Look at how PayPal and eBay deal with this question online.
Then look at how other ‘real world’ companies deal with it.
A little over a year ago, following my brother’s experience of a ‘buyer dispute scam’ (buyer receives goods, claims they’re faulty or not as described, gets refund from PayPal, keeps what you sent them and returns whatever they feel like returning) I tried to research who regulates PayPal.
I spent the best part of a day talking to people at the Financial Services Authority and the Financial Ombudsman Service and posted their best advice (which frankly didn’t amount to much) in the form of a step-by-step guide for readers to follow if they needed to complain about PayPal’s conduct.
That post is still #1 in Google globally for the query “how do I complain about paypal”. Depressingly, in all that time, no individual or regulatory body has managed to add anything more useful or authoritative to my post. It’s not as if we’re talking about a corner shop here. This is PayPal – a financial organisation making money from more than 100 million customer accounts and there’s NO information how to complain about it. It is almost beyond belief.
But it got me thinking: how do other financial giants deal with that Google keyphrase directed at them?
A search on “how to complain about Barclays” gives you this. A search on “how to complain about government” gives you this. “How to complain about TSB” gives you this. “How to complain about HSBC” gives you this. “How to complain about British Airways” gives you this. “How to complain about Sainsbury’s” (eventually) gives you this.
Get the picture? Each of those organisations (chosen randomly just now) responds to that query with their own procedures and information.
Yet a search for “how do I complain about PayPal” or “How do I complain about eBay” produces nothing from those two companies. It’s as if they don’t feel they have to acknowledge customer complaints.
What’s really interesting is that the next online company I chose to do this test on – Amazon – also doesn’t respond to the query. And the same for Play.com.
That quick review shows a simple – and shocking – distinction: offline businesses have formal complaints procedures only because they are findable in the real world whereas the people behind online businesses aren’t. The result? You and I can’t find out how to complain about PayPal, eBay, Amazon or Play.com for love nor money.
It’s outrageous that businesses which operate entirely online feel that they don’t have to anticipate or deal with customer complaints. It’s extremely dangerous that they can also operate without regulation.
Ebay is a fraud. There has to be a better way to let the sellers know. Ebay depends on sellers for its funding and the sellers are the ones taking loses.
Maybe there should be a course in ebay fraud when they have their ebay university get together.
Thanx for the article, I was running into the same problems looking for anyone that to complain to
i would still like to make an unrelated particular matter aware to a regulatory authority about ebay. it seems when something goes wrong that you can let your friends know how to avoid the problems through your own miss fortune but other than that what can you really do and why ?
So if we cant complain against them and we show that we have done everything in our power to attempt to contact someone surely they dont have a leg to stand on if I decide to totally ignore their demands to reimburse them for a refund they decided to give my buyer on a laptop that I dispatched in perfect working order but they claim was received damaged and when it was returned it was smashed and not functioning?
They may write to me making threats but really what can they do? Take it to court to be shown the emails, letters and telephone bills showing I attempted and tried my best to contact someone regarding the matter but was refused to be spoken to on every occassion?
And that I have emails from the buyer stating that they had been informed by ebay to not return the item so that I could make a claim against Royal Mail for compensation as item damaged during transit which lead me to not being able to put a cliam forward in time.
I think I will take the chance and pretend to also be invisable when they being to contact me.
Hi Rachel – thanks for your comment. You sound like you’re a victim of the ‘buyer dispute’ scam. I buy something off you. I pay via PayPal, you dispatch item in perfect working order. I received item in perfect working order but lodge a claim, saying it was damaged. PayPal freezes your account and returns me my money. I keep your good item and return a broken one (or even something completely different). You can’t do anything.
Great isn’t it.
I told a colleague of mine at the office yesterday about some of the posts I get here about PayPal’s activity. He said “they did that to me – took two payments of £40 for no reason. I couldn’t contact them. They never responded, never refunded me. Eventually I gave up and stopped using PayPal – but started again a few months later because I had to to buy something on eBay”.
Absolutely typical. I wonder how many millions of £££ / $$$ PayPal has accrued this way?
My reference is keithg5693 and I have used bay alot recently and spent a lot of money. I bought a multi region DVD player from the states with no remote control to let me use it. A book called the bell witch and a die cast car. Both the car and book didn’t arrive. eBay have been no help.
Up till now I was very impressed with ebay but all of a sudden I have been left to leave negative feedback which I have never done before. I had 100 percent positive feedback and was a prompt player. I am nearly 150 pounds out of pocket Now. Please sort out the remote control for my multi region DVD player and find out where my book and die cast car are.
