Should I use PayPal to Accept Credit Cards Online? : eBay Guides

Should I use PayPal to Accept Credit Cards Online?

PayPal Provides you with a PayPal Account and not a Bank. Your money is deposited into a PayPal account, which PayPal Controls, rather than your own bank account. If PayPal even wonders for a second about the validity of a transaction, they can Freeze Your PayPal Account Immediately and suck all your money out. They can even pull your money directly out of your personal bank account, many times without even a phone call or e-mail. If you think PayPal treated you unfairly and want to dispute their decision, You Will Be At Their Mercy as PayPal plays the role of the Investigator, Judge, Jury and Executioner in all issues regarding your account. (You agreed to all of this, when you signed up.)

Sound fair? We don't think so.

Explaining your version of what happened, in most cases seems to make no difference. They will refuse to provide you with detailed information from their investigation and will not disclose documents they relied upon to make their decisions.

You should expect to wait At Least 6 Months Before You See Your Money Again. In some cases, the wait time can exceed 6 months and run into a shady Grey area, where "Never" Seems To Be A More Realistic Time-Frame.

If you want to complain about it, Paypal seems more than happy to give you the run around with Terrible Customer Service including extra long hold times, delays, and dead-end auto-responder e-mails like this one:

[Thank you for contacting PayPal. We apologize for the delay in responding to your service request.

After review, the decision has been made to keep your account locked. This decision cannot be appealed.

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email.]

Press them a bit harder and you may convince them to do an investigation. However, don't count on PayPal considering your side of the story in the investigation. Just consider this an easy way to Blow You Off And Get You Off The Phone.