PayPal and a warning

HDMI

I created a post on one of the bigger watch forums but I will copy paste it here as a warning to any other members who have tighter account balances like myself.

I had a PayPal balance that I was building up, normally my account is in Euro but any sales lately I have asked to receive in USD to make future purchases easier and not suffer the dreaded PayPal currency exchange. I am not one of the fortunate who has a lucky enough life to live very comfortably, my watch hobby is self funding in that I must sell to buy.

Yesterday I made a few purchases, enough to use up my USD watch fund balance and a little extra from the bank card linked to my bank account. All transactions went through as normal but instead of taking the cash from my PayPal balance it took it all from my bank account. The end result was that it left my PayPal account with a healthy balance but my bank account near zero. I was stunned, I phoned PayPal and explained what had happened and she said it's not possible because it's set as permanent default to always use the PayPal balance first and any cards second. I explained they have near emptied my bank account, a 24 hour investigation was launched with a promise of a return call.

24 hours later and no return call so I phoned and spoke with a supervisor. I was fuming because they have left me cash poor at Easter with a bank holiday tomorrow. I also explained that my purchases were in USD which was covered by my balance being already in USD and by taking it direct from my account they gave me a nasty USD rate. The lady credited the poor currency exchange but said she was doing it as a courtesy and not as an admission of liability and it was a one off payment. Courtesy??? I went nuts, they messed up took my money from my bank account leaving me and my family skint and she acts like she is doing me a favour.

The only suggestion she had was to convert my USD balance to Euro and withdraw it to my bank account. I explained she was forcing me to make a poor exchange rate transaction that should not be happening, nothing she could do. I asked when will I get the money in to my account, her answer 1-2 business days. It's a holiday weekend I explained, basically tough nothing she can do about it.

The supervisor has said that it is a problem that they have noticed lately where the PayPal system is ignoring any existing balance in your account and taking the funds from linked cards or bank accounts instead. She said they have not found the source of the problem yet. I have filed a written complaint but don't expect much from it.

To some they maybe able to survive this and it will be trivial, my post is more of a warning for those like me who walk a tighter line when it comes to our hobby.

Richard...

Wibbs

That's unreal H. :mad::mad: Thank you for the heads up. Paypal is very useful and does give far better comeback compared to say bank transfer, but it is wise to be aware of things like this(which I certainly wasn't). I hope you get some satisfaction from them.

B1gft

Wow I use PayPal a lot for business and watch purchases. Never happened to me, that they took the money from my card over my balance and I have monthly d/d through PayPal. Hope they fix the problem soon. But I will now keep an eye on it.
Pain in the ass thought for you, bank holiday weekend and all. Hope the better half knew you were buying watches, if she did not, I would hate to explain to her how the problem arose.

Lorddrakul

That is not only a bad bug, but a terrible handling of a situation of which they seem to be only too aware.

Very poor form.

I would look to escalate that well beyond the support team.

Zagato

Lorddrakul wrote: »

That is not only a bad bug, but a terrible handling of a situation of which they seem to be only too aware.

Very poor form.

I would look to escalate that well beyond the support team.

This, I wonder is it worth posting in one of the finance forums here. I imagine you would get detailed advice on what to do to get re-embursed/compensated for any loss. Probably just re-embursed though.

Thirdfox

Well *puts lawyer hat on* - nothing I say should be taken as legal advice and professional advice should always be sought (see signature)... but as service you have used does not seem up to scratch then perhaps the sales of goods and supply of services act/EU consumer protection laws may be of help to you.

If that's the case, a potentially cheap option for seeking some recovery would be to head off to the small claims court. No need for lawyers at all. However, before seeking to go down a legal route of any kind make sure you are in the right, Paypal are not covering their ass through their standard T&Cs, and you have enough documentary proof of loss to you.

Also - as a lawyer, I suggest you don't get the law/lawyers involved unless absolutely necessary - give people a chance to be reasonable in terms of fair compensation etc.

HDMI

When you file a written complaint they have four weeks to investigate. After the initial anger and shock of seeing our bank account messed up things settled. I was lucky and had another financial outlet but some might not be so lucky and that could have been the weekly shopping budget that PayPal removes from someone's account. To me this is totally unacceptable. My watch kitty is always separate from the household funds or so I thought... lesson learned the hard way.

Reading the post that I had created on the other forum I was surprised to see some of the responses. The American users seem to use one bank account specifically for purchases. If the make a sale using PayPal as soon as the funds hit the PayPal account it is set to automatically withdraw the funds to their purchasing bank account. They also have a credit card for the purchasing account and will only make a purchase from the credit card. By doing it in this manner any issues with PayPal they just involve the credit card company to sort them out. Maybe a little overkill but it sure is safe. I'm also guessing their banking and card fees are cheaper than ours.

