Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

I recently had a transaction with a very enthusiastic new MOTM user. There was a little snafu with payment type in the initial transaction. No big deal, we just cancelled the original transaction and he promptly paid me via credit card, though Paypal. It's been almost two weeks and I have been on the phone with Paypal five times to try to stop them from requesting the refund from my bank account. They are holding the case as a "fraud incident", even though both the buyer and myself have called to indicate that all was well. In these long arduous phone calls, the each agent was outrageously assumptive and easily confused. I was repeatedly told to do the wrong thing on the PayPal website (which is VERY poorly worded), and when I would question the option given, it would always turn out that they were in fact wrong, (after repeated clarifications from me as to their own policy.)

I am a meticulous and patient person. I give concise explanations, and lay out an overview before I even get into details. It astounds me that PayPal made no notes to my account as to the nature of the problem so that each severely under-trained agent had no idea what they were getting into. I have never had a phone support person give so many repeated "um, hold on" pauses in a single phone call. This happened each time. Today it was nine of those awkward hiccups. Mind you, these are American support personnel so there isn't even the excuse of a language barrier. Ten minutes after requesting a supervisor I reminded the agent that I was still expecting to speak to that supervisor. I waited on hold for fifteen more minutes. The neurotic agent kept picking up the phone to tell me to hold on, repeatedly.

After a total of four and a half hours in phone calls I reached a supervisor that simply pushed a button and deleted the transaction. I had been told many times that this wasn't possible, and the previous time I was told that, they claimed it would be under "fraud investigation" for 30 days. It is apparent that they are totally disorganized and under trained. Even my credit union told me that they are frustrated with Paypal now, and they get many complaints.

Now I am going to start using Amazon payments as often as possible. It's a shame that PayPal has a monopoly on eBay, and most of us signed up with them simply because there was no better option. Most banks are like this too, but I've used a credit union for almost twenty years now, and they have never let me down. They even removed the multiple fees I incurred from the PayPal debacle.

Let's hope there is a grassroots revolution coming in public banking. I for one am tired of hearing all of the complaints my friends have with their retail banks. These are banks that could easily afford to give the best customer service.

Fuck Paypal.


Adam