I am so disappointed as I was really impressed at bay up till now. My tel no In the uk is xxxxxxxxxx My 100 present positive feedback is ruined.
Hi Keith.
Sorry I can’t help you – I’m not eBay. I can see from a quick search online that other people in eBay forums have advised you that if you have a problem with goods not arriving, you need to take it up with the seller.
I don’t quite get why you’re worried about giving a seller some negative feedback. It’s not as if that reflects badly on you.
I suggest being more careful posting your phone number when you’re not even sure where you are. I’ve edited it out. Think about it – I now know your name, phone number, eBay ID, a long list of the toys you’ve bought and some problems you’re having. If I was a scammer, I could get up to quite a bit of mischief with that information. I really recommend you take more care online.
i’ve had 2 buyers who said they hadn’t received items when i sent them by insured mail. i could prove delivery! ebay and paypal gave them their money back.3 weeks later one of the buyers emailed me to tell me how much she loved the bag,and loved the fact she got her money back for it!
not only was i out of pocket for the item,ebay,paypal fees, postage and phonecalls.the real insult to injury was when i contacted ebay with the proof one of the buyers had stolen off me,they told me the case was closed! so i don’t trust either ebay or paypal,they both support crooks!
I have recently been conned by a buyer on ebay. Cost me about £45 so far. Sold them a perfect working order (much loved as well) item and they told me it was broken. Total lie. Have gone through all the ebay appeals and have never once received an explanation of why they refunded the seller. I will not let this go and my next step is to write a letter to ebay, my local trading standards and the one in Ireland where ebay office is based. I am also contacting the FSA about paypal because I had given them a written instruction to freeze my account but they never did. Unfortunately for ebay they have messed with the wrong person this time. As did the buyer. This is just the start
The old ‘buyer dispute’ scam.
Go, fella. It’ll take someone to go totally over the edge and take this to the Federation of Intergalactic Fair Trade. Are you that person?
I too am totally fed up with the Ebay / Paypal con there are way too many loop holes and never a satisfactory solution. I suggest we pass the word round and get as many people to boycott both. Perhaps this action causing them to lose money instead of the law abiding seller may make them sit up and realise they need to make changes.
I will be doing everything in my power to, if required take ebay through the small claims court.[I once took abbey building society and won] .I sold a item on ebay the buyer emailed and said it was faulty [it wasent]I agreed to take it back and give a refund but buyer never sent it back to me .ebay gave them a refund .I have no goods and no money .I will fight this and anyone who can give me any help e.g an address to send my complaint to would be great .Watch this space because i WILL.MARIE
I just experiences the worst nightmare as an Ebay user.
I Have been a victim of a scum .
I purchased a laptop for 180pounds, it never arrived as promised by the seller. She then also emaild me stating that it was not working in proper order as previously stated prior the bidding. And she also said that it was not 4 month old but a 1 year old, this after that she cashed my money
Just unbelievable. I am devastate , and stressed out.
I had no help from Ebay because they are saying that I forward my complaint to PAypal, so they cannot help me .
I dont know what Paypal will do.
But this is fraud , I have been rip off by e seller.
I am just crying about it .
Hi . i have the same problems with ebay and worse ones with paypal , EBAY should be known for THE BUY WITH CONFIDENCE AND SELL WITH CAUTION !! paypal is just robbing people , this new pending money thing is ridiculous . I have had to wait for my money even when positive feedback has been left buy the buyers . now i have had a refund for an item and they have even put that on pending for 21 days ! that money came out of my bank and they are now keeping it ! they so right , bet they making some serious interest on OUR money . its a disgrace !
i like some of your readers feel that there is no protection with e/bay/papal and when i sold a tag watch on ebay the seller said not as descibed and demanded a refund which i disputed as he said it was a fake. papal refunded him and when i asked to see the proof was told that a court order would be required. when i asked for a refund from them as i purchased it from e bay earier they told me the case was closed. When i asked for the previous sellers address in order to claim my cash back i wss they couldnt find the transaction. The law should do more to prevent people from being ripped off, No protection whatsoever!.I lost the watch and the money. Whatever you need it can be bought without the use of e bay, thanks for reading
hi, can you offer me any advise, i have been buying alot of autographs from ebay and a little from private sellers of ebay, i have spent many thousands over the last 3 yrs, however, i have just discovered to my horror, everyone is fake, under s75, my credit card will refund all these unless you pay via paypal, which i have. Paypal will not look into any as they are all 45 days old. I have complained to the government help line, that may give this to trading standards, but they say, i will not get any money back.
any advise, i don’t see how can paypal overrule UK legisalation and not have their own guarentees in place?
thanking you,
Hi Shelley, sorry to hear you’ve been ripped off. Would PayPal have helped if you’d contacted them within 45 days?