Ya-Boy-Ya

Excuse me if I have it wrong but if they took it from your card... surely u could just pay back the card with the balance in the PayPal account ??

Is it a timing issue ?? were u left out of pocket ???

HDMI

Ya-Boy-Ya wrote: »

Excuse me if I have it wrong but if they took it from your card... surely u could just pay back the card with the balance in the PayPal account ??

Is it a timing issue ?? were u left out of pocket ???

If you choose to buy something in a foreign currency PayPal beats you up with a horrible conversion rate, I believe I got approx 1.02 usd per euro. I already had a balance in my PayPal account already in the currency so there was no need for me to pay any conversion fee. They didn't take my balance they went direct to the card linked to my main banking account. By doing so they left a balance in USD in PayPal and a near zero balance in my bank account.

You are thinking exactly like PayPal, just withdraw the money to your bank and it's all sorted no harm done. Not so easy, first it was in a foreign currency so PayPal beat me to convert it to euro, it was a bank holiday weekend and the money did not hit my bank account until near end of business the following Wednesday. So yes I was out of pocket because I had to borrow cash to cover me until the money arrived from PayPal. Paid currency conversion twice, something went wrong they must take your balance first before going to other payment methods on your account.

For those with plenty of cash this will not be a problem but not all of us have that luxury hence my post as a heads up to others.

4-8 weeks for a full investigation until I get a proper response.

Darwin

OP I feel your pain with paypal. About two years ago I bought a Tissot watch from an online retailer in Spain (who also had a bricks and mortar store) - using paypal. I received the parcel containing a Tissot box, but no watch inside. After getting nowhere with the seller who insisted he sent it, but never bothered to follow up with the Spanish post office, I lodged a claim with paypal. They told me to get a police report on the matter. The guards wouldn't give me one because the theft (if it was that) may not have taken place in Ireland. Paypal closed the case on me - I never once received a call from them throughout the whole process. I took it up with my bank as the payment was made against my credit card and happily they accepted that I had told the truth and I got all my money back via a chargeback. It was a hard lesson learned about PayPal's supposed buyer protection.

Deep Thought

Darwin wrote: »

OP I feel your pain with paypal. About two years ago I bought a Tissot watch from an online retailer in Spain (who also had a bricks and mortar store) - using paypal. I received the parcel containing a Tissot box, but no watch inside. After getting nowhere with the seller who insisted he sent it, but never bothered to follow up with the Spanish post office, I lodged a claim with paypal. They told me to get a police report on the matter. The guards wouldn't give me one because the theft (if it was that) may not have taken place in Ireland. Paypal closed the case on me - I never once received a call from them throughout the whole process. I took it up with my bank as the payment was made against my credit card and happily they accepted that I had told the truth and I got all my money back via a chargeback. It was a hard lesson learned about PayPal's supposed buyer protection.

strange that, same happened to me, went to guards, got a ref number from them and then paypal give me all my money back

Darwin

@Deep Thought Interesting! The guard did ask me did I want to report it as stolen in Ireland and I could not obviously stand over that, so nothing gets logged into the pulse system. Paypal were very black and white over the issue despite me trying to explain the complexity of the situation to their online resolution system. In these cases I feel some common sense and sound judgement is needed on their part (does this buyer have a history of claims, what does their transaction history look like, how long have they being a member etc etc)

Ya-Boy-Ya

sugarman wrote: »

Did you even read the OP?

Helpful arent ya

blue5000

Darwin wrote: »

@Deep Thought Interesting! The guard did ask me did I want to report it as stolen in Ireland and I could not obviously stand over that, so nothing gets logged into the pulse system. Paypal were very black and white over the issue despite me trying to explain the complexity of the situation to their online resolution system. In these cases I feel some common sense and sound judgement is needed on their part (does this buyer have a history of claims, what does their transaction history look like, how long have they being a member etc etc)

Isn't there a higher paypal fee for a business transaction than transferring money as 'a gift'? Perhaps the higher fee covers you in the event of a theft?

ED E

blue5000 wrote: »

Isn't there a higher paypal fee for a business transaction than transferring money as 'a gift'? Perhaps the higher fee covers you in the event of a theft?

Yep.

The fees are very low for "friend to friend" transactions, but if you want buyer protection the seller pays 35c + 2.5% or thereabouts.

Bateman

I thought gift was used purely for the purpose of buyer paying fees?