Paypal Withholding My Money

pitkin2020

They do make their own rules. I had my account put on hold because according to the operator it was down to a number of reasons. Possible negative feedback on my account & selling a high risk item. Well the item that caused my account to be blocked was for a bouncy castle and the buyer had left positive feedback after they received it and the rest of my feedback was 100% positive. Even the operator on the phone after checking all that for themselves couldn't see why my account was on hold but it still took another 2 calls to get through to someone who was prepared to deal with the problem.

toffe

Oliver14 wrote: »

Paypal are no longer a member of the FSA so ombudsman has limited powers which are now pretty weak. So i'm afraid they are not the Panacia that everyone seems to think.
,

yea but regardless it costs PayPal £500 notes for every complaint so that gives you some bargaining power, admitedly paypal have far more money than they do sense so it won't assure you of the result you might hope for but it is widely accepted by financial experts both here and in the US that paypal hold your funds in an interest paying account so at least by costing them £500 the op will have the satisfaction that they made a loss on holding his £240 for six months.

Oliver14 wrote: »

The reason they do 6 months is that is the maximum amount a credit card chargeback can be done so they are covering themselves from loss. If they didn't the fees would be far higher and everyone would be whinging about that.,

the two most common forms of funding on paypal are existing paypal funds and bank funding (direct debit) paypal already protect themselves from credit card charge backs by having bank funding as their main method of funding paypal transactions, they will only use a card, debit or credit, to fund a purchase where the buyer does not have bank funding set up, but since they force everyone to set up bank funding during bank account verification thats not very many.
so the chances that this transaction was funded by a credit card are slim, but paypal will freeze funds for six month even where no card was used, why when they only allow 45 days for a customer to open a dispute?

and on your point about fees being higher is they didn't do this, nonsense, paypal's fees are already higher than most card merchants by a long, long way and selling on ebay is far more expensive than running your own website so if they did/do increse prices much more people will simply switch to their own website and ditch paypal.

Thats what i have done along with thousands of other ex ebay sellers, is my business failing without ebay and paypal? erm, no it's actually more profitable, so ebay and paypal are not a vital part of ecommerce after all, who'd have thunk it eh?

Oliver14 wrote: »

It will be more than that one thing that they have done this. Paypal can be random but they do not block accounts just because you are selling risky items. ,

errm, sorry but yes they do, they told me so when they closed one of my established accounts, they reopened it but told me the reason for the sudden shut down was simply because i listed some electrical items that were in ebay's "high risk catagory" they were mp3 players just in case you're wondering.

Oliver14 wrote: »

. Paypal the same as any other financial institution have the right to protect themselves.,

Very true, but that is balanced with a legal requirement to treat users fairly and not try to hide behind contractual terms which purport to grant them carte blanche to treat you as unfairly as they like, that is why the Unfair Terms In Consumer Contracts Act was drawn up after all.

excel

toffe wrote: »

yea but regardless it costs PayPal £500 notes for every complaint so that gives you some bargaining power, admitedly paypal have far more money than they do sense so it won't assure you of the result you might hope for but it is widely accepted by financial experts both here and in the US that paypal hold your funds in an interest paying account so at least by costing them £500 the op will have the satisfaction that they made a loss on holding his £240 for six months.

Sorry, just spoke to a manager at PP's complaints department and he said it won't cost them anything as they are not regulated by the UK ombudsman rather than Luxembourg's CSSF and one would have to take it up with them...on the contrary he claimed as they would have to abide by UK banking legislation that required them to put funds on hold/review them... cunningly when asked which law/legislation he actually refers to he bailed out by saying that he is not a legal expert... great so PP has found every loophole possible to avoid being challenged for their actions..

bris

excel wrote: »

Sorry, just spoke to a manager at PP's complaints department and he said it won't cost them anything as they are not regulated by the UK ombudsman rather than Luxembourg's CSSF and one would have to take it up with them...on the contrary he claimed as they would have to abide by UK banking legislation that required them to put funds on hold/review them... cunningly when asked which law/legislation he actually refers to he bailed out by saying that he is not a legal expert... great so PP has found every loophole possible to avoid being challenged for their actions..

The thread is over a year old, don't drag it back up again for nothing.

wealdroam

Excel, I am not sure why you have decided to revive this fourteen month old thread, but their User Agreement says...

14.2 ECC-Net, Financial Ombudsman Service and CSSF. If you have a complaint to make about us, you may choose to escalate it by contacting one of the following:

1. European Consumer Centre (ECC-Net). You may obtain further information regarding the ECC-Net and how to contact them at (http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/redress_cons/)
2. UK Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS is a free, independent service which might be able to settle a complaint between you and us (even if you are not a UK user). You may obtain further information regarding the FOS and contact the FOS at http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
3. Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF). The CSSF is the authority responsible for the prudential supervision of companies in the financial sector in Luxembourg. You can contact the CSSF at 110 Route d’Arlon L-2991 Luxembourg. You may obtain further information regarding the CSSF and how to contact them at: http://www.cssf.lu.

So one has a choice.

They go on to say...

14.3 Governing Law and Jurisdiction. This Agreement and the relationship between us shall be governed by English law.