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.
Very interesting to see that there are many, many more people out there that feel cheated and unsatisfied by PayPal’s services. Does anyone have any tips on starting an online petition? So the FSA can be contacted collectively or better still collectively contact BBC’s Watchdog.
Having been cheated by a chargeback fraud on eBay last year, I found out first hand how easy it is to be done over and believe me when I say I’m very savvy.
The essential point to remember is that everything PayPal say about your money’s safety is marketing hype. They don’t value their customers in the slightest will screw you over without hesitation. They have absolutely no regard for customer service. Don’t believe me? Try giving them a call, bet you can’t easily find a number for them and if you do, the closest one will be in the ROI.
If they side with anyone, it will be with the buyer and leave the seller out of pocket. They have a phonomenal amount of wealth, have a worldwide monopoly and very little regulation. Does that sound condusive to being responsible to you?
Onto more practical matters, if you have a complaint, write to them RECORDED DELIVERY in Luxemburg and keep proof of postage. They cannot ignore you then and as the reporter above recommends, keep it factual. Exhaust PayPal’s complaint procedure, which will take a while but they can’t chase you with bailif letters while that happens (http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bargains-and-rip-offs/article.html?in_article_id=408585&in_page_id=5). After that, you can go to the UK Financial Ombudsman but they can only help effectively if you’ve exhausted the complaints procedure.
They best way to deal with them is not not deal with them and break the eBay/PayPal monopoly, as I’m now doing. It really is a false economy.
Frank, great comment – thanks. I have to agree with you; the only way to ‘vote’ on this is with your feet, but I’m not confident that enough people will get stung to seriously affect these peoples’ appalling lack of accountability.
It seems the online era has shifted customer service to a place where operators like PayPal do two flavours of it: invisible (i.e. nothing goes wrong) and fucking awful (when things do go wrong).
What does worry me is the degree of autonomy they (and, let’s face it, pretty much every other online operator from the ‘home worker’ through ‘affiliate marketer’ through outright ‘scammer’) have. When you pick under the surface, it’s practically lawless and uncontrollable. Oddly, everyone seems to secretly like it that way, until the individual gets stung then they can’t believe there’s actually no body with any power to intervene…anywhere.
Good comment, good advice. Thanks
I Joined paypal in late November.buy the start of December,I had my account frozen for reasons that changed throught my subsequent communications with them.I went through the verification procedures they asked for,started primarily as a buyer,hoping to make a small profit on items I purcased.Naively thinking they were a safe company who I could trust with my transactions,they ended up virtualy backrupting me.I bought items which in total I from careful selection,could have nearly doubled my money on,or at least made a good profit.As soon as I had brought thse items,items,I had no use of for myself,I was closed down.I warn people from having anything to do with these crooks.They have taken up weeks of my time,calling,writing,ringing,getting fals hope that things would be resolved,having all the bad news sent to me at night,so I woke up to another awful,impersonal,non progressive,non explanitory message.And to top it off,they accused me of being fraudulant and were suspicious of me for money laundering,opening multiple accounts,then had the cheek to call me high risk.These people are evil,and they destroy lives and buisinesses for no reason. Ian Teather
Over eighteen months ago I had been ruminating on many of PayPals bad, if not illegal,practices.
There are many examples, but I wont digress at this stage to go into them.
I decided to contact the FSA who were at the time clearly responsible for PayPal.
When I complained about some of the practices that were taking place the guy on the other end of the phone said “Well they seem to be successful!”. I asked him what he meant by that, to which he replied.”they are making lots of money”.
I asked if this was the correct criteria for a regulating body to use to assess if a company was
operating in a proper manner. I dont remember the exact details of the rest of the conversation,but suffice it to say that it was the usual “dog with no teeth bullshit and waffle” that these people have great pleasure in using!!
PayPal are a rogue bank and I don’t think many users are aware that their money is not covered as with a normal bank!!
I really wish one of the daily rags would set into them!!!
Hi have just had a run in with PayPal, for the second time in a few days my account has been passed for a review, it was restricted without a good reason, i was asked for invoices and proof of business, tracking numbers because i had 4 or 5 item not received but i have issues tracking numbers for them and not all of them were about delivery but asking for a date! so customer using wrong button on ebay. PayPal told me they do not use ebay to review the sellers account! obviously they do for this to effect my account
My account was also restricted and now shut down ans money is held for 180 days! I have no money to survive on or feed my kids as i had planned to use that money to pay bills rent and buy food with.
