PayPal Review (For Businesses)

• 190 comments
• Updated on: Feb 19, 2020
• Review by: Melissa Johnson

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Date Established

1998

Location

San Jose, CA

Pros

• Trusted by consumers
• Predictable flat-rate pricing
• Multiple pricing plans available
• Ideal for low-volume merchants
• Extensive integrations
• Good developer tools
• All-in-one payments system

Cons

• Account stability issues
• Inconsistent customer support
• Not suitable for high-risk industries

Overview

Merchants in today’s world have no reason not to accept PayPal. The payment processing giant is nearly ubiquitous at this point — as things stand, PayPal claims 305 million active consumer accounts and 22 million merchants. Setting up and using PayPal is ridiculously easy, and you can be up and running nearly instantaneously. What’s more, your customers don’t even need a PayPal account, although they probably do have one.

PayPal is completely transparent about its terms and pricing. There are no contracts to sign and no early termination fees to worry about. Countless integrations are offered, so you’ll have plenty of options for syncing PayPal with your shopping cart, your accounting service, or your shipping software. PayPal also provides its own mPOS app, PayPal Here.

Looking for a PayPal alternative? Check out Square Payments.

Reader	eCommerce	Retail	Food Service
Free App & Reader	Square eCommerce	Square for Retail	Square for Restaurants
Get Started	Get Started	Get Started	Get Started
Free, general-purpose POS software and reader for iOS and Android	Easy integration with popular platforms plus API for customization	Specialized software for more complex retail stores	Specialized software for full-service restaurants
$0/month	$0/month	$60/month	$60/month
Always Free	Always Free	Free Trial	Free Trial

Another factor in PayPal’s broad appeal is that unlike the vast majority of merchant accounts or payment processors out there, you can implement PayPal as your exclusive means of accepting payments or as a supplemental option.

However, let’s tackle the question: Should PayPal be your primary payment processing platform?

PayPal is set up in a way that makes it scalable with your business from your first day until you make it to the big leagues. With no contract, no monthly fees, and a robust suite of tools for merchants to sell virtually anywhere, anytime, PayPal’s appeal is undeniable.

However, once you’ve reached the point where you’re consistently processing at least $10,000-$20,000 in credit card transactions per month, a traditional merchant account may become more cost-effective. A good merchant account will also give you personalized service and attention — something PayPal doesn’t offer.

If you only process sporadically, you have a low volume, are just starting, or a traditional merchant account is beyond your reach (for a reason other than “I run a high-risk business“), PayPal should be near the top of your shortlist for processing options. It’s hard to beat the value, especially for new merchants. It’s also important to ask whether PayPal has all the features and functionality you need, though. If the answer is yes, you should go for it! 

We’re giving PayPal a score of 4-stars for its ease of use, clear pricing, and transparent advertising. When we start to see actual, consistent improvement in PayPal’s customer service and account stability, we’ll consider revising the score upward — but not until then.  

PayPal offers an abundance of different business and financial services, many of which we’ve reviewed favorably. One such new product is a service called LoanBuilder (check out our LoanBuilder review if you’re curious). It’s a simple and straightforward short-term loan program that’s available to all merchants, not just those using PayPal. LoanBuilder happens to be one of our favorite small business loan programs currently. If you like the PayPal brand, are considering applying for a loan, and have a credit score of at least 550, go check it out.

LoanBuilder	Compare Read our Review

Read our full review for all the down-and-dirty details on PayPal’s merchant solutions, including features and pricing. If you like what you see, check out our piece on how to set up a PayPal business account. And if it’s not for you, we’ve highlighted some alternatives to PayPal at the end of this review. You can also head over to our comparison chart to see some of our favorite merchant account providers. And as with everything we review, if you have experience using PayPal as a merchant — good, bad, or anything in between — please leave us a comment! We’re eager to hear your input!

Table of Contents

• Products & Services
• Integrations & Add-Ons
• Fees & Rates
• Contract Length & Cancellation Fee
• Sales & Advertising Transparency
• Customer Service & Support
• User Reviews
• Final Verdict

Products & Services

Rating: Excellent

Before delving into the full range of products offered by PayPal, we should establish upfront that PayPal is a third-party processor (also known as a payment service provider [PSP] or an aggregator). The primary difference between a third-party processor and a traditional merchant account provider is that instead of providing merchants with their own merchant account, PSPs aggregate all their merchants into one enormous merchant account. One unfortunate side effect of this arrangement is the fact that merchants bear an increased risk of account instability. Holds and terminations are quite common due to the risk management policies required for PSPs to function. Read our piece on avoiding holds, freezes, and terminations to learn more. Next, check out our PayPal vs. merchant accounts article to get the entire scope of the differences between these two fundamentally different payment processing methods.

When most people think of PayPal, they tend to think of it mainly as a P2P payment app or the primary payment method for eBay. While PayPal is both of those things (for the moment — eBay will be dropping PayPal as its primary payment processing partner as of July 2020), PayPal also offers an expansive array of features and capabilities for merchants. PayPal is expanding and diversifying quite a bit now that it’s a publicly-traded company in its own right. I like to see this because it means PayPal is keeping up with the times and, in many ways, positioning itself to be an industry leader.

But on to more immediate matters! First, to process payments with PayPal, you need a business account, which is free to sign up for.

After doing this, you’ll need to decide which of PayPal’s products and services you plan to use. Get ready — this list goes on!

PayPal Online Payments

For a vast majority of merchants, getting set up with PayPal means deciding how you want to accept payments online. PayPal offers three options for web payments:

• PayPal Checkout (formerly Express Checkout)
• PayPal Payments Standard
• PayPal Payments Pro

PayPal Checkout is an easy solution if you just want to add PayPal as a payment option on a website where you already accept credit cards or integrate with an eCommerce provider. To implement Checkout on your website, you may need a developer, but it won’t take a lot of work after that point. PayPal does the maintenance and upkeep for you. Here’s what you get with Checkout:

• PCI Compliance: Because PayPal redirects customers to its site to complete the transactions, you don’t have to worry about PCI compliance at all.
• Contextual Checkout Buttons: PayPal will use what it knows about your customer to display “smart” checkout buttons tailored to the customer. For example, Venmo users will see a Venmo checkout option. PayPal Credit (formerly “Bill me later”) will also appear as an option on eligible purchases. Welcome to the age of contextual commerce!
• Localized Payment Methods: PayPal is in the process of adding localized payment methods for customers across Europe. It’s already something we see with Stripe, so it’s hardly surprising to see PayPal implement it as well. In addition to existing support for SEPA Direct Debit (Germany), PayPal is adding support for iDEAL (the Netherlands), EPS (Austria), Giropay (Germany), MyBank (Italy), and Bancontact (Belgium), with more to come in the future.

PayPal Payments Standard is slightly more involved than PayPal Checkout, but that’s because it gives merchants a bit more control and customization with their payment process. The Standard plan includes all the eCommerce integrations that PayPal Checkout offers but does not offer the “smart” checkout buttons. Here’s what you do get, though:

• PCI Compliance: As with Checkout, PayPal routes your customers to its website to complete transactions, which eliminates the PCI compliance burden for merchants.
• Customizable Payment Buttons: PayPal says that it only takes about 15 minutes to implement PayPal Payments Standard, and it’s just a matter of copy-and-paste. With payment buttons, you can create an online shop where you can sell one item, or 10, or as many as you want. PayPal’s button builder tools allow you to customize the look of the buttons as well as how some aspects of the checkout process works (whether you want to go immediately to purchase or allow customers to add items to a cart). Nonprofits can also create donation buttons with the option to create one-time or recurring donations.

PayPal Payments Pro is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. Still, if you have access to a skilled developer and are extra finicky about controlling your payments experience and don’t mind the extra work, it might be worth a look. PayPal Payments Pro is the most customizable of PayPal’s online payment processing options, though it will cost you an extra $30 per month.

• Hosted Checkout Page: If you’d rather keep your customers on your website throughout the entire checkout process, it’s worth looking at the Pro plan. PayPal makes it easy for you to customize the design of your checkout. However, you do take some of the PCI burdens onto yourself in the process. PayPal makes it simpler with tools, such as transparent redirects. At a minimum, you can expect to have to do self-assessments and quarterly scans to maintain your PCI compliance.
• Virtual Terminal: If you want to be able to accept payments over the phone, PayPal’s virtual terminal will let you key in card numbers from a browser window. However, I think $30/month is a pretty hefty price to pay for this feature considering both Square and Shopify offer it at no additional charge.
• Recurring Billing: Technically, PayPal’s Payment Pro plan does not include any recurring billing tools. It’s an add-on service that costs an additional $10/month. Again, I think that’s pretty expensive given that Stripe offers much better pricing and more flexible tools in this regard. (As a tradeoff, though, you’ll need a developer to make the most of the features Stripe offers.)

