PayPal: who regulates it? Who can you complain to?

November 24, 2008 By 29 Comments

We try to find out who regulates PayPal and what they do with the complaints they receive.

Consider signing this online petition.

I have to start by saying that I don’t think I’ve found a company with as many serious allegations againt it as PayPal. Here are just a tiny, tiny fraction. Take a moment to look at some of those complaints. Or these. Or this view.

Then ask yourself: “what would I do if this was my business they were talking about”?

I spent a couple of hours today trying to find out where these desperately unhappy and furiously angry people go, since it’s clear from what they say that PayPal isn’t listening to them. I want to know who or what – if anything – regulates PayPal.

Wikipedia has this to say:

“In Europe, PayPal is registered as a bank in Luxembourg under the legal name PayPal (Europe) Sarl et Cie SCA, a company regulated centrally by the Luxembourg bank authority, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF)

PayPal had been registered in the UK as Paypal (Europe) Ltd, an entity which was licensed as an Electronic Money Issuer with the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) from 2004.

This ceased in 2007, when the company moved to Luxembourg, however the Luxembourg entity is still regulated by the FSA, as it is an entity from the European Economic Area which conducts regulated activities in the UK. “

So it seems that the Financial Services Authority is a place to turn to. And here’s some extra advice from a disgruntled PayPal customer:

“BE SURE TO KEEP COMPLAINTS FACTUAL AND INCLUDE THIS – PayPal FSA Register Number: 226056. The FSA will not look into individual complaints but if they get enough people complain about Paypal then they will look into their business practices. Individual complaints should be directed to the Financial Ombudsman as they will deal with individual issues when Paypal steal your money!”

That’s useful information.

Next step will be to try to contact those bodies to find out how they handle complaints about a company like PayPal. That should be interesting.

I did that, and posted this step by step guide to complaining about PayPal in the UK.

Update: 8/01/10

You know, what’s probably most telling about PayPal’s lack of accountability and effective regulation is that if you do a Google search for “who regulates paypal” you don’t go to a page on PayPal’s site where they lay out clearly to their customers how they’re regulated.  Or a Financial Ombudsman page.  Or a UK Government consumer advice page or… or..

No.  You just get my post.

Just take a moment to think about what that actually means. Astonishing.

Filed Under: The Dripping Tap Tagged With: , , ,

Obama name shock 2

November 24, 2008 By Leave a Comment

‘Obama’ leather jacket by Remus Uomo.

This caught my eye in a menswear shop in Tavistock today and got me wondering: officially-approved merchandise or just happy coincidence?

It’s not that I’m surprised to see manufacturers making the most of the Obama name. It’s just that somehow, I thought it would be an IKEA kitchen stool, not a brown leather jacket.

What did surprise me was that Remus Uomo have this out in the shops and a website that’s ‘under construction’.

Doh.

Filed Under: smile Tagged With: , ,

Paypal ‘buyer dispute’: unbelievable scam opportunity

November 21, 2008 By 2 Comments

Buyer raises ‘dispute’, sends back anything and PayPal will refund money (and charge fees).

Apparently, this is all the rage. Happened to my brother. He talks about it here. Happened to lots of other people. They post about it here. This guy talks about a version of the scam here. And lots of other seriously unhappy PayPal customers air their views here. That’s a lot of bad, unhappy energy.

But the ‘buyer dispute’ scam is just a tiny fraction of the bad news associated with PayPal, an organisation that seems to be, literally, a law unto itself. And one that doesn’t feel it needs to respond publicly to those claims.

Why am I posting about it? Because I can and because I believe that a business should be accountable to its customers. With no exceptions. Even when you have 150 million of them.

I hope PayPal is listening because I’d like to hear what it has to say on this apparent scammer’s paradise.

Filed Under: The Dripping Tap Tagged With: , , ,

Professional witness services by Allied Detectives

November 17, 2008 By Leave a Comment

If you need Professional Witness services, I recommend Allied Detectives

They say “Offering a local, national and overseas private investigation service, Allied Detectives are a friendly and discrete private detective agency”

I say they’re right. Jorge Salgado-Reyes has done some work for us recently, with excellent results. And since he’s the man behind Allied Detectives, I can wholeheartedly recommend them.

Allied Detectives site is just being set up, but if you’re in need of a professional witness (or process serving, people tracing or surveillance) you can contact Jorge by email on help@salgadoinvestigations.com or phone on 0800 458 7276. Put on your best Bogart accent and tell him Sam sent you.

Filed Under: Get Found Easy promotion Tagged With: , , ,

Best podcast hosting provider? Libsyn by a mile

November 17, 2008 By 6 Comments

Libsyn are the best podcast host for our audio, by miles. Here’s why.

First: Unlimited bandwidth hosting for your files for almost no money. I pay $10 US a month for the ability to upload up to 250mb audio files each month and serve them an umlimited number of times to an unlimited sized audience. Everything older than 1 month is archived and continues to serve from the original URLs. Think what you can do as a business podcaster / audio producer with that.

Second: Stable, reliable service. Grown-up, sensible interface – and it’s the choice of pros.

Third: If and when there’s a problem, like tonight, you can always reach support. Either immediately via their meebo widget or via email. They never don’t get back to you. Tonight’s problem (the failure of all / any of my files to play – and that’s several hundred audio files for clients) was fixed while we chatted via Meebo.

