I am the last person to defend PayPal but can you explain how they "took the money from me without warning"? You have to go through the PP disputes system first or have I missed something?

I hate paypal so much, I'll never use them again, despite the inconvenience. There have been occassions where I have not received an item that I have bought, and they have dealt with the seller and come back and said they can't reimburse me because the seller doesn't have enough funds in their paypal account. This has happened more than once.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I sold something for about 20 pounds and the buyer - who was new - claimed that he had not recieved it. He told paypal that I had 'conned' him, and paypal took the money from me without warning. There was nothing in my paypal account, so that put it 20 something pounds in the red, and the account has been suspended until it is paid. So when someone else doesn't receive something, they get their money back even if there's no money in the paypal account! I was so furious with them I sent them a very nasty email telling them, in a lot of four letter words, exactly how I felt about their company. As I have no intention of paying this money to paypal, I can't use my account again, which means that buyers are less likey to buy from me. But I'm a student and I can't afford to give my stuff away. Oooh, I hate paypal!!! I've had issues with them before but just gritted my teeth and lived with it, but never again!

ebay got jealous so they got in on the act. I told ebay very simply and clearly on four occasions that what I wanted to do was delete PayPal as an automatice payment and keep manual PayPal payments. I also cut and pasted the exact wording from the website and said this is your exact wording. On three occasions they got it wrong giving me automated e mail responses for my convenience because this was a difficult problem. After the third one I had a brain wave. Ok is the most popular word in the world so I put the Hotmail emoticon thumbs down sign and NOT OK. I DO NOT WISH TO CAUSE OFFENCE BUT PLEASE GIVE THIS TO A SUPERVISOR WHO READS AND UNDERSTANDS ENGLISH. BINGO! Here is the fouth response.

"I understand that you want to make one-time payments of your seller fees
through PayPal in future. I have checked your account and do see that a
request has been sent for the removal of PayPal as your automatic
payment method. I do apologise for the inconvenience caused. I have sent
a request to the relevant department requesting them not to remove
PayPal from your account. I assure you that it will not be removed from
your account. You can use it to make one-time payments by following the
steps given below."

ty4that --- If ebay really got their customer service act together, it could be one of the best businesses in the World, it is already a huge success. But they are very much lacking in the customer contact field, which leads to people getting frustrated and not returning to use their service, as much as they would if there was some approachability.

Until they learn this lesson they will never reach greater heights than they have already, this goes for Paypal too, as they operate hand in hand.

That confirmation ck cheers me up!

Hi --- No it's not just you who finds Paypal awful, I think it's a very clinical, uncaring and robotic system that they have. But it is the financial arm of ebay, so does not shock me in any way.

I think just about everything about PayPal is awful. Their computer system, the userunfriendly website, customer service that on many occasions simply 'presses the nearest auto reply button' and the staff who seem in many cases to 'speak' but not understand English and what must be policy never admit that they're wrong. The way it takes nine days plus to get money from my bank account to make an 'immediate' payment unless I have cash in my PayPal account not earning interest in which case I can make an immediate payment. The best worst PayPal experience I have ever had was just now. I added a credit card and was given a four figure security number for when I received an automated phone call. I received it seconds later and after entering it was told I was ready to go. But seconds after that I was told that my phone number and long confirmed address didn't match up so I would have to wait for postal verification in 6 to 9 days.