Other PayPal Products & Services

• PayPal Here: This is PayPal’s mobile processing app. While it’s not the most feature-laden out there, it’s solid enough. The fact that your funds get deposited into your PayPal account along with the rest of your online sales is pretty nice. You don’t have to pay for any subscription or software fees; you just pay the processing costs. Check out our PayPal Here review to learn more.
• POS System Integrations: If PayPal Here isn’t robust enough for your needs, you can integrate PayPal into one of the company’s partners for POS solutions. You’ll still pay for the software subscription, but PayPal charges nothing except the transaction fees and hardware. Check out the Integrations & Add-Ons section below for a better look at your third-party integration options.
• Online Invoicing: Consultants and contractors can use PayPal’s invoicing features for invoicing their clients for the same rate as regular web transactions. PayPal’s invoicing tools are pretty solid, allowing you to add a tipping option to the invoice and even setting up installments. Recently, PayPal added support for recurring invoicing as well. You can also create custom billing apps with PayPal Invoicing APIs.
• Payflow Payment Gateway: The gateway comes automatically bundled with PayPal’s online processing tools, so it’s not something many people will think about. However, PayPal’s gateway is available as a standalone product to businesses that have a credit card processor but no gateway. See the Rates & Fees section below for more information about pricing.
• Marketing Solutions: Honestly, PayPal’s “Marketing Solutions” makes me think of a pared-down Google Analytics with some PayPal tools thrown in. But if most of your customers use PayPal, or you want to increase conversions on your site, it’s certainly worth looking at. The Marketing Solutions package is available with all of PayPal’s online processing options, including Checkout, and now it’s available outside the US as well. If you want to understand PayPal users and how they interact with your site, this would be a great place to start. PayPal has some benchmarking tools using anonymized PayPal user data.
• Mass Payouts: Want to pay employees or contractors via PayPal? The Mass Payout feature allows you to send multiple payments at once rather than one at a time, using either a spreadsheet or the PayPal API. Plus, you’ll save money compared to PayPal’s standard rates. Check out the Fees & Rates section below for more information.
• PayPal.me: PayPal sports a Venmo-style payment solution in the form of PayPal.me. With this app, you can send and request payments to/from friends, family, customers, and clients. The other party doesn’t even need to have a PayPal account. While personal payments do not incur any fees, commercial payments are charged the same 2.9% + $0.30 rate as with payments made via PayPal proper. Be aware that PayPal is watching to make sure you don’t try to pass off commercial payments as personal payments. If you have a PayPal Business account, PayPal will assume that any PayPal.me link associated with your account is commercial by nature and will charge you accordingly.

PayPal Developer Tools

PayPal’s had developer tools for a long time, but it’s only recently invested some notable efforts into making them better. From what I’ve gathered in my research of developer-centric platforms, Stripe is the gold standard, but Braintree, a PayPal-owned company, is also near the top. PayPal doesn’t seem to match Braintree’s quality, although time will tell. Also, you can open a merchant account with Braintree and integrate PayPal into your setup pretty easily. PayPal’s developer tools include:

• PayPal Checkout: Unless you opt for an eCommerce integration, PayPal says you’ll need a developer to implement PayPal Checkout on your site. The tools include three options for integration. Two are focused on mobile and desktop web browsers, while the third is designed for in-app payments.
• PayPal Invoicing: While you can use the web interface to create invoices, you can also use the developer API to create and design invoices to send to your customers.
• PayPal Subscriptions:  If you’d like to manage a subscription-based business on PayPal’s platforms, Subscription makes it easy to create plans and billing agreements and automate the process.
• PayPal Payouts: I mentioned the mass payout option already, but I would like to say that you can use the API to issue payments as well as manually upload spreadsheets.
• PayPal Here SDK: If you’d like to add PayPal payments to a POS system you’re developing, you can do that using the PayPal Here SDK for both iOS and Android.
• PayPal Commerce Platform: Officially launched in June 2019, the PayPal Commerce Platform developer tool gives marketplaces, eCommerce providers, and crowdfunding platforms the ability to create customized payment solutions and accept payments in over 100 currencies and local payment types. This new grouping of services had previously only been available to select large companies but is now open to all. The following business types can take advantage of the platform:
  • Physical goods
  • Services
  • eCommerce hosting services, such as payment processing and shopping cart hosting
  • Crowdfunding for personal projects or nonprofit ventures
• White Label Wallet: PayPal’s White Label Wallet (WLW) provides you with branded mobile wallet apps that work at the point of purchase at in-person locations.
• Connect With PayPal: This feature allows a customer to log into your website/app using their PayPal credentials. The Identity API is used to enable Connect with PayPal.

PayPal Funding Options

Generally speaking, money from PayPal transactions is available almost immediately in your PayPal account. You can then spend that balance anywhere that accepts PayPal online or transfer the funds to your bank account. Transfers typically take one to two business days.

PayPal also has its very own debit card for businesses, the PayPal Business Debit Mastercard. The card gives you fast access to cash from your PayPal account — no reason to wait for a funds transfer. You can spend your balance at any store that accepts cards or withdraw money from any ATM with a Mastercard, Maestro, or Cirrus acceptance mark. It also makes accounting simpler because you don’t have to use your personal accounts to make business purchases or constantly shuffle funds around.

If you don’t want a debit card, or you need to move money to your bank account right away, PayPal does offer an instant transfer option. It will cost you 1% of the transfer volume (capped at $10), which is on par with what Square charges for the same service. Your limits are as follows:

• $5,000 per transaction
• $5,000 per day
• $5,000 per week
• $15,000 per month

If you find yourself in need of a quick influx of cash and don’t want to deal with a loan, PayPal merchants are also eligible to apply for PayPal Working Capital. Essentially, it works like a merchant cash advance where you pay back the financed amount by deducting a small portion of each day’s transactions processed via PayPal. Check out our PayPal Working Capital review for more information.

Was your Paypal Working Capital loan declined? See your top financing alternatives.

What’s New With PayPal

PayPal continues to innovate and regularly rolls out new features. Most are pretty small, but the list is growing pretty fast. It’s worth paying attention to PayPal’s blog to see what’s going on. Here’s what I’ve found since my last check-in.

• PayPal LoanBuilder: PayPal’s newest addition is a simple short-term loan service available to merchants regardless of their payment processor. The service requires a credit score of at least 550, but the application process is simple, and we found it reliable in our review.
• New Tax Features: US taxpayers can now pay their taxes using PayPal. You can now use your PayPal account to do the following:
  • Pay your taxes to the IRS through payUSAtax.com
  • Pay income taxes over time with PayPal Credit
  • Receive tax refunds straight into a PayPal account
  • Pay small business taxes through payUSAtax.com and get tax tips from PayPal for planning and managing a business year-round
• Instant Transfer To Banks: PayPal has recently rolled out a new feature in which US consumers and businesses can instantly transfer their PayPal balance to their bank accounts. The same fees that apply to debit transfers apply to bank transfers, however (1% of the transfer volume capped at $10). There is a $25,000 per-transaction withdrawal limit.
• Checkout On Instagram: This new feature allows US businesses to sell directly to consumers via their Instagram pages.
• Recurring Invoices: PayPal’s invoicing features now include the ability to set up recurring invoices.
• PayPal Invoicing API: With this tool, you can send invoices in 25 currencies and 200+ markets with no monthly fee.

Yes, this is a lot of information to take in. The key thing to remember is that PayPal has something for everyone. Whether you want to sell online or accept payments through multiple channels, PayPal has a solution for you. It makes a great starter option if you’re just getting set up and want an easy, trusted way to take payments. PayPal will grow along with your business, too. There are so many different payment options as well as all of the integrations and add-ons available. While the developer tools might not be on par with some other industry leaders, most of PayPal’s other offerings are top-of-the-line or at least above average.

The problem with PayPal has never been the services and products themselves — it’s been about the merchant experience. But we’ll get to that later.

Integrations & Add-Ons

PayPal integrates with a huge number of applications, from shopping carts to accounting software to shipping applications and email marketing software. There are just way too many to write out, but you can find the full list on PayPal’s site.

If you are interested in PayPal integrations, here’s a quick primer on some of the options available:

eCommerce

• Shopify
• Magento
• X-Cart
• 3dcart
• BigCommerce
• Wix
• BigCartel
• Volusion
• WooCommerce
• CS-Cart
• Ecwid
• Jimdo
• WordPress
• Squarespace
• UltraCart

In-Store

• Vend
• Revel
• Lavu
• TouchBistro
• NCR Silver

There’s an obvious benefit to having so many integration options. You won’t have to worry about whether your shopping cart is compatible or not because it most likely is. The same goes for major accounting applications, such as QuickBooks Online and Xero (check out our QuickBooks Online and Xero reviews for more info!). And there’s no shortage of well-known, robust POS solutions for retail stores and restaurants. Plus, PayPal integrates with some more specialized solutions as well.

Fees & Rates

Rating: Good

All PayPal services come with no annual fee, no setup fee, no PCI compliance fees, and no cancellation fee. Except for a few optional software-related fees, you won’t have to worry about anything other than payment processing costs.

PayPal is very straightforward about transaction costs, even if those costs are a bit higher than most traditional merchant accounts. However, its pricing structure is absolutely competitive with other pay-as-you-go and payment aggregating services. Many new merchants might find the lack of additional fees more cost-effective than an interchange-plus plan. I’ve laid out the fees below, but you can also check out our other article, The Complete Guide to PayPal’s Fees, Rates, & Pricing.

PayPal Transaction Fees

Regardless of which plan you are on (Standard or Pro), your transactions fees will be as follows:

• For all online sales, you pay 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
• For all swiped/dipped/tapped mobile and in-store transactions, you pay 2.7%.
• For all keyed-in mobile and in-store transactions, you pay 3.5% + $0.15.
• For virtual terminal transactions, you pay 3.1% + $0.30 per transaction.
• For mass payouts, you’ll pay 2% using the online form ($1 maximum), or $0.25 per payout using the API.

It’s also worth noting a few other charges apply to transactions as well:

• For any chargebacks, PayPal assesses a $20 fee.
• Any transactions that originate from outside the US incur a 1.5% cross-border fee.
• When you issue a refund to a customer, PayPal no longer refunds even partial transaction fees. Instead, it keeps the full amount, meaning that you essentially pay 2.9% + $0.30 per refund.
• If you initiate an instant transfer, PayPal will charge you 1% of the transfer amount ($10 maximum).

Alternative Payment Processing Rates

While PayPal’s payment processing costs are very predictable, they’re not suitable for every type of business. Sadly, you can’t negotiate with PayPal for a different rate unless you are a very large corporation. You can, though, take advantage of a couple of alternative rate offerings: PayPal’s microtransactions plan and nonprofit discounts.

• Micropayments Rate: 5% + $0.05

PayPal’s micropayments plan is open to all merchants, but it only benefits you if the vast majority of your transactions are under $10. PayPal won’t automatically switch between the two rates based on transaction size, so if you opt for the micropayments plan, you need to make sure it’s the best option based on your individual processing history. Generally speaking, if you sell digital goods online (single songs or digital albums or other low-value items), this is the plan you should look for.

