February 21, 2002 11:05 AM PST
PayPal hit by class-action suit
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Filed Wednesday in California Superior Court in Santa Clara County, the suit charges PayPal with illegitimately restricting customers' access to their money. The suit asks for an unspecified amount of damages.
PayPal frequently locks customers' accounts if it suspects that fraud played a part in a transaction, even if the amount in doubt is a fraction of the total amount in an account, said Gail Koff, an attorney and founding partner of Jacoby & Meyers, which filed the lawsuit.
The result is that customers can't accept any more payments via PayPal, pay anyone through the service, or withdraw any of their money until PayPal clears the transaction. That can often take days or even weeks, customers charge.
"Under the guise of needing to protect consumers from fraud, they themselves are guilty of fraudulent abuse of their customers," Koff said.
A PayPal representative declined to comment, citing the company's post-IPO quiet period.
The suit is only the latest legal trouble to befall the online payments company. A lawsuit alleging patent infringement filed earlier this month forced PayPal to delay its IPO by more than a week. The company is also involved in a patent dispute with Tumbleweed Communications, although that has not gone to the courts.
Meanwhile, Louisiana has asked PayPal to cease offering its service to the state's residents until the company receives a license to transmit money from the state. And state banking regulators in New York, California and Idaho have raised questions about whether PayPal operates an unauthorized banking service.
PayPal customers have repeatedly complained about how the company handles cases of suspected fraud. Several Web sites, including PaypalWarning.com, have been set up to give voice to disaffected PayPal users.
In regulatory documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, PayPal warned that while it had taken steps to reduce fraud, it still incurred "substantial losses" due to merchant and consumer fraud.
During the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2001, for instance, $5.8 million was charged back to PayPal due to customers who disputed purchases with their credit card companies. During that period, the company lost $9.7 million, or about 0.42 percent of the total amount of transactions through its service, due to fraud-related transactions.
PayPal raised more than $70 million in its IPO. The company, which has never posted a profit, lost $18.54 million on sales of $40.4 million in the fourth quarter last year.
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They first refused to correct this, then reversed the payment altogether, causing some serious issues as the service I was paying for was crucial to my business. That company charged a fee for the chargeback which both Paypal and GE Money refused to accept responsibility for, and to add a little insult to injury GE Money did not credit the chargeback to my account, so now I owe a chargeback fee to my service provider, have had my rates increase due to the chargeback - and GE Money is trying to collect the amount they already recovered.
At this point I am being billed for the original amount plus a rate increase plus a chargeback fee by my service provider, GE Money has sent me to collection agency to recover the money they already got back, and my Paypal account is now "unverified" due to the dispute with GE Money so I can't even use it.
In short - if you are thinking about opening a account with Paypal or GE Money - instead just give your wallet to a random crackhead - it will cost you about the same and be a lot less frustrating........
me, initiated a item not received claim. The month before this person had paid to my account funds , because they had sold something to me which was no where near their description of the item. So here I sit, I can't pay sellers I owe money to because I have a negative account balance. I have a negative account balance because Paypal withdrew the amount of the so called dispute. How can there be a "not received item dispute" started when the person initiating the dispute did not buy anything from me?
whyer
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
I'm not associated with PayPal in any way, nor am I an investor in it. I have been using it personally for many years, and to run my small business since 2005. I have been very happy with their service and their resolution system. I will continue to do business with them for the foreseeable future.
I just thought someone here should make a statement contrary to the rather angry posts that I?ve read here in association with this article.
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
So, how about you tell me how I've "pretty much caused the problem" myself, since you apparently have some sort of special, God-given insight on this, eh? Luckily I don't have to rely on the money in my Paypal account to pay bills or put food on the table, but some folks do. Some people made their living using Ebay/Paypal and had been doing so successfully for years (as you claim you have), that is, until now. And yet you have the audacity, or would that be idiocy, to get on your self-righteous high horse defending Paypal? Wow.
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
We have been members of paypal for years they promise security and protection for their sellers and buyers. I'm sure people are aware that you can use your paypal acc for other purchases. My husband was purchasing some items from China to sell on Ebay and was a litlle leary about the seller since he never did business before. We called PayPal 3 times before we made the purchase and they assured us that if the seller turned out to be a fraud we where insured by them to get our money back. Well we never received our merchandise and paypal will not reinburse we list over 1000.00 dollars they gave us 3.00 dollars back don't know where that came from.They have been investing for 3mths now and when you call they give no explanation to what we where told. They are not a company of their word. I f there is any help for us out there please let me know. Beware
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
Remeber the monopoly cable used to have. Satallite service has made cable service have to improve.