Ive been a seller on ebay for 6 months selling bareley 5 items a month from home which belong to me and are all personal items.. they said was high risk and no other explanation.
Numerous phone calls, emails, sleepless nights, they still refuse to give me a reason.
I would like people to join me or start a petition to get these people dealt with and sued and to compensate the innocent victims who’s lives have been ruined. please email me on hiteshv78@yahoo.co.uk and start a page on facebook for people who want to take them to court.
I have complained to financial ombudsmam and will contact FSA as well as they cannot continue these foul practices and get away with it. with enoough support we can do this and bring them down! it is onlu because not enough people go all the way in taking the complaints far enough or all the way that they can get away with this.
A buyer has put ‘item not received’ in and PayPal took £60 without my knowing and froze it.
This buyer had a really dodgy address consisting of TWO airports .. yes it was in Italy – a place famed on Ebay for it’s ridiculous customs/buyers unwilling to pay customs fees.
The bad address was a fault of the BUYER not the seller and of course PayPal won’t investigate whether this address is legitimate or not.
It’s well documented in many forums and complaints, yet PayPal will NOT recognise this problem.
We did our side of the deal.. it’s up to the buyer to know what the problems coud be when it reaches their shores and forewarn about us about them and suggest recorded delivery or similar. This is the only time I’ve had something lost in the postal system AND the only time I’ve sent to Italy in 3 years.
There’s been no contact with the actual buyer – he can’t speak a word of English, which is no good at all.
That is MY money that I made for myself with my own personal belongings, it’s not for PayPal to seize whenever they feel like it and hand it over to somebody who could be scamming.
The seller is always assumed the guilty party with PayPal, it needs to be changed.
I hae just spent A WHOLE YEAR arguing with Paypal trying to get my account issues fixed, jumping through hoops to verify my identity etc to be told that my account will be perminently limited which is in effect closed!
And why??!! All this because i lost my bank card and tried to add a new 1!!!
Ive given up with sending emails etc, I am furious but i dont have the time or inclination to argue with the moronic,rude people employed by paypal at their ‘customer service’ call centre.
I actually find it laughable they even use the term customer service, the only thing they have done for me is create a HUGE phone bill !
I would be nice if the governing bodies stepped in, but honestly i cant see that happening!
This company is a complete joke… All I done was transfer funds from my bank account to my pay pal account, to help a friend out on the other side of the world and pay pal have lost (stolen) the money, they won’t accept liability for the initial information they provided for the transfer from my account in the first instance… Blaming me on loosing the money also asked me to ask my bank to do a trace which traces to their bank account. But still won’t give me my money back…
Don’t know were to go from here, any advice on this would be great..
Stu
Stu, I’m sorry – I don’t have any advice to give other than what I’ve put in this post. Somebody needs to come up with an alternative and give PP a run for its money.
Hello,
Our company uses Paypal, and you would think with us being a multi million pound company we would have some leeway with Paypal.
I can assure you, they sting everyone. We have evidence of the customers IPs, logs showing they have been in the server, conversation logs between us and the customer and they still refund the customer.
Even illegal content like Pirated Files etc, if we receive a takedown notice from DMCA we have a legal obligation to deal with that notice. If we disconnect that customer for piracy, they launch a dispute and have their money back in a week… it’s a joke.
I have already written to Paypal head offices, and currently awaiting a reply.
They are all disgustingly bad at customer services; Paypal, Moneybookers/skrill & AlertPay – a bank should start a worldwide one. That’s the only way these fraudsters will stop growing.
I’ve just had my ebay/paypal account limited for apparently “being of high risk” and for reasons relating to the safe use of ebay/paypal. My first limit was because I tried to withdraw a large sum of my accumulated sales, which shouldn’t be a reason for the initial limit. Second, I provided them with everything they needed and then after 3 hours of doing so, they permanently ban me? I am a top rated silver powerseller.. whats the point of reaching such a status if they dont give a damn about you in the end? Now they are holding my funds for 180 days. is that even legal?