Also, qualified 501(c)(3) organizations that go through the verification process are eligible for a discount for online transactions:

• Nonprofit Discount Rate: 2.2% + $0.30

Sadly, PayPal doesn’t offer a discounted rate for in-person transactions processed through its mPOS or a partner POS system. The discounted rate would apply only to online sales or donations. However, keep in mind that some software providers also offer discounts to nonprofits, so if you’ve integrated PayPal with accounting software, a POS app, or another third party, you should also check whether that company offers a discount.

Check out our PayPal For Nonprofits article to learn more about what PayPal has to offer a nonprofit organization.

PayPal Monthly Fees

Remember, there are two options for accepting PayPal on your site that charge nothing beyond transaction fees: PayPal Checkout and PayPal Payments Standard. Both allow you to accept payments on your website but will redirect to the PayPal site to complete the transaction. If you prefer to keep customers on your page, or if you’d like a virtual terminal to take payments over the phone, you’ll need PayPal Payments Pro:

• Paypal Payments Pro: $30 per month

The biggest advantage, as I said, is that the Payments Pro account lets you keep customers on your page to finish the checkout process. You can completely design your checkout page. Furthermore, Payments Pro subscribers get access to the Virtual Terminal to accept payments by phone, mail, and fax.

Unfortunately, PayPal Payments Pro doesn’t include an option for Recurring Billing. Subscription services are hugely popular — and if you want to offer them with PayPal, that will run you an extra $10 per month on top of the Pro plan. If you dig a little deeper, you’ll also see that PayPal offers free recurring billing for users who have implemented PayPal Checkout but not PayPal Standard.

Finally, it’s worth noting that PayPal offers its Payflow gateway to process payments. It has a high degree of compatibility, so it works with most payment processors. So if you want to sell online but don’t want to use PayPal as your primary payment processor, and your chosen processor doesn’t offer a gateway, this could be an option. Payflow supports two plans:

• Payflow Link: This pay-as-you-go option costs $0.10 per transaction, and PayPal charges nothing for setup or monthly fees. Using Payflow Link, you can embed a checkout form on your website that will redirect to the PayPal site to complete the transaction. Payflow Link also adds PayPal and PayPal Credit buttons.
• Payflow Pro: At $25/month for the Payflow Pro plan, there’s no questioning the value, though you’ll need to pay a relatively high $99 setup fee and will still be on the hook for the $0.10 per-transaction fee. Thankfully, PayPal doesn’t put a limit on the volume. With the PayflowPro plan, you get a completely customizable checkout page that’s hosted on your website, with the ability to add PayPal and PayPal Credit options.

As I said, PayPal has something for everyone. I don’t know that I can say it has everything everyone would need, but it’ll tick a lot of boxes for most people. While PayPal is still dominating the online space, it has moved beyond that to encompass multiple sales channels. Being able to manage in-person and online sales from a single platform is a significant point of convenience.

Contract Length & Cancellation Fee

Rating: Excellent

All of PayPal’s payment solutions are contract-free and have no early termination fee. It really is that simple.

That’s great if PayPal is your starter option, and you want to upgrade to a merchant account later. However, if the rates work for you (particularly as just a secondary option), PayPal will also scale with your business. We rarely find a service that will help you start and stay with you as your business grows, and we like that quite a bit.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

Rating: Excellent

The best thing about PayPal is that its sales and advertising are very upfront. All of the rates are listed in plain sight, so there’s no hidden agenda. The company has, over the years, gotten even better about disclosing pricing and fees (such as its chargeback fee, which used to be hidden in the fine print).

Most of PayPal’s business comes directly through its website or via referrals. It doesn’t have the traditional sales team “pounding the pavement” and luring in potential customers with too-good-to-be-true deals like some merchant account providers (and yes, some are far more guilty of this than others). There’s no doubt that PayPal offers real value, particularly for new merchants without a sales history, and it doesn’t make any outrageous claims or promises about the nature of its services.

Please don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just because anyone can open an account, everyone can process with PayPal. That’s not true, and I think it plays a considerable role in complaints against PayPal. PayPal has a specific list of prohibited businesses, which I encourage everyone to check out. You’ll also be under scrutiny as soon as you start processing. If PayPal decides you present an unacceptable risk, it will terminate your account. So make sure you operate transparently and use sound business practices. Check out our guide on how to prevent holds, freezes, and terminations.

Customer Service & Support

Rating: Good

PayPal has a bunch of different customer service and support options. All of this is pretty much exactly what I expect from a company that caters to startups and small businesses in the 21st century, but it is nice to see.

Depending on your question or problem, you can check out any of these options:

• Community Forum: If you want insights and advice from other PayPal merchants, the community forum is a good place to start.
• Knowledgebase: PayPal’s self-help resources are pretty extensive, both for consumer users as well as merchants. You’ll find a vast array of questions and answers in the searchable database, which should cover most of your needs.
• Phone/Email: PayPal’s phone support is very inconsistent, judging from the online chatter (see Negative Reviews & Complaints). Sometimes you’ll get a rep who knows what they’re doing, other times you won’t. My advice is to avoid calling, if at all possible. Answers to most common problems can be found with just a little bit of searching. Between the knowledgebase, community forum, and quick answers sections, you should be able to find a solution.
• Social Media: PayPal is active on Facebook, but if you want help on social media, you’re better off taking to Twitter, where you can send a tweet to PayPal and get some assistance that way.
• Resolution Center: Through PayPal’s resolution center, a merchant can communicate directly with a buyer to resolve a transaction problem. You can also use it to attempt to resolve an account limitation, to report unauthorized account activity, and to ask PayPal to investigate a transaction problem.

One compelling benefit of using PayPal is the sheer volume of users. Any time you encounter an error or a problem, you can google it. The odds are good that you’ll find a solution from another merchant who has already dealt with the same issue. However, when it comes to account issues (such as holds), you’ll need to talk to someone over the phone. If need be, you can go through the BBB (read more about that in the next section).

User Reviews

Rating: Good

Negative Reviews & Complaints

PayPal is a massive company, and like all big companies, there are a vast number of complaints. The greatest difficulty with trying to quantify complaints against PayPal is the fact that PayPal is also a consumer product. That means a good chunk of the complaints come from consumers who had problems with the digital wallet, or from customers who purchased something on eBay or from another seller. They turn to PayPal, expecting a solution. So the number of complaints about PayPal is not representative of the complaints about its merchant services.

While the number of complaints isn’t particularly helpful, the content of those complaints is. I did read over a chunk of the complaints, dating back about 12 months. One thing stuck out for me:

I was honestly impressed with PayPal’s quality of service. The department handling BBB complaints is full of real people writing the responses and explaining where the problem occurred. They’re genuinely trying to help where they can. If you go through the BBB, the odds are good you can probably get whatever help you need — it just might take a little while, and you should try going through PayPal’s customer support first.

The BBB is a leading source of information about how a company deals with complaints, but I do check out a few other review sites for more details. I see the same trends there, for the most part: a mix of consumer and merchant complaints. Of the merchant complaints, there is one single complaint that dominates all others. It’s not that PayPal’s products are the problem. It’s the service. Specifically, here’s the big issue:

• Withheld Funds, Freezing Of Accounts, & Termination Of Accounts: If PayPal notes any suspicious behavior on your account, it may implement a hold on a certain percentage of your funds, freeze your account, or even terminate your account. Usually, a red flag on your account comes with a request for documents, such as bank statements, photocopies of your IDs, purchase orders, invoices, and more. PayPal uses that information to determine what to do with your account. One of the criteria PayPal uses to flag an account is a sudden spike in processing volume. It also doesn’t like seeing merchants sell goods below cost (an unfortunate tactic used by a LOT of newbie eBay sellers), or merchants selling vague, mysterious products. Anything that indicates an unsustainable business model might be grounds for account termination. Again: Read our article to learn more about how to avoid holds, freezes, and terminations.

That said, this certainly isn’t a problem unique to PayPal. Other aggregators, including Square and Stripe, have a similar reputation. Such is the nature of the “come as you are” business model — it’s easy to get an account with minimal history, but there’s an inherently higher risk because you’ll be under scrutiny once you get started.

In addition to the withheld-funds issue, here are some other common complaints:

• High Transaction Fees: Compared to a traditional merchant account, PayPal’s transaction fees are higher. Visa’s wholesale rates for an eCommerce transaction are anywhere between 1.5% and 2.4% + $0.10 per transaction. At 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, PayPal’s rate is over that amount, even when you factor in a merchant service provider’s markup. However, merchant accounts aren’t always accessible or even viable for low-volume merchants. For those merchants, when you factor in the various costs that a merchant account often generates, PayPal usually breaks even or comes reasonably close. What’s more, you don’t have a contract (or early termination fee) to worry about.
• Inconsistent Phone-Based Customer Service: Most merchants will rarely have to call PayPal’s customer service line. Those that have done so complain that the quality of service can be inconsistent. Some reps are more knowledgeable than others. The good thing is that PayPal has a whole slew of other service and support options (e.g., the knowledgebase, forum, email, etc.). Barring any account-related problems, chances are you can find your answer without having to call in.
• Chargebacks: Let’s be honest. Chargebacks are the bane of existence for any merchant who sells online. They’re also bad for your account stability, no matter what company you process with.  A lot of chargeback-related complaints seem to come from sellers on eBay, or from merchants who aren’t happy with how a chargeback was resolved. PayPal does offer some limited seller protections for online transactions, but you should brush up on what is and is not covered (eBay sales, for example, aren’t covered).

That’s really about it for consistent complaints about PayPal. You might find the occasional odd story, but they are few and far between. And it must be said that most of the complaints about PayPal posted to the BBB are ultimately resolved to the satisfaction of the aggrieved party. Nonetheless, if these complaints make you worried, check out our top selections for small business credit card processing instead. No business is perfect, but you might find that other companies give you a little less reason for concern.