Hi Sam,
thank you for getting back to me, yes paypal would have helped if i had contacted them in 45 days, but the point is, under consumer law, the relevant date is, at the time of the misrepesentation being known, not the time of sale, and it is this i want to put to paypal, and will do so in writing.
If there is any advise you can offer it would be really appreciated.
thanking you
kind regards
shelley
any advise?
thanking you
Hi Shelley – I don’t, sadly. I’m hoping that in the comments provided by other people here there are some useful / helpful tips. Unfortunately, I don’t personally have any better information than I posted at the beginning of the this thread.
You could try my other thread (there’s quite a lot of information AND comments):
http://www.mukaumedia.co.uk/complain-paypal-uk/
Hi,
My problem is quite simple, I bid for and won, a rug from a USA seller, but because the price had no postage charge, I had to contact the seller.This I did but got no response, 4 times, somewhat exasperated I contacted eBay customer service, they then provided a link to the sellers phone number, but i couldn’t get through to the states. So, I sent another e-mail, yesterday and surprised to see that e-bay’s response was to tell me that I have 4 days to pay or else.
E-Bay are really good at ignoring me.
Welcome to the 21st century online customer ‘service’ where businesses don’t care how many people hate them and people don’t care how hateful the payment system they use is – until their transaction gets screwed up or their account gets suspended. They’ll only change if and when the majority of people stop using them. Unfortunately, the majority still don’t have problems. So long as that’s the case, nothing will change.
I registered with ebay just a week ago. I filled in registration info honestly and accurately, then posted an item to sell. Eby very promptly took monet off me, and in hte meantime I’ve bid for a couple of items.
I’ve tried very hard to follow rules – even refusing offer from individual who tried to buy my item off-line.
However, to my absolute horror – I got a series of emails saying my bids have been withdrawn, I’ve received bid from unregistered member, and my account has been suspended and that payments will still be taken from me!!
I tried three time to call them – over 75 mins waiting time, and when they finally answered they hung up before I could even say hello.
Finally I got on the online chat – after a 25 min wait.
I asked politely for an explanation of my suspension. This is the answer I got: “I’ve carefully checked your account and can see it was suspended due to several discrepancies in your registration information. Due to the severe nature of the policy breaches on your account, your account cannot be considered for reinstatement. ”
SEVERE nature of policy breaches!!
I asked for clarification (I had registered completely honestly) but got told: “I understand you’d like more precise information about why we suspended your account. In order to safeguard our community, I’m afraid we’re not allowed to divulge specific information about what led us to take action. By revealing this, we could help members’ intent on breaching the policy to avoid detection.”
The discussion then went in circles.
Ebay’s final comment was this:
“I’m sorry if you feel that way but the suspension of your account will remain and you can no longer appeal for its reinstatement.”
EVEN A CRIMINAL GETS MORE RIGHTS THAN THIS! Actually, I wasn’t asking for reinstatement, just an explanation…. and I’d also like my money back for the service they haven’t provided.
I can’t believe there really isn’t any right of appeal, nor that they can suspend somebody without providing any explanation at all!
I have just sent an official complaint to Paypal. I am one of their victims whose money has been withheld. They are disguising their thieving from us saying that they are protecting the buyers or any other sordid excuse.
The issue here is that when our MP’s were found to abuse their expenses on our account, they were sacked. When high street banks a few years ago, were found to charge astronomical unfair charges, they had to refund those charges. When any bank is entertaining illegal practices, that bank is answerable to Big Brother!
Who is Paypal, that they are protected from investigation and being ordered to ‘get their act together’. I do not believe one second that if really the government of each country where Paypal operates were aware of their victimisation of small people such as buyers and sellers who are their customers, they would be ordered to change their practices or be shut down.
I also believe that solidarity, i.e. all people getting together to sign a petition ‘online’ would be a start to submit our complaints to the government of the UK and the USA first, and then submit it to the World bank, why not.
Remember the biblical story of David and Goliath? Who won? Check your bibles!