Ved, I have no idea whether it’s legal or not but until someone decides that its important enough to regulate PP, then we’re never going to actually find out. Sorry to hear the situation you’re in.
took somme money out of my account with out me kowinh or wat its gone on
I wanted to purchase an item on the internet and on the website I was invited to pay via Paypal which I did. When, after 10 days, the goods did not arrive I contacted the suppliers and was informed that Paypal had told them not to send the goods. I enquired of Paypal the reason for their instruction to the supplier and was told that I did not have an account with them and therfore they would not release the money to the supplier.
I pointed out that, not having an account with them did not stop them taking the money from my bank. What’s more they did not have the courtesy to let me know they had taken my money but stopped the transaction. I regard this as theft as I have no idea if or when my money might be returned. I certainly now have no intention of opening an account with Paypal
There’s always ‘Moneybookers’ or ‘Google Checkout’. There is nothing to stop an Ebayer pushing people to use them instead of Paypal by offering a small discount for not paying with PayPal.
Have people been writing to their MP’s?. Might be worth doing. At least it would bring it to the attention of those in power.
You sure about that, James? I was under the impression that Ebay required you use PayPal. (I don’t use either, so don’t know the answer to this..)
Thanks for this blog.
Does anybody know who regulates Google?
dear sir/madam i spoke by phone about un authorised transations by paypal i was told that some one would contact me but no one has made contact could you please give this matter your urgent attention thanks john mc polin mob xxxxxxxxx
John, I’m nothing to do with PayPal. Sorry!
Disgusting service they paid my money into a closed account. I went to the bank and faxed a letter saying any money payed in would be returned to the senders account within 24hrs. As they say transaction complete they will no refund my money I never received off them. All they do is charge me a fortune for phone calls and don’t get back to me. Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do next?? This is criminal but like all banks they get away with it. I’ve come to the conclution I’ve lost my £275
I recently had to contact PayPal to ask why I had a negative balance and that I could not transfer a small amount of money into my bank account. I explained to PayPal that I was having trouble with this. I received a reply which looked as though it had been typed in Notepad, with all the usual meta tags surrounding the text. That didn’t bother me – what shocked me was that the salutation was to another individual, and the last couple of digits of my bank accounts had been revealed also. I emailed them again yesterday, thinking that this was a serious matter, but no-one from PayPal has been in touch. Does anyone know which other organisation to use if starting a small business?
My son ordered something off ebay when it came it was a 1p usb plug instead of a hard drive he had ordered, as requested by paypal we sent the item recorded delivery to a very dodgy address sent proof of postage to ebay and after 5 months they have closed the case in the buyers favour even though he refused to answer any of our emails.
Ebay and Paypal are a bunch of thieving con artisits, Ebay even though the seller shut the account wont have anything to do with it and Paypal refuse to respond to any emails . There is no buyer protection and call it cutting my nose of to spite my face but I will not use Ebay or Paypal again
LOL well i just had my account banned permanently for paying for an item on my partners ebay account LOL i was out when it was due to finish so she bd for me. i paid when i got home, now im high risk and banned wtf LOL
My account was frozen with £11,379,28 in it on the 7th sept last year, I have since refunded some accounts where goods were returned, so my balance as of oct was £10,649,98.
90 days has passed still no responce in giving me my money back I have reported them to the FSA , and to the financial obudsman who can act after 8 weeks if I still get no responce.
I have written to then on several occasions and had no responce. I have just managed to speak to a man called Conner in Limitations dept, who was very condesending about the issue and has asked them to review our balance to see if they will give us any funds back.
The reason our account was frozen was not due to fraud or charge backs, it was because we contacted them and told them that were we as a company in a CVA which is a voluntary state that a company can place itself in when you cannot pay alll your bills on time, we are still trading and have now managed to make profit for the last three months and we are paying our suppliers back on a monthly basis.
All I can say about Pay Pal is that they do not understand customer service, they are not to be trusted, one of the most frustrating businesses I have ever had to deal with.
My advice to Pay pal users is do not leave any funds in your account, do not reley on them as a sole source of payment. if you have any issues with them go to the FSA who regulate them.
But best advice of all is do not deal with the F*~~#~$g W8#~*kers in the first place.