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

Despite the negative reviews, there are plenty of good comments and reviews from merchants (and even some developers). Considering over 19 million merchants are using PayPal, this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Here’s what the positive chatter concerning PayPal is all about:

• Easy Setup: Most business owners rave about how easy it is to set up a PayPal account. If you’re exclusively offering PayPal Payments Standard (or even PayPal Checkout), then you can get started almost instantly.
• Widely Accepted: PayPal has an extensive user base, which makes it a trustworthy payment option for everyone. If you’re just getting your business off the ground, then starting with something such as PayPal is a good choice. The name recognition and trust associated with PayPal (especially with its buyer protections) can be a serious asset in the early days of operation.
• Almost-Instant Access To Cash: Your PayPal transactions clear almost immediately, so you can spend the money in your account as soon as you have it — provided the place where you’re spending it accepts PayPal, of course. If you want your money anywhere, don’t overlook the PayPal Business Debit card. It works like a debit card, but it deducts directly from your PayPal account. And now we have the instant transfer option, too.
• Multiple Products/Services Under One Roof: PayPal offers you everything you need to process online or mobile payments (e.g., payment gateway, payment forms, virtual terminal, invoicing, micropayments, recurring billing, developer tools, etc.). It truly is a solution that will grow with you.
• Transparent Pricing: As mentioned earlier, what you see is what you get with PayPal. There are no setup fees, annual fees, cancellation fees, or downgrades for sellers.

Final Verdict

PayPal is an ideal payment option for new businesses, and you should definitely keep it around as a backup form of payment if you sell online. Of course, it functions quite well as your primary payment option as well.

Setting up a PayPal business account is quick and painless, the platform is easy to use, and it’s widely accepted. If you own a brand new business, and you need to accept payments quickly, PayPal is an ideal solution. The mobile integration, PayPal Here, is seamless, which is useful for retailers and vendors who want to accept payments on the go, and there are plenty of other POS options available if you need more advanced features. A huge number of shopping cart integrations and developer tools for online sellers are available as well.

That said, as your business grows, and you exceed $10K in monthly revenue, it may be more worthwhile to pursue a traditional merchant account because the processing costs will be lower. Just make sure that the merchant account provides all the features you need — and that if you have to pay for additional services, they don’t exceed the costs of using PayPal. Have a look at our merchant account comparison chart if you’re considering going this route.

As with any other third-party processor, account stability is always a concern. While your account may be approved almost right away, your transactions will be stringently vetted. Red flags can lead to held funds, or worse, account freezes or terminations.

Despite this, the credibility PayPal offers beginning and small-time merchants, its near-universal recognition, and the sheer number of features and integrations available are serious advantages. Even well-established merchants can benefit from using PayPal. For those reasons, along with its ease of use, transparent pricing, and overall versatility, we’re keeping PayPal’s score at 4 out of 5 stars. We’d love to see more reliability and improved customer service, which would easily bump PayPal up a half-star or more.

We’re confident in recommending PayPal to you, but we acknowledge that, like most other aggregator services, it’s not the best fit for every business.

If you want the processing freedom that comes with no contract and no monthly fees, but you’re determined not to use PayPal, have a look at either Stripe, which is very developer-friendly, or Square, which doesn’t have quite the wide-ranging eCommerce support that PayPal does but is still a powerful all-in-one option. We also have a piece comparing Square and PayPal if you’re intrigued. And if you want a bit more account stability but still have all the trust and tools that PayPal offers, it’s worth checking out Braintree. Since Braintree is owned by PayPal, it integrates seamlessly but also provides merchants their own unique merchant accounts. All of these processors have similar pricing models.

Read our article on PayPal alternatives to get a concise picture of your other payment processing options.

If you’re looking for merchant financing, PayPal has a new product we like called LoanBuilder. This simple and straightforward short-term loan program is available to all merchants, not just those that use PayPal. It’s one of our favorite small business loan programs as things stand. So if you jibe with the PayPal brand, are seeking a loan, and have a credit score of at least 550, check out our LoanBuilder review.

LoanBuilder	Compare Read our Review

Thanks for reading! Again, if you’ve used or are using PayPal and have anything to share about your experiences — positive or negative — please let us know. Our comments are always open!

• Bio
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Melissa Johnson

Melissa Johnson has been writing about payment processing and mobile payments since 2014, and has been quoted in articles for Credit Karma and The Next Web, among others. She graduated from The University of Kansas in 2010 with bachelor's degrees in English and journalism.

Latest posts by Melissa Johnson (see all)

• Square POS VS SumUp: Which Mobile App and Card Reader Is Right For You? - November 25, 2019
• These 6 Online Credit Card Processing Companies Are A Cut Above The Rest (Plus Everything You Need To Know To Get Started) - November 21, 2019
• Become A Hero & Save Your Charity Money With Discounted Credit Card Processing For Nonprofits - November 12, 2019
• Why PayPal’s Credit Card Processing Isn’t A Merchant Account (And Why Not Understanding The Difference Puts Your Business At Risk) - October 17, 2019
• How Much Does Square Charge? - October 16, 2019

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190 Comments

Responses are not provided or commissioned by the vendor or bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the vendor or bank advertiser. It is not the vendor or bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Valerie Smith March 9, 2020 at 8:35 pm

Organization Name: Valerie Smith

PayPal is no longer the reliable company it was when I opened an account approximately 8 years ago.Customer service is no longer provided. Within my account, there used to be a ‘My Money’ tab which enabled personal management of sending recurring payments. Directions they provide to access various features are out-of-date. The instruction to Click Profile, then Profile and Settings is obsolete. ‘Profile and Settings’ does not exist. I attempted to send an email to PayPal Customer Service, without success. It would appear that personal customer service is no longer available. I would as that PayPal is run by robots that need regenerating.

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• Organization Name: Valerie Smith

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Len Sakamoto October 18, 2019 at 12:20 pm

I can tell you that if you polled the average seller with a PayPal account , there’s absolutely no way PayPal would receive 4 stars. I had a PayPal business account for years when eBay owned them, and at best, it was a dodgy operation. I finally dumped them recently because they’re now outright crooks and liars. It’s a shame how the government allows companies like PayPal to rip off people of their hard-earned money.

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Gernot Hassenpflug July 19, 2019 at 5:26 am

Organization Name: Protea Wines Japan

I notice the eCommerce integration does not mention Zen Cart, which has had excellent Paypal integration for many years: Checkout (previously Express Checkout), Paypal Payments Standard, and Paypal Payments Pro.
I think it would be rather a useful addition, and a service to the readers, to both add Zen Cart to the list, and to do a review — I for one would be very interested in seeing how you think the Zen Cart integration stacks up against the other ones (seeing as it is not feasible for most users to try them all).
Many thanks for the informative review, on a rather divisive topic!

• Organization Name: Protea Wines Japan

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Jessica Dinsmore July 19, 2019 at 1:27 pm

Hello Gernot,

We actually do have a review of Zen Cart, and mention the Paypal integrations there. Check it out!

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Mark Mentzer July 8, 2019 at 8:05 am

Organization Name: Mark Mentzer

If I could’ve left them a -1 rating I would have done so.I am a freelance web and graphic designer. I have been a freelancer since 2007 and have used Paypal to receive payments. I utilize Paypal’s invoicing system. I sent out an invoice for a 50% deposit and once I received the payment I started the work. I have proof of the work I completed which is a website (http://strataexplorations.com/), logo, letterhead and letter. I have documentation via email and texts stating the work he wanted completed by me. He was always out of the country and the work never got completed because he never got back to me. This was started April 22, 2019, almost 3 months ago. He now goes to Paypal and states that I had no authority to take the money. Literally makes no sense. I have an invoice and he paid it. I have no way of taking someone’s money. Further, I completed a lot of work and he never requested the money back prior to the start of the job nor while I was completing each task. He just stopped communicating and then went to Paypal to get his funds back. I asked the customer service agent at Paypal, “so basically if I need money, I can go to Paypal and tell them I didn’t authorize this payment and get my money back?” The customer service agent said “Basically, yes”. I have no recourse other than to go to small claims court which would cost me the same amount owed to me. Further, I do not know where this person resides. Paypal’s legal structure leaves people like myself, freelancers who get paid through their system without recourse. So, I want to make everyone aware that, at anytime, within 6 months of you getting paid for a service, your past client can decide they need the money and make a claim and get their money back. I shared with Paypal a link showing my work but they gave me no way to share the texts, emails and the invoice, which is a Paypal invoice anyhow, and yet they tried to take the funds from me. I didn’t have the funds in Paypal and I do not plan on paying them. I can’t close the account but I will no longer use Paypal because of this loophole.This is being shared so that it doesn’t happen to other freelancer’s and other people who take payments via Paypal for their services.

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• Organization Name: Mark Mentzer

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Fateh February 28, 2019 at 12:11 pm

Organization Name: fam properties

They stole me to make their CommissionI made a payment of 5,204$ by mistake during the currency exchange instead of 100$. Their smart algorithm should flag this transaction since the seller sells low-cost stuff and I have never made a payment of a similar amount.I raised a dispute that the case is crystal clear:Anyone can notice that 100$ product is never worth or close to 5,204$, and I provided the email communication with the seller.They refused to have a conference call with the seller.They refused to listen to my call recording with the seller.Nevertheless, they judged this obvious case for the thief seller.When I called them, the customer service said, “Our judges are highly qualified lawyers and …. “, in fact, they are corrupted and care only about their commission.Never trust them, just use other service providers.