What is going on with this bogus buyers protection program , e-bay guarantees the buyer , winning bidder their goods , so the bidder has nothing to lose , that way they can get more interested parties to bid , hence increase their revenue , it also incourages bogus bidders , who have absolutely no intentions of paying for the item they are bidding on anyway , because they know the seller has to pay a refund otherwise they get suspended ! , their policies are an absolute joke ! , how can or why is it fair that sellers gets canned every time , also regarding to ebay controlling or having the right to control your finances or the way you run your auctions , ie when I list , I state I can not be held responsible for lost or damaged items in the post , but I can not fulfill my policies ,because I have to abide by theirs , pay back seller or close your account , the fees you pay ebay and paypal who are both the same company , so you are getting stiffed in total 3 time for various fees from ebay ,once when listing , 2 when selling the item and 3 paying pay pal , so even though I am aware they are scamming me ,I would be quite happy with that , but surely you should be paying all these fees for the use of their site , not for allowing them to control how you run your business ? , I have tried to complain , but as you can imagine they make it almost impossible to get your complaint across , I have had no reply from my appeal regarding a refund , that was 2 weeks ago , they allow you 45 days to appeal , in the knowing that you cant appeal any way , also in regard to the amount of fake goods that get passed through e-bay sites , but they are not held accountable for any of it ,even if the bidder has been found to be selling dodgy goods they still take their fees out of the conterfeit goods , so in fact that make them just as guilty ,I am sure there are laws in the way e-bay are running their site , they are getting away with millions of pounds , dollars what ever the currency ? from traders like myself and if it was not for the seller , there would not be any e-bay , prehaps they should think about that ?
Tanya, like all rip-offs, they get away with it because you and everyone else who uses Paypal effectively lets them. I agree there should be effective regulation, but we’ve seen that there isn’t any. So, after that, there’s only you left to vote with your feet. The trouble is that the vast majority are having no problems…yet. Paypal can afford to lose those that are having problems, so why should they change? They’re making an absolute fortune as it is… just exactly, precisely as it is. Doing anything else would just be a waste of money.
It will stop when enough people walk away from them and not before. Given they’ve got a virtual monopoly that moment is going to be a long time coming….sadly.
Dear Paypal
My account has been set as limited and I dont think it is a fair decision. I have been selling on ebay for quite a long time now slowly and keeping my customers happy all the way. I have always been faithful to ebay and paypal, but yesterday’s message from ebay has shocked me.
Seriously ebay has removed all my listings from the beginning of time and encouraged all my customers including bidders who did not won the item to raise a case against me so that they get a refund? for what? when they have already got the item and have settled happily.
Instead my customers have emailed me in my mailbox sympathising on what has happened to my account and wrote to me how rudely ebay and paypal emailed them.
No one has raised a fraud case against me or anything like that. I have posted all the items I promised and they are on the way to them with recorded signed for service.
And being unable to ask the reason for removal of ebay and limitation of my paypal account, you have already put a permanent sort of thing on it. When I click on ‘case resolution’ and how to resolve pages, it shows me nothing at all. The only case that are pending are one of them is chosen by a paypal staff to check for which I have already supplied info and the other one raised by a person who only paid the day before and was expecting a delivery for next day when I had already mentioned in my ebay listing that items should be expected within 1-3 woking days.
Can anyone be so unreasonable to limit just anyone’s account as they wish? It is totally unfair.
I have not done any anti money laundering stuff nor I have ripped off any buyer or anything. I am just a normal person trying to sell my stuffs and if my sales volume grow suddenly in one month, it does not mean that you should put a ban on it!
I mean this is ridiculous. In all the laws of the world everyone is allowed to express and be given a chance to justify the deeds and I have not been given one. I have been permanently closed on ebay without any justification. no appeal right on paypal as well. And paypal being such big companies does not have a proper procedure of filing such a claim on anyone they feel suspicious about!
And on top of that, they will hold the money I have in paypal account for atleast 90 days to 180 days? for waht? If claims are raised the procedure for buyer protection is to raise a case within 45 days so why should paypal hold money for so long? How many thousands of customers’ money does paypal hold for 180 days to earn an extra interest? The paypal policy is implying itself a money laundering machine and not poor people like us!
When I contact paypal. Staffs at paypal say the words copied from some pages and talk like a robot like they do not have a human opinion based on the decision? like they are trained to say to people what is written on the website or their guidelines?
I have not been treated fairly and my case is not justified so I would like to take this case to consumer watchdog in any case.
Big companies like you cannot just imply any case on anyone, there is no bit of customer satisfaction for their loyaltly.
I hope you appreciate my serious concerns about this unreasonable mentally harassing treatment from paypal all of a sudden.
No matter what you may be thinking reading this email, I am just writing to say that Paypal has not done a right thing to me and may be to so many other people and this should not be continuing at all.
Staffs should be trained to treat people like people and not some brand name ‘PAYPAL’ would do afterall paypal is also run by people.
I think I have said enough. Hope someone will listen. Even if you dont, justice is done from above and paypal is not the one who should.
Merry Christmas!!!
Hi Mercias. I assume this is the text of an email or letter you sent to Paypal, lols.