirm address, and of course they haven't replied to tickets raised on the matter. This hasn't - of course - stopped the passive aggressive "because you haven't replied to our request for information, we will close your account" style messages.

    I wish more stores would offer non-Paypal payment methods, as this sort of approach to customer service would normally cause me to close my account with them.

  • [Deactivated] on 30/11/2016 - 11:14
    +1

    Because there are far too many people actively scamming on eBay. PayPal/eBay need to do something. I'm not implying you are scamming, but PayPal/eBay may think you are based on information they have.

  • [Deactivated] on 30/11/2016 - 15:38
    +1

    Paypal are full of scams themselves. If you buy an item, the direct debit is instant or overnight, but I just refunded a buyer and Paypal took the money from my account early on and holds it for days before giving it to the buyer. Their 3-5 business day 'processing' or 'pending' is generating interest for themselves and serves no purpose for the buyer or seller at all. There is no investigation underway, just holding generating interest for Paypal.

  • phamaroo on 30/11/2016 - 17:26

    I've gotten that email from PayPal and a similar one from eBay very recently. Don't care to be honest, and neither should you.

    • Windows7forever on 30/11/2016 - 19:46

      You will when they :
      a) freeze all of your existing funds sitting in your PP account and tell you to wait 180 days to claim ownership for the funds
      b) block your ebay account indefinitely without further notice
      c) block your pp account indefinitely without further notice
      d) block every additional account associated with the same IP address as the so called "high risk account". If you have a shared internet access this will shut down your whole household's/family's access.

      I had a nightmare with PP freezing my account about 3 years ago and don't want to go through that again!
      During the last incident, my PP account was mistakenly flagged as being "high risk" due to changing the bank details and email address associated with the account, and making a withdrawal of the funds at one time. It doesn't take much to piss them off.

      I said I'd never come back but I can't help but be seduced by the devil's allure of false gold (cheap online bargains).

  • [Deactivated] on 30/11/2016 - 20:00

    I got the same email after making 3 or 4 claims close together a year or so ago. I haven't needed to make another claim since so nothing more happened.

  • mbck on 30/11/2016 - 20:08
    +1

    Sheez, op has a lot of things going on in his life atm. All the best

    • Windows7forever on 01/12/2016 - 04:09

      I have far more going on than petty pp disputes. But yeah, things are a bit tough at the moment.

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