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• Organization Name: fam properties

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Agua Unlimited February 22, 2019 at 5:20 pm

DO NOT USE FOR BUSINESS!!!!! I don’t know how it’s a 4 star review?! Probably written by paypal themselves. What paypal does is flat out theft and should be illegal. I think I’ve had a paypal account since 2002-2003. I went in steaks as far as use but didn’t mind it until I started using it for business. I started a business 2 years ago and used it but started noticing a long 30 day deposits times to my bank account. A neighboring business also has the same problem. The customer would have their product a month before I see a penny from it. I called paypal and they said my bank wasn’t accepting it and my bank said they never received it. I originally thought it was my bank since it’s a small bank but I didn’t have that problem with any of my other payment processers. I would see the money in my bank next day sometimes two days with the others. Then when I thought paypal couldn’t get any lower they proved me wrong again. I transferred more money into paypal to purchase more supplies since many of my vendors accept it and when I went to pay it didn’t work. I logged into my paypal account and everything looked accept for a notification that said my account was limited. It Didn’t say why. Of course, I called right away but everyone I talked to didn’t know why and told me the department that does that can only be contacted via email. The email seems to be a dead end because I never got a response. It probably doesn’t even get monitored. I also kept calling with no luck but found one person that said they can create a dispute. I didn’t hear back until about 10-14 days after the dispute was filed but I also sent several more emails and calls so I don’t know what correlated a response. On top of that it was just a generic email that said they reserve the right to be thieves and that they would contact me in 180 days and tell me how to retrieve my money and not to respond to the email because it’s not monitored. I don’t know this is legal? There needs to be laws against this kind of thing. They have almost $10,000 of mine and I still had to fill my orders to stay in good standing with my customers. And when I tried refund close to $3000 worth of my customers orders because I couldn’t get it to them in time because I didn’t receive the funds for materials, they took it out of my bank account instead of my paypal balance. And you can’t delink your bank account from the paypal account. So now they took $13k from me which isn’t a big blow for a business but if you’re like me and just a one-person operator of a new business it can easily put you out of business and almost did. I almost lost everything. I don’t have the resources to fight this at the moment but I won’t forget. Paypal does this all the time so I’m sure they have a good legal team but this shouldn’t be legal. I can’t steal money from someone and tell them I’ll give it back in 180 days without a long prison sentence. Oh, and the lady that filed the dispute laughed when I ask if she’s seen them reverse limitations? I asked if it was 50% or a 1% chance of reversals and she just chuckled and said “I’ve seen it done”. Not very reassuring. The most infuriating thing beside them keeping my money is that they don’t give a pacific reason as to why? I’ve never had a customer complaint and 100% feedback on ebay. Ebay’s getting away from paypal so it should tell you something. When asking it could be for something as small as a larger deposit than normal or even requesting their own debit card? This is probably how they pay their executives bonusses and just draw so many names from a hat. I’m still waiting for my money. I have 4 months to go yet. So now I can’t use paypal and never will. Many friends and family members also closed their paypal accounts in support. Even when I shop online now and see two sites that have something I want I will purchase from the one that doesn’t use paypal. Even if it’s higher price. The sad part is that you probably won’t read this until it happens to you. I’ve always heard paypal horror stories and now know how real they are first hand.

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Darla Franklin May 22, 2019 at 9:52 pm

Im so sorry this has happened to you. Dont they have a office in California? With so many people using paypal, you are just a small fish to them and willing on the chance you will not see it through. I would fly to California with a lawyer just to prove your point.TAKE ALL PAPERS WITH YOU. i would tell the BBB and everyone who would listen, what thy did. Make them sick of you. Go to their office everyday!! Thats a very large sum of money they took from you! Thats larceny right? I wish you well and hope you get your rightful money. I get so sick of companies you trust stealing money.

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Sibel Stanz February 22, 2019 at 12:25 am

Organization Name: HoloVit LLC

From our experience in the last 2 years, PayPal works with just “Say So” meaning they do not require proof from the buyers most of the time. As long as the buyer has their PayPal Protection Plan, they favor the buyer no matter what the issue is. In our case, the customer broke the screen himself in order to receive a Full Refund. We contacted UPS agents and got reassured that the screen was in Excellent Condition at the time of delivery . It is so pathetic that Pay Pal did not require any evidence of the damage the buyer was claiming to have. I heard similar complaints from other companies. Pay Pal does not investigate a Claim the right way and like I said before they work without evidence.

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• Organization Name: HoloVit LLC

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Jt Rodrigues February 16, 2019 at 3:54 pm

Organization Name: Pirate Customs btc

Horrible service companies bigger and better than paypal operate every day using customer state ID information and government ID with no issues for their companies or their clients. Paypal on the other hand wants every bit of information(which is fine within reason) but the constant request for information that has been submitted multiple times and the constant account limiting to accounts that have no claims against them no files of unauthorized transactions no bad reviews is insane the fact they only protect their own interests while they falsely claim they are protecting clients and customers yet they happily take in funds and setup hoops to jump, decipher, grovel and beg thru . all while hindering clients ability to pay staff, buy more stock and accomplish more jobs . They are trying to distroy business or push them out.

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• Organization Name: Pirate Customs btc

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CODY SCHWARZ February 13, 2019 at 3:09 pm

Organization Name: CROCODILE CARPET CARE AND RESTORATION

DONT DO IT…. if you are in service of any kind will ask your customers to go out of their way to pay you. also they cannot do it on a cell phone must be on a com. and if the customer dose not it is held for 29 days.

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• Organization Name: CROCODILE CARPET CARE AND RESTORATION

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mark January 7, 2019 at 6:36 pm

Organization Name: phoenix appeal

Garbage, absolute garbage. Provide tracking number to prove item was sent, send them actual photo evidence that buyer supplied wrong address, supply actual photo of returned package with tracking number that has buyers incorrect address. Also send paypal actual screenshot of buyer admitting he input the wrong address. Paypal sides with buyer and the $13.30 I paid to ship them the item is now for nothing. Buyer gets full refund including the shipping they paid for while supplying the wrong address. Me the seller gets shafted $13.30 because the buyer can’t input their proper address. Paypal final decision: “we decided to refund the buyer because there is no evidence that the buyer received their item…”Screw you paypal

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• Organization Name: phoenix appeal

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gabriel January 2, 2019 at 4:41 pm

Organization Name: mg unity

very very poor customer service arent equiped to deal with fraud case you get frauded you block it with your bank officials but then those lowless scum at paypal cant see thats its fraud then send you to colection agency to steal your money and credit rating i wont deal with paypal ever they are trying to defraud me of 1.1k going to court

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• Organization Name: mg unity

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niek November 22, 2018 at 7:12 am

Paypal is very expensive to use, they always cheat with currency conversions. This will set you back 4,5% for example paying 100 Euros with your USD balance.Terrible. I only use it when truely forced to do so. Otherwise there are great alternatives now like Transferwise, Uphold etc , etc, just google it.

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Matt Oshea November 16, 2018 at 3:24 am

Organization Name: Project Storm

There is no way Paypal deserve 4 stars!I have used a paypal account for over ten years now through my business unfortunately it was forced upon my by ebay. With a regular annual income of around £60k i constantly have transfers held sometimes for up to a week and occasionally declined by paypal. This makes running a company and using paypal very unreliable, the customer services have no idea why they hold my transfers and even worse seem they have no control over any of my funds and can never resolve it. The excuse is always ‘a security check’ and it can take up to 72 hours to process, i wonder why so many constant security checks are needed when sending money from my own paypal account to my own registered bank account? its just a poor excuse to cover up the interest money generating machine they run I would not recommend anyone to paypal. I have no idea who all of the people who like paypal are, in all of my business years i have not met a single company or person who rate them – everyone says the same thing they keep your money and are unreliable.

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• Organization Name: Project Storm

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Jason October 18, 2018 at 12:49 pm

4 stars? Are you joking? PayPal has become utter rubbish and their customer service doesn’t even read the emails or inquiries that you send them. Everything you send is sent to India where they just click close on the case without looking at it and move on. My father and I run a woodworking business and we sell sculptures. We had someone who disputed ‘item not received’ on a few different sculptures. We provided the shipping proof and tracking ID. Within an hour of uploading that, the case was closed in favor of the buyer. Every attempt we’ve made to contact PayPal to rectify the situation, they tell us the case was already closed and there’s nothing they can do.

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Dana Byerley October 13, 2018 at 8:15 am

I have never tried to get money back from them on PayPal’s guarantee, until now. It was evident that the seller was deceptive, PayPal required me to send the drone back…so I did and supplied a tracking number. But guess what, the seller didn’t tell them that he received it. And the Chinese postal carrier does not notify the USA on delivery. (duh) So, I’m out the 77 bucks and the drone. Up until now, I never had a problem…their guarantee is worthless. I will never use them again. I wonder how many other people have been cheated only to find PayPal will not support them on the claim. Probably 80 to 90 percent. PayPal likes getting the money, but not supporting claims. I think I will sue PayPal in small claims court…then let’s see what happens.

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Josuaruel Cabañog October 10, 2018 at 7:03 pm

Organization Name: BrightLocal

Paypal s*cks! they don’t even know how to value customer specially outside US. I called to them to verify my account because it was tagged “limited indefinitely” and an appeal is not possible. The reason I called them is for them to asked me anything that is related to my account by then they will know that i was the owner of the account. I even sent documents they asked me but still the don’t F*cking care. I’ve been with paypal for almost 2 years and they don’t even know how to value its customer. Worst service ever! (Im referring to their customer service) it seems like they don’t know “CUSTOMER SERVICE” means.

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• Organization Name: BrightLocal

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SH September 18, 2018 at 1:54 pm

One of the worst companies I have ever dealt with. Refuse to accept the blame for a mistake they made, and I have to pay all the fees that my bank is charging me due to their mistake. Took 10 minutes to navigate their horrible phone system, to then be put on hold for 30 minutes, and then I get to talk to someone who barley speaks English, (I can’t understand her) and then I am told that there is no one else that I can talk to. I have gone round and round with their email customer service who actually just push the blame for the problem off on me, when it was not my mistake and I have the documents to prove it. Horrible customer service. Horrible company.

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Anthony McDonald September 10, 2018 at 1:48 pm

Organization Name: 40 Acres Market

I have gone to a Paypal reload center to reload my Paypal Business Debit cart. I performed this reload on September 8th at 5:41am. Until today September the 10th, I have not received the funds. I have been on the phone with PayPal on a daily bases at least twice a day. I always connected to the Philippines, and there is always a huge communication barrier which adds to my frustrations. This is after at least a 1 1/2 hour hold time and then being shuffled between departments back and forth for at least another hour. Today I am told I may have to wait another 24 – 48 hours to receive my funds. After uploading the receipt for my reload, and waiting a couple days, I even asked for a provisional credit since there was no error on my side. I was told that this in not possible and I would just have to wait. It seems that PayPal is definitely not the correct decision as this has been a very horrible and taxing experience.

