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PayPal’s dispute system does not help its users

admin — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 02:28:29 +0000

A customer recently lodged a PayPal dispute wanting a refund. The funds associated with the transaction were locked and my paypal balance turned negative as a result. I topped up my balance to slightly above zero in order to avoid any problems. Then it was the matter of resolving the dispute.

This should have been straight forward but when I tried to refund the transaction via the disputes screen, PayPal stated that it could not be refunded because I did not have enough funds on my PayPal account. So here is how it works: PayPal locks all funds associated with a disputed transaction and unless you have additional funds on your paypal account, you can’t refund the disputed transaction. A totally ludicrous system.

What I had to do was ask the customer to cancel the dispute so that I, in turn, could refund the transaction. The customer would have been better off not starting the dispute in the first place for it certainly did not help him get his money back. PayPal’s dispute system clearly has the principal purpose of endowing PayPal themselves with more liquidity for the time being. The idea is not to help buyers and sellers resolve anything.

PayPal steals money as an integral part of the system

admin — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 23:11:24 +0000

I have a swedish paypal account but I receive all payment to my USD balance. When I withdraw money to my swedish bank account, paypal converts from USD to SEK. PayPals currency conversion rate is around 4% below market value meaning that they steal 4% of the money being converted just like that. This is only the beginning though.

It just so happened that I initated a withdrawal of 252 USD exactly 24 hours ago. This was converted to 1,617.02 SEK at an exchange rate of 1 U.S. Dollar = 6.41677 Swedish Kronor. At this stage my USD balance was zero. Unfortunately a customer filed a complaint about an order on the magnitude of -33.27 USD today, just 1 day after the withdrawal was initated. This turned my PayPal balance negative and as a consequence the withdrawal was reversed. However, the reversed withdrawal was credited to my SEK balance, not my USD balance. To get the money over into my USD balance, from which it originally came, I would have to use PayPal’s currency conversion once more and lose another 4% in currency conversion.

This is still not the end though. PayPal happens to have the kindness to display the value of all balances combined in the currency chosen as main currency which is USD in my case. After the withdrawal had been reversed it displayed 224 USD which is a far cry from the 252 I originally had. In fact, it is is only 88% of what I had which means that 12% has been lost over the course of 2 conversions. Part of the explanation might be a change in exchange rate between the two days but it is still ridiculous. There is no valid reason why my withdrawal should not be returned to me in the currency it was converted from in the first place.

This how PayPal cuts the corners and scims extra money off of its users. It is not enough with the transaction fees which normally vary between 3% and 15% depending on transaction size. They can take up to 12% more if you don’t have a bank account denominated in the currency you receive payments in, leaving PayPal with up to 27% of your money in their pocket just like that. They are criminals.

Like Sisyphus I laboured and like Icarus I burned

admin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 02:07:31 +0000

I was up to my waist in Diablo 2 items. I could not move my legs and my arms were slowly being incapacitated as well. The year was 2007, if my memory serves me right. I had been in the business for a few years, and although it had always been quite labour intensive; it had never been anywhere near this level. Business was good overall, and I had reinvested a lot of money into it. I had spent $40K on Diablo 2 items; all of which were bought from two independent chinese suppliers. One a duper, the other a boter. Both dollar thirsty. Additionally, I had invested around $10K in computers and labour to take advantage of a short-lived dupe method. All in all, it had left me with around 1500 accounts or 12000 characters overloaded with items. The characters even had items placed on the cursor.

The investment was, of course, complete madness. The boter in particular had shoved items down my throat, and I had accepted them for no reason other than lacking the energy to say no. No sooner than I had aquired the items; Blizzard started deleting accounts on bnet in response to the dupe going public, and I was forced to mule everything over to new accounts. We are talking about 1500 accounts worth of items to move under time pressure. And not only that, I had to perm them as well due to the changes imposed on bnet. From that point on no accounts were safe unless they were regularly played on permed characters. It was nothing to it but to do it. And I did it. And did it. Over and over again.

It was a job that never ended, and for every character bumped I could feel my soul being eaten bit by bit until nothing remained. In the end even my skin burst out in flames. I cursed the Coh, the Hoz, the Enigma and the Shako but little did it help me. I was beyond redemption, and despite all the love I had given them; the ungrateful items did not give a shit. I was alone and I was burning.

Had I come too close to the sun, melting my wings in the process, or was I actually licked by the flames of hell? I am currently convinced I was in hell, and I am not talking about act IV in the game. I have stood face to face with the real Diablo, desperately withstanding the hellfire, and it has marked me for the rest of my life.

Although I no longer labour in hell; my mind and body will never recover from the experience I had there. Allergy to electricity. Screen dermatitis. Mouse arm. Like the wanderer I must now hide my appearance and stagger towards a dark future.