You want a podcast hosting service that comes with a 100% recommendation, take my word for it – Libsyn.

Filed Under: feedback Tagged With: , , , ,

Shift This Newsletter: support improves for WordPress newsletter plugin

November 17, 2008 By 1 Comment

Shift This support responds to customer feedback with apology and improved support

That’s worth a mention.

I was among the many critics of this plugin (after buying two copies). I managed to get it working but it still feels fairly fragile. It blew up this morning trying to export a list of addresses.

The worst thing was the support – or, to be blunt, lack of it.

I’m pleased to say, that seems to have improved recently.

So, having run my newsletter now for about 3 months, what’s my verdict on the Shift This newsletter plugin? Well, in its favour, for the price of a month’s subscription to something like GraphicMail, you get the ability to write and send a newsletter and capture email subscriptions all from your own blog.

The downside is that there’s only one (dull) newsletter template – based on the WP theme ‘Kubrick’. To create any other design requires you’re either confident enough to hack that template somewhat (like I did with the one pictured above) or design a new one from scratch.

Is the newsletter worth the money? Yes – so long as you understand that what you’re getting is pretty basic. There’s no email list cleaning, no ‘who-opened-what’ analysis here. It’s a basic newsletter with graphics and links. But for about the same price as 1 month’s subscription to the flashier email newsletter packages, remember.

I said in my first post about this plugin that I thought a WordPress graphic newsletter plugin was one of the ‘Holy Grails’ of blogging. This plugin is more than half-way towards that. If the developer could make it easier to design a newsletter, add some kind of useful list maintenance and continue to handle support issues positively, it would be a winner.

Filed Under: feedback Tagged With: , ,

Findex.co.uk | oneEntry.net – good, bad or just plain evil?

November 15, 2008 By 8 Comments

Automatic listing in Findex.co.uk and oneEntry.net: good thing / bad thing?

What’s your view – leave a voicemail on 01752 548771 and we’ll feature it on The Mu Show.

We’d be interested to know your views.

One issue is that you and I have no control over the initial, automatic listing these people construct (by scraping your website).

If you don’t like it, you’re encouraged to invest your time changing it. Interesting strategy but not one that motivates me.  Because I’m highly critical of the value of online directories, I’m more likely to want to get the listing removed.  But that’s me.

How about you?  Do you think the benefits outweigh the… er… what’s the opposite of a benefit, btw? You know what I mean. Let us know what you think on 01752 548771. And if you’re Findex.co.uk or oneEntry.net we’d be happy to hear from you too.

Filed Under: what do you think? Tagged With: , , , ,

Online marketing podcast – The Mu Show

November 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Be part of our new online marketing podcast – The Mu Show

Join us every two weeks as we bring our unique blend of serious silliness and common-sense talk to the world of online marketing, communication and reputation management.

Take part – email to sam [at] mukaumedia.co.uk or easier still, comment on our 24/7 voicemail line 01752 548771.

Got a simple, easy-to-understand marketing tip you want to share?  Call the voicemail line, share your tip and plug your business too.

Know a big company that would benefit from a dose of social media ‘dripping tap’ treatment?  The Mu Show’s the place to do it.  Just call 01752 548771 and tell us who and why.

Check out the show here - and if you’ve got ideas what you’d like to hear, let us know.

Filed Under: news Tagged With: , , ,

Conairn Product Inc wants YOUR domain name in China!!

November 13, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Somebody email you from China about a version of your domain name about to be registered by Conairn Product Inc?

If you’ve arrived here after doing a search for Conairn Product Inc. it’s because (guess what) this post is the only mention on the entire, whole, complete worldwide intergalactic internet (including China) about Conairn Product Inc.  [ok, so now there's finally another one lols]

Wow. Are they behind the times! Only now buying a domain name?!

I better write back to ‘the department of registration service China’ quickly with all my personal and bank details in case there’s a couple of quid to be made!

[Warning: This post may contain traces of humour]

Filed Under: scam Tagged With: , ,

Kashflow: a smart move

November 12, 2008 By 1 Comment

An invitation from Kashflow turns into subscription

A couple of years ago, I tried out the web-based book-keeping package, Kashflow and got quickly annoyed with one or two interactivity issues that put me off going ahead with the trial.  Here’s one:  “Please fill in letter 8 of your password”.  Bit difficult to proceed when my password only had 7 letters.

When signing up for something (a trial or a listing) requires a heavy investment in time, I find myself hyper-critical if the interactivity design makes that process even more time-consuming.  Back then, I gave up on Kashflow.

A couple of months ago, I got an email inviting me to have another look.  I did, and because it seemed to have grown up since I first saw it (and because I needed to do some book-keeping) I signed up for the trial.

This time around, the trial immediately made my book-keeping easier, with the result that I’ve signed up.

Some lesssons:

1) Bend over backwards to make peoples’ interaction with your stuff effortless – especially when you’re expecting them to input a lot of their own data in order to use your product

2) Go back and check again with people who might not have wanted to use your services the first time round

3) Make your stuff pay off immediately.  I.e., make it fully functional and get people hooked.

Got the approach right, Kashflow – and it’s a good product, too.

Filed Under: business insight, feedback Tagged With: , ,
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