• Organization Name: 40 Acres Market

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Kymberli Olsen September 5, 2018 at 4:00 pm

Organization Name: Wu Yee Children's Services

Just had the most frustrating call with PayPal. There is a charge on my boss’s card that only tells us it was paid through PayPal. After sitting on hold forever the customer service agent spent 15 minutes asking questions before saying he had to speak with the cardholder. I explained it was a business card and I was the assistant of the cardholder and that my boss is in back to back meetings and doesn’t have time to deal with one change. All we need to know is who to call to get a receipt b/c he nor I recognized the charge. If another company accepts a credit card payment through Paypal we don’t have a choice if we are using paypal or not and there is no way to track the payment. We are very very frustrated!

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• Organization Name: Wu Yee Children's Services

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Doyle L Randall August 16, 2018 at 12:19 pm

Organization Name: D L Randall PC

ID THERE ANY WAY TO GIVE A NEGATIVE 5???? Customer support if you can even get someone is about as useful as a screen door on a subrimarine

• Organization Name: D L Randall PC

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Sparky Kennedy August 7, 2018 at 6:46 am

Organization Name: Christmas in the City

Pay Pal has my non-profit money. They are legally obligated to deposited in Christmas in the City’s bank account every 30 days. The have not done so. I am unable to contact any via phone. The will not escalate email chain. The go fund me page that was set up raised over 11,000 from the Boston Marathon in April 2018.

• Organization Name: Christmas in the City

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Abdelqader Abdelqader August 10, 2018 at 2:46 pm

True %100

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	OnDeck is a hugely prolific online small business lender and offers two types of business loans: short term loans and revolving lines of credit. Despite potential drawbacks, if you need a fast loan or don’t qualify elsewhere, it's hard to beat OnDeck.	Get Started See Our Review
	Fundera is a business funding matchmaker who will match you up with other business funders you may be qualified for. Fundera is a good place to start your search for business funding. Not only is Fundera convenient and helpful, but they have transparent terms and fees.	Get Started See Our Review
	BlueVine is an online lending service that's suited for small businesses. It offers term loans, lines of credit, and invoice factoring. BlueVine is one of the most accessible invoice factors available and a good choice for B2B businesses.	Get Started See Our Review

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Teddi Davis August 3, 2018 at 12:57 pm

Organization Name: Jackson Lake Property Owners Association

Do not do business with PayPal if you can avoid it. Long sordid story shortened: Ready to close the account the issues have gotten so significant. Finally hung up after 57 minutes holding to speak to a rep. Only wanted to speak to a rep because the close the account instructions online require you to send the final amounts in a physical check–which they charge $1.50 for. Fine. I just wanted to be done. But they don’t like our address–it is a rural county road. It is the valid address that has been on the account for over five years. Can’t reach customer service. Can’t transfer the money electronically because of their arcane rules to prevent money laundering. This is a legitimate business that’s been in place since 1978. If you are small and have a problem with PayPal they will crush you like a steam roller. No regard for the companies they do business with. We have moved all of our business to Quickbooks/Intuit. You can reach a real person and they get the work done quickly. Buyer beware.

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• Organization Name: Jackson Lake Property Owners Association

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Lisa L Johnson July 26, 2018 at 9:06 am

Organization Name: Lackey Title Co., Inc.

I HAD a paypal account. I attempted to add another card to that account. I got a message the card was linked to another account, so I called paypal. If you can believe it, the “other account” was an unverified account that had actually been used to make purchases. Paypal would not give me any information about the other account, they would not attempt them to force them to verify it, and they would not close it. Their solution???? They told me that I had to go to my bank and close the card down and get another one. This is a nightmare for me since I pay my bills online and have this card linked to vendors I use. I will have to set up new account information with every vendor I use, because paypal is unwilling to enforce a close on the fraudulent account that is using my card with them. So, to summarize, they will allow charges on unverified accounts, essentially allowing someone to steal money from me, and when I protest, they won’t give me any information or close that account. Instead, they are making me jump through a bunch of hoops.I was able to close my REAL paypal account, so even though someone else can use my cards on paypal, I will no longer be doing business with them. I will NEVER allow them to process payments for me again. NEVER.

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• Organization Name: Lackey Title Co., Inc.

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JP Bond July 8, 2018 at 8:05 am

Terrible Experiences with PayPal.PayPal will randomly hold transfers to your bank account for unknown number of days making it nearly impossible to plan and budget for a small business.The last hold they placed was supposed to be for 72-hours. It is now a week later and I still do not have my funds available to me. Their customer service is overly automated, so responses are never clear and do not address the issues at hand.Very frustrating experience. I was trying PayPal out, but will happily go back to authorize.net or Stipe whom I’ve used before with none of these issues.

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Justin June 27, 2018 at 1:31 pm

Inconsistent customer service with total lack of collaboration between our company and PayPal. PayPal has become large enough that it can throw it’s weight around and break policies/do whatever it wants, essentially. Our banking address needed to be adjusted and because of the change a payment made was in limbo with them. Our team was forthcoming and communicated very effectively and openly. This did not matter. PayPal took all of our personal information, did not validate multiple ID’s, passports, bank account statements, etc. I actually don’t think this is within their capabilities, as it seemed impossible to me with the turnaround time we gave and all the information we provided we were deemed untrustworthy, etc. Anyway, the account now remains restricted and locked and there is really nothing we can do to or with our data. PayPal cannot troubleshoot anything outside of their expected normal operations. They are not agile, they are not kind. I would caution anyone considering using this service.

1

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Marie Wallin May 27, 2018 at 12:52 pm

Organization Name: MariesStore100

I have been selling on eBay for over 10 years and using Pay Pal for that period of time. Everything was going fine – sold, shipped, received payment. I started selling for others on my eBay account – sales rose by 200 per month – not much. Pay Pal decided my account was a high risk now. 11,000 total transactions on eBay and a 100% top rated seller standing. Had to verify all of my information -not a problem. This happened in January 2018 – still under review and it is almost June 2018 – 5 months – what are they doing to verify the account. I would never use Pay Pal again as they now have held over $2000 in funds for 180 days, so I cannot touch them until July. NO help calling Customer Service as the Security Department does this and Customer Service does not have the detail of why something is done and why an account is limited.

• Organization Name: MariesStore100

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Krista June 11, 2018 at 5:31 am

Horribl X100!!!!! there has got to be fraudulent activity going on at PayPal every single day when I first started out with PayPal it was fine but then I only received one invoice and when I want to ask about how to make a payment they told me in I’ll put a credit card on file where when they found out that I didn’t have a credit card that includes checks ( it’s a chase liquid card so that’s why that is why . So I sent my payment by making out a money order but this is the other weird thing the address they gave me to send it to is a PO Box ! I have never received confirmation that they got that payment or another payment that I just sent them . Oh yeah…… here is the biggest red flag of all . When I thoroughly went through my account page on PayPal two days ago they’re magically appeared a credit card on my account page and it’s not mine and I never even gave them a credit card to put on file . Fried fried fried do not use PayPal !!!!!!! I found out also that there somehow linked with iTunes and there’s some shady shit going on with iTunes too.

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Cain May 17, 2018 at 4:46 am

Organization Name: BWS Motorsport

One star is too generous.Used PayPal for a couple of years now, generally alright service at a push… However!They claim security as one of their USP, I had my account somehow hacked and purchases made on my account… My login details, primary email and password all changed so I couldn’t access the account. After doing a full account security recovery I managed to get back in and change passwords once more. However upon reporting the fraudulent activity and contesting it, I got a swift email back from customer services stating that they were confident there had been no 3rd party access and the transactions were legitimate – case closed.Shameful, shocking and quite simply appalling service.

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• Organization Name: BWS Motorsport

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Richard Hiegel May 11, 2018 at 11:27 am

Organization Name: Blueye USA

I have been utilizing Pay Pals Business payment method for nearly 10 years. In that time I have done thousands of transactions . I stopped using Pay Pal for about 12 months but kept my account active while I took a step away from my business to reconsider other options. Today I tried to utilize my account only to discover my account had been locked for a negative $10 dollar balance. I paid the balance due immediately but found out that Pay Pal either couldn’t or wouldn’t release my account for another 72 hours until this 10 dollars clears my account. Now you have to realize I have been a customer for a decade and have paid Pay Pal an enormous amount of money and even after contacting them they still refuse to unlock my account..I;m closing my account and will be moving my business elsewhere..Can’t believe the lack of customer service!!

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• Organization Name: Blueye USA

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Eric Walker May 10, 2018 at 4:21 am

Yup I used to hate Paypal like everyone complaining here. But I never had a single issue with Paypal. They never froze my account. I guess the primary reasons are:1. My account is 10+ years old, history is big with Paypal.2. I never had a transaction spike, I have always slowly increased the transaction amount. 3. Never used their payment gateway.

5

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Ron Killian February 1, 2019 at 8:24 pm

I was a valued customer for over 15 years and they permanently disabled my account and keeping $1100 or my money. I had better reasons to have my account than you and I did nothing wrong, so don’t believe for a second it can’t happen to you. Get a back up, you might need it some day.

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Cristian April 29, 2018 at 3:13 pm

Organization Name: oaxaca expediciones

PayPal do double charge to your custumers and there is no custumer support that helps you on that.It is way better to use a bank instead than PayPal

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• Organization Name: oaxaca expediciones

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Phillip April 23, 2018 at 10:40 am

Organization Name: My Essay Writer.

PayPal just raised fees to 3.7%, which is insane! All others are 2.9%. It’s robbery.

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• Organization Name: My Essay Writer.