Tim, seriously, my sympathies go out to you. I know how hard it can be to make a living working for yourself without this kind of madness thrown into the equation. Thanks for your comment.
All the cases that people have reported here over the last couple of months are equally serious (i.e. they are utterly unacceptable) but yours is the largest sum of money anyone has reported being frozen by PayPal. Obviously, in your situation, this could be a show-stopper for your business when times are tight enough as it is.
What the f**k makes PayPal think it’s ok to freeze your account because you’re having some difficulties? Imagine if High St. banks did that? Half the adults in the UK would be starving within a week and we’d have a full scale revolution on our hands.
I just googled “who regulates paypal” and came across this page… and was very shocked and yet also pleased that there are so many more victims of paypal’s atrocious behaviour and FRAUD… Pleased only because the more people who show they have been abused by paypal then collectively we can voice our opinion more strongly and build a case against paypal and have such a fraudelent and cheating company closed down!! They are the exact opposite of who they claim to be… “send and recieve your money safely with paypal… the safest way” BULLSHIT!!
I have been registered with ebay buying and selling using paypal for over 10 years, but have never had such problems apart from the odd customer dispute now and again, but since last year both ebay and paypal have increased their fees to extortionate amounts and made all sellers lives a living hell!!
First problem i had was back in sept 11 when Ebay randomly decided to close my ebay account permanently without any warning or anything saying how i had become such a huge risk and threat to the ebay community?! They send you such threatening messages making you sound like a terrorist or something. Worst part is they dont even give any actual specific reason – coz you have become such a high risk – that god knows what you might do should you find out!! Craziness…
Then I created a new paypal account for my new ebay account in nov11…. all was fine, my ebay account was going well and I had made about £4k in sales in 1 month which i was really pleased at, and I had 100% feedback, posted all my items recorded delivery next day so no delays, perfect transactions you could say, not even a single dispute had been opened by any customer, then lo and behold early december I get an email from paypal saying my paypal account has been limited until i provide proof of ID, copy of invoices from suppliers and proof of address, all of which I satisfactorily provided within a couple of days… then 2 days later I get all these messages saying my account has been permanently frozen and im am yet again a huge threat and risk and i have carried out illegal activity or something and thats why my account has been frozen – i was soo shocked i cudnt believe it, and rang paypal but they were helpful as ever… and refused to give any details what so ever as to why my account has been frozen, the only thing they could say was that a Paypal Psychic expert has made his grand predictions for the year and his magic ball is telling him that… somewhere sometime in the near future they Could be problems with my account…. and I Could be involved in something illegal… All still only a Mere Posibilitity that all this MIGHT happen….!! Can u bloody believe it?! Then the bloody fool has the cheek to say “Im sorry but Paypal has decided not to do business with you, we do not appreciate or require your business?” AARGHHH i dont knw how i didnt smash my phone on the floor i was soo angry and fuming!!
My Ebay account wasnt closed however i did get a message everytime i logged in saying there is a problem with your paypal account please resolve these issues in your paypal account, and hasnt let me list anything new until these are resolved, but obviously they arent going to be resolved as paypal has decided the closure is permanent…. Now im left with £700 odd ebay fees which were meant to be paid automatically from that account, but as that is closed i now have to fork out a spare £700 from sumwhere to pay those fees!!
Therefore paypal need to be Stoppped before they destroy any more lives!!!
Hi IHP
Thanks for posting your story. I chose the title of this post carefully a couple of years ago when I myself tried to find out who or what regulated Paypal (after hearing my brother’s story of fraudulent ‘buyer dispute’) and couldn’t find a single useful piece of information on the subject. I realised that posting with titles like ‘who regulates paypal’ and ‘how to complain about paypal in the uk’ would be certain to bring some unhappy paypal customers here.
And, as you can see, it has.
I can’t quite get my head around what I keep hearing: the way that paypal throws people out with such incredible lack of justification and such explicit and hi-visibility rudeness. It’s like they’re not even trying to do customer service or resolve things. And that sets me wondering… it really does. What’s going on here? What’s really going on?
If I wasn’t so busy I’d try to get some investigative journalist / watchdog types to look at these posts.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t feel right to me.