When I have trouble with my cable compnay, I threaten to get a dish. I get what I want 9x out of 10!
Congress needs to not worry of stupidity like steroids in Baseball and sopeona Ebay and Paypal to hearings. Of course that is not as sexy a story as steroids!
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
www.lawsuit-lawyers.com and see if any of the links there can lead you to some real legal help. If you dare! I say that because it seems that some of you are scared to speak up for yourselves; unless you have a mob of others standing with you. Or maybe I'm just making things out to be easier than they truly are. So best of luck with all of your Pay Pal problems.
An elephant like PayPal isn't going to pay any attention to one little ant tapping on the elephant's toenail, but a million ants biting it's ears are going to get some results. There's power in numbers and our whole government and economic system is tuned to numbers; large numbers.
Corporations have learned that no one is going to spend tens of thousands of dollars to sue them for filching a few hundred dollars from an individual and they are taking advantage of that at an ever increasing frequency. It is time that our lawmakers give the people some laws that hold the CEO's criminally accountable for their underhanded dealings.
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
I believe the two thief paypal and ebay never get enough, they work togeather for stealing money from peoples account. if you call them and want to know the problem why ebay account and paypalaccount is blocked, after long priod of time on line you get stupid answer, untrained employee, I lost so much money and they don't even care, they force you and me to pay to resalve your account but won't do anything , they are not solving problem bettween buyer and seller ,they screw the deal and let the problem rase, I don't understand why goverment won't stop them, if you are seller and sold item and and you recieved the money from buyer if they find buyer is frauds they will force you to pay back the money to them so they don't care even their own paypal policy ,they think you have find item from garbage. if you are buyer and recieve fake item ,like yellow metal instead of gold ,you have to file disput return item register with tracking you may get the money back or not even you get your money, you paid for shipping ,custom and duty fee, and you won't recieve these cost, total headahe, the goverment has to kick them out of business,one thing remember they access to your bank or credit company so they have the power to do anything they want, at the end if you can sell garbage and good garbage seller ,they want you and protect you ,
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
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I have also problems with PayPal as they have frozen my account with $10.000.00 in it. Even them can not explain why because when I had complains from my customers and offers to pay them back, even though they received puchased order, to get my account back, they still limit my account for 180 days!
I never use my customers money to pay for purchases I sell before they have confirmed receivment and signed for it. Most of my customers has recived, and signed, for orders that I have paid for, and still my account and my money is hold back. I would also like to find a lawyer that is willing to take a case against PayPal, not to gain money but to once and for all make the follow the baking laws as anyone else.
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
Baybay613
This experience has made me very weary of selling anything on ebay and I'm delaying shipping to users which makes them not so happy.
There needs to be better protection for sellers.
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
December 10, 2008
To Whom It May Concern:
RE: Auction # 220323373210 & PP-591-946-831
Please be advised that you have three days from today?s date to facilitate the return of my camera from the Dallas, TX police department or I will consider you the new owner of said camera. Please contact Sgt. Acosta of the Dallas PD at 214-671-0905 to release the camera for shipment to me. You have prevented FedEx from picking it up on three separate occasions for no good reason. Should I not receive the camera three days from today?s date, I will consider it sold to you (eBay, Paypal or both). Your complete lack of attention to detail, communication and general common sense has caused this situation. I advised you that I suspected fraud since the package was diverted in the shipping process. I alerted you and you did nothing to stop it. This could have been prevented by one phone call from you to the police to have them delay delivery. I did all the leg work to thwart this fraud and theft, and you have done nothing. Furthermore, it?s unacceptable that email is your only form of communication. I was told by one of your employees that you don?t have phones. I never heard of something so ridiculous. When this amount of money is at stake, I should be able to speak to someone. In any case, whether you purchase the camera (don?t return it in the specified amount of time) or send it back to me, you still owe me for shipping charges from FedEx $49.62 + the balance in my account before you deducted $3995 which was $237.55 for a grand total of $287.17. The $287.17 should be credited back to my account forthwith since you refused the release of the camera to FedEx from the police and the balance in my account at that time. Keep in mind this is time sensitive and I did all of the work to stop this crime from occurring. It is imperative that I hear from you as soon as possible.
Robert DeAngelo
Valerie DeAngelo
Digilab1000 (eBay account)
My phone nuber is 516-776-1615
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
Oh my goodness halleluya!!!
I have been dying to see the day when we get our revenge. Makem bleed. Makem cry.
Ring every last friggin dime they have out of them.
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624
Julie D. Miller
FREED & WEISS LLC
111 West Washington Street
Suite 1331
Chicago, IL 60602
Firm Phone: 312-220-0000
Julie?s Direct Line: 312-855-2624