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JC Young April 6, 2018 at 7:37 pm

Organization Name: First Financial Equity Corp

Merchant wanted to give me a refund, I was willing to take it. The problem was with PayPal. Apparently they have an issue granting refunds when the purchase was over six months previous. (While the purchase was 6+ months ago, the actual event was held recently.) Then, trying to get someone at PP to help me was a time-consuming and ultimately futile event.They will not have my business ever again.JCY

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• Organization Name: First Financial Equity Corp

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chandrakant April 5, 2018 at 9:15 am

Organization Name: zm technologies

I would like to give 0 negative star to paypal. This not useful for small start up as well for large organisation, if you are planing to make transaction at higher value. They waste your time in verification. i am waiting from 1 week for a big vlue, but there is no single proper customer care reply. If we called to their agent, even their agent dont have exact input. Feeling like i kept my money with risk. very cheap service. earning an interest, by unnecessary blocking peoples money.

• Organization Name: zm technologies

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Wade P March 12, 2018 at 4:22 pm

Organization Name: Tenswade

What do they charge for debit transaction?
Can’t find that info anywhere. Thx

• Organization Name: Tenswade

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Jessica Dinsmore March 13, 2018 at 10:09 am

Hi Wade,

As far as we know, in the U.S., Paypal doesn’t process anything as debit. Any sort of ACH processes as a standard Paypal payment. I hope that helps.

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Boris Javier March 5, 2018 at 8:14 am

Organization Name: Barrera Soluciones Tecnologicas

Paypal became a cradle of rats. People inside is colluding with criminals to steal people’s money by reversing payments which are already done. Be careful to sell products via paypal, you can deliver the goods, receive the payment and then, reversed… no merchandise and no money. Paypal Sucks.

• Organization Name: Barrera Soluciones Tecnologicas

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Kavita February 14, 2018 at 2:07 am

Hi! I just want to know how is 2% handling fee charged in the paypal account. Is it deducted from the account or I need to pay extra.

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Melissa Johnson February 20, 2018 at 8:03 am

Hi, Kavita!

PayPal and most other processors work by deducting their fees from each transaction before they pass it onto your account, so you won’t need to pay extra.

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An Ly January 10, 2018 at 6:59 am

Organization Name: Far East GInseng Herb Tea

I had a charge back from PayPal case # PP-D-4490345 – a client who claim that he didn’t order from us. We sent proof of purchase and proof of UPS delivery to the buyer’s address along of name signed buy this person who accepted the package. We received email from PayPal confirmed that we have provided legitimate proof of delivery and will resolve the case accordingly.Unfortunately, when we check back it was closed and in favor for the buyer? PayPal never sent any email to inform us of their final decision, nor explanation to why they made this favor decision to the buyer? PayPal is a 40 billion worth company, they make us absorbed the cost and found an easiest way to solve this problem. PayPal tend to make favor for the buyers not the sellers. they treated us unfairly and poorly. How can they protect Sellers in case someone take the advantage and make many fraudulent claims. We will no longer trust PayPal’s services. We will raise our complaint to the Better Business Bureauand continue to raise the awareness to all small business sellers and business association ! We sent a letter complaint to PayPal and this is what they replied to us :”In regards to your Case # PP-D-4490345, we did receive the proof of delivery that you provided and this evidence was submitted to the buyer’s financial institution. Unfortunately the buyer’s financial institution decided that it was an unauthorized charge and so we were forced to issue a refund to the buyer. In certain circumstances you may be covered by our Seller Protection to make sure you are not liable for these charge backs; This payment was made through our Website Payments Pro payment option which is not covered under our Seller Protection policies”,Sincerely,Vickie, Protection Services Department, PayPalPaypal is a 40 billion worth company, they make us absorbed the cost and found an easiest way to solve this problem. PayPal is in favor for the buyers not the sellers. They treated us unfairly, they handle our case so poorly. How can they protect Sellers in case someone take the advantage and make many fraudulent claims. We will no longer trust PayPal’s services. We will raise our complaint to the Better Business Bureau

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• Organization Name: Far East GInseng Herb Tea

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Boris Javier March 5, 2018 at 8:18 am

Organization Name: Barrera Soluciones Tecnologicas

Same happened to me. Reversing payments is ludicrous, paypal arbitrage seems collusion with thieves rather than fairness. Paypal Sucks.

• Organization Name: Barrera Soluciones Tecnologicas

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Stephen R Stanfield December 18, 2017 at 7:56 pm

There should be a zero. I have had my PayPal account hacked three times. I tried to cancel my PayPal account and it took three efforts; however, you don’t have to use Paypal. If you check out as a guest on Paypal and use your credit card, you can still get hacked. My advice is Don’t purchase anything from a merchant that uses Paypal as their method of payment.

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Eran November 28, 2017 at 1:35 pm

Paypal is just one big scamAs a local retailer and online .com I will recommend you not to use them!They dip their hands into you paypal account and refund customers without ANY investigation.I have a proof!sales@revolvingorganizer.comif anyone wants to join me suing them please contact me.

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Andrejs Babisko November 2, 2017 at 1:10 am

DO NOT USE FOR BUSINESS!!!!! We have been using paypal to get payments from customers on our webpage. 6 weeks later, after the payments were made and orders were delivered, paypal without letting us know reversed all 3 payments totaling over £3000. They told us that the card the customer used was stolen and we as a business have to take a hit. We are builders merchant and use our own trucks to deliver goods, apparently a signed delivery note, records from our tracking devices and an order on our webpage is not sufficient evidence for them that we delivered the goods. So if you are a small business and using paypal – please note – one day you may loose it all

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Leo W October 20, 2017 at 9:04 pm

My Merchant account got shut down with no appeal because they think I’m selling prescription drugs. Paypal is mainly dependent upon a spambot-like robot to scan public info online and surf server. Paypal limits user’s account and terminate user’s account without human further investigation / hearing.I only registered a domain “99chinadrug.com”, did not build a site to sell anything. My business does not have any activity of selling prescription drugs.Paypal limited users’ account and terminated users’ account are too arbitrary to do human review or fair investigation. Avoid using Paypal. Paypal could disrupt your business, bring you lost, and damage your reputation at any time.

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Susan Taylor October 4, 2017 at 2:07 pm

Loved PayPal until a few days ago. My Merchant account got shut down with no appeal because they think I’m selling prescription drugs. The health supplement that they claimed is prescription is an over the counter and contains sodium, calcium, potassium – that’s it!!

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Joe September 27, 2017 at 9:45 am

** Warning** Don’t use paypal
FAKE 4 star Rating on this site.

* One of the worst payment processors.
* No customer rights, once you top up your account then you have to be a beggar to get your money back.
* So called security policies to snatch your money.
* Customer Services is Rubbish.
* I think they even don’t pay their employees as none of them is ready to talk or give any response to your email, messages, calls.

I don’t know why they have rights to snatch your money. I lost my all $$$.

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Jessica Dinsmore October 13, 2017 at 12:12 pm

Thank you for the input Joe. Our reviews are not fake, but thank you nonetheless.

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Erik Shunn August 25, 2017 at 8:27 am

Read all the 1 star comments… Exactly why I’m pissed. Who wants to start a class action lawsuit??? They hold our money to gain interest profits… #paypalsucks

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David Mark August 9, 2017 at 2:39 am

I see the majority of respondents are those who have had problems. I’d like to chip in as someone who needs to deal with around a hundred transactions a year, typically around GBP15/US$25, for a small voluntary organisation. Having researched the marketplace, the absence of any kind of contract, set-up fee or on-going fees made selecting PayPal Payments Standard a no-brainer. Have now used it for four years with absolutely no problems whatsoever. Our users find it straightforward to make card or PayPal payments and we can have the funds in our bank account almost immediately. If I were handling hundreds of transactions a day it might be different but for my scale of operation it has made perfect sense. The processing fee is about same as the cost of the stamp we used to need to send an acknowledgement by mail so, for us, it has been cost-neutral and time-saving all round.

5

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kendal July 7, 2017 at 4:07 am

1 transaction – 3 wasted days, 6 telephone calls to paypal (2 of them no answer and no stated call-back) with different information form different operatives. 2 calls to my bank, over 30 emails to seller + replies trying to resolve a situation between us. offers to change payment method denied. told i can use a pending payment to purchase an item. having to call to verify after checking balance and told no, I now having to wait another 7 days before the payment/refund can be used!balances pending – changing – deposits disappearing from my statementpaypal “the new money” it doesn’t even move as fast as old cash. PAYPAL-BANK TRANSFERS WOULD BE QUICKER BY STAGE-COACH..

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Georges May 26, 2017 at 9:45 am

As many have explained it here before, Merchant SHOULD NOT use Paypal if you are not able to provide Delivery Tracking Numbers such as provided by DHL, FEDEX, UPS… So if you are a business delivering locally, or your customer collect, or if you are selling intangible goods (software, services…), do not use Paypal Merchant services. And because the Proof of Delivery need to match the address of Buyer, then broadly speaking, GIFT Merchants should not use Paypal as you are likely to NEVER deliver at the address of the card holder or Paypal account holder address. For those merchants, all disputes will be lost, no matter what material you will give to paypal to defend your case. A while ago, we even started to ask our customer for photo ID, copy of the card used for the payment (only showing last 4 digits), a signed voucher….but no matter what material you will give (logs, ips, screenshots, customer emails conversation, phone conversation recordings, customer ID, card copy, customer voucher copy….)… Paypal will vote in favour of your customer and will even charge you an “ADMINISTRATION FEE” !!!! So, not only you will lose the payment, lose your product and on top of that you will pay something extra because you cannot provide a DHL, FEDEX, UPS tracking number.

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Doug December 27, 2017 at 8:03 am

Well put.

See how Paypal make all these rules to evade and confuse the consumer. Very dishonest.

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Aleksey V.Lomov May 12, 2017 at 11:43 am

Unbelievable. I’m using PayPal 10 years,it was no problems until now.
I choose the option “Pay after delivery” which is convenient for me. But somehow already 3rd time that option didn’t work.
Every time when I’m calling PayPal, I’m heving different explanations. This is RIDICULOUS!
One time I got answer like -” it was suspicious activity ” (I did order from the same place 2 times in 2 weeks)
Today the explanation bit all records – “Pay after delivery” doesn’t work on every purchase! Nice work PayPal.
I’m closing my account with you.
I hope I’m not the only one who’s doing this.

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M G May 10, 2017 at 6:21 am

I was scammed by someone pretending to be paypal by sending me emails from services@paypal.com.I sent a phone I had advertised for sale on Craigslist to the address in the email and was told that my paypal funds were in escrow until i sent them the tracking number for the shipment.I sent the phone via UPS, sent the tracking number to the internet address in the fake email but received no money in my paypal account.Paypal was absolutely no help at all. When I called they at first said Paypal would reimburse me for the money I was supposed to receive. In a subsequent phone call Paypal said they would not reimburse me. they just told me what I had to do – report the incident to the ic3 website , file a theft with local police. They didn’t do anything at all to help.Paypal doesn’t even warn its customers about fraud like this – if I had been alerted at some point i would have probably not been fooled. They take no responsibility for abuses of their brand. The emails came from “services@paypal.com”, where the real paypal address is “service@paypal.com”. they looked genuine in every way. So how are we supposed to know unless we are alerted ???I hate Paypal and will never use them again. I suggest that no one else does either.

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James April 30, 2017 at 9:11 pm

I try to avoid PayPal at all costs! They are very deceptive with their foreign exchange fees. I live in Canada but have a US Dollar credit card (Paypal detests this!) attached to my PayPal account to avoid PayPals rip off foreign exchange fees. However Paypal still charges fees on converting money even though you have a USD CC that can be charged directly. You can call PayPal and have all your transactions charged in USD but you have to call them to amend your account as there is no info on their site to help you with this! But even if they change the currencies for you it will only be for a limited time and they will change them back unawares to where they can once again charge you fees. I have probably had PayPal change my currency structure 4-5 times in the last 3 years without my permission. You have to watch this very closely as PayPal hates Canadians with US Dollar Credit Cards!

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robbie April 29, 2017 at 10:41 am

Paypal is one of worst ways to pay for something. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way.After being a customer of Paypal for almost 15 years, I needed to file a claim for merchandisethat was different from what I ordered.After numerous emails to Paypal, all they can say is “sorry sir. we are sorry you are going thru this unfortunate incident, but we can’t help you. You would be better off trying to work things out with the merchant”. What a crock! I will never use Paypal again. If Paypal is only way offered for payment I will not make purchase.All I can say is: buyer beware when using Paypal.

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Marissa April 27, 2017 at 11:16 am

Paypal doesn’t cover all your of your purchases. Be very careful when you order. You would probably be better off using your credit card instead of paypal. They denied my claim because the item I ordered required measurements to be made, and for that, they consider it “custom”

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Baris April 27, 2017 at 8:20 am

I’m not a heavy user of paypal, I used it maybe once a year or so. If I feel submitting my credit card info is not secure enough, or if the merchant only accepted paypal, I used paypal. And it turns out I made a wise choice there. I didn’t have problem making payments with paypal, but everybody takes your money without question and trouble, right? However trouble started with the first refund I had to endure with paypal. I made an online purchase but merchant didn’t have the item in stock. They honestly admitted their fault and refunded the money immediately, sent me the refund credit invoice too. After a day it appeared on paypal as a refund but with a status “pending” and it’s been there waiting over a week now. Paypal in the background charged my credit card for the initial transaction. Having received many refunds on my credit card before, I know it can take a day or two to receive the money back but never over a week. It seems, paypal showed it’s true face. I will steer clear of paypal use in future and advise everyone the same, unless there is no other option to pay.

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George April 25, 2017 at 4:27 am

PayPal is indeed a very funny company, one that I will be substituting after my last transaction this month. I sold my s7 edge on Sunday and got money transferred that same day. I did my brother’s s7 the following day and now my money is sitting there, even though they said it takes one business day to complete the transaction/ transfer. I don’t know if I want to waste my time contacting them or just waiting till the end of the day to see what happens. There has to be better company out there better than this company. I hope I run into it. This same thing happened last year and why I thought they will be different, I don’t know.

2

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Mike April 14, 2017 at 6:14 am

Here’s what I’ve done: I have personally boycotted PayPal and eBay. I am so sick of PayPal’s customer support saying to me what they: “cannot do”. When you contact eBay, it’s exactly the same! “Sorry, sir, we cannot [do this] or [that]”. The truth is this: PayPal has the ability to equip these reps with the means to resolve these situations, though they “choose” not to. It’s amazing to me how little this company cares about its customers. If they did care, they would provide a means to resolve concerns instead of wasting their customers’ time.

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Victor April 15, 2017 at 11:36 am

Horrible service they just hold on to your sells money that they charged you per transaction already and put it on hold for how long they want so they the make more profit with your money and you call them to see why they don’t release your money into your bank account they just wash they hand and say can not help you while if it was money of item you had sold your customer have to wait until shitty paypal ppl bothers to clear it

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Isha Alexander April 12, 2017 at 8:24 pm

My husband is active duty military and suffice it to say “unavailable” at the moment. He ordered a $400 digital camera for Christmas that we need to open a dispute on, and he is not here to do it. I just spent over 70 minutes on the phone, with PayPal. I have all the passwords, statement where money was paid to Paypal, credit card in hand as well as all the other stuff a military spouse has (social security numbers/wills/powers of attorney). They refuse to let me open a dispute. Despite the fact I have all the information and LEGAL right to do so, their policy requires he be on the phone. Which considering the circumstances is absolutely ridiculous. For all intents and purposes we are out $400 unless I call back and speak in a baritone voice……………seriously THAT makes our money more secure????? I will NEVER use PayPal again. It is not about the money so much as about the lack of respect and being simply told “We understand the situation but it is policy”. Obviously they DO NOT understand the situation or we would not be going through this ridiculous exercise when I obviously have all I need to open a dispute. To add insult to injury there is no way to take the action up the ladder. I got two rungs up and was told flat out her supervisor “did not take calls”, if I wanted to complain further I would have to write the legal office. Ridiculous and about as Un-American as I can imagine at this point. Never again.

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Sargr April 11, 2017 at 5:03 pm

PayPal protection is bullshit. If you buy from gear best which is also scammers, paypal offered to me full refund after I sent not as described item to china The Item itself is 40 to sent it back is 100$. Don’t trust Paypal. Dont buy on Gear best.

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Susan April 11, 2017 at 3:17 pm

Horrible customer service. Hard to use PayPal website. Seller protection is non existent. What a farce. Need to remove any claims that you protect the seller. Verified means nothing on credit cards. Ripped off three times in less than a year. PayPal along with eBay does not protect customers. Hard to talk to their customer service representatives. They are ill-equipped to handle any situation. Most of them are foreigners who are difficult to understand. Ask you questions like you have done something wrong. Do not listen to what you are telling them. I am done with PayPal!!!

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Max April 10, 2017 at 2:30 pm

Please DON’T Use. I just wanted to put twenty dollars in and i bought 2 cards Both Denied one of them had money taken out of it and now is at zero dollars.I was hopeful with the staff when i came around but sadly its the second day and i yet to see a PENNY. I hope you read this and Avoid this Site And Stress,Panic attacks worrying about my Information being Stolen and most of all my money I yet to see.Please Don’t upload Personal Information to this Site is can be Stolen as easy as my twenty bucks… Save yourself the stress cause this truly makes angry,depressed.

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NuNYaBiZiNeSS April 9, 2017 at 8:13 am

I’m always inclined to share my own experiences with well known entities that offer online conveniences that service the needs of buyers,sellers, or just communities of interest. Paypal was designed to offer a bridge for buyers and sellers as well as individuals to manage money digitally. As far as the trust rating, I would be less inclined to rate them as a whole because the trustworthy factor is based mostly on how those employed by PayPal utilize the information they have the ability or priveledge to access. In my experiences, PayPal once made alot of my online dependancies a very trusting experience due to how they handled my issues whenever I had any. But I’ve been a very long time user of the PayPal system, as well as several other online credit card accounts, Banks, etc… And PayPal by far has one of the worst site layouts with limited abilites that has even at times cost me greatly. I’ve caught their online reps lying to me to pretty much sweep an issue aunder the carpet. I’ve caught issue where they allowed money to be mis-appropriated/mismanaged and although I had them cornered dead to rights as beinbg guilty of mis-appropriation and mismanagement of my funds, they took no responsibility for it. This is due to how their employed reps handle more advanced problems that are in facvt critical in the business world of online finance management. Me, being from the United States, should not be dealing with representatives who reside in Asia or some other third world country as I have also noticed these foregin reps will favor an ebay buyer or seller who is located in their region and I hate evwen making accusations like this but I’ve seen more examples of situational discrepencies that almost look as if there are people employed by paypal likely working with online buyers/sellers to pull scams that they know PayPal’s protection will compensate you for. Simply put, PayPal should be doing alot more to investigate the internal workings of their business to search for relationships that exist between their higher level employees with decision making powers and buyers and sellers who make obvious questionable attempts to transact on store websites, but I am referring mostly to ebay. I do not participate in the ebay International shipping program. And I do not sell to anyone except those in the USA. But after a costly purchase was made by someone from I think lived in Japan or somewhere out there, I was told by ebay that all I had to do was cancel the sale on ebay and they would deal woth the paypal transactions that managed the money or moneys that may have transacted. Well, I cancelled the sale on ebay. then, Paypal tried to credit the buyer from my paypal accvpunt. thing is, the buyer never paid me. If he did, the payment would just be reversed. Unfortunately, someone at PayPal must have been able to over-ride something because the funds were not available in my paypal account but they still tapped my bank account, which was the backup funding source when needed. If a buyer did not pay me, then no refund should have even been given. They not only gave the buyer a full refund from funds taken from my bank, but they also refunded him with some incoming funds I had show up from a few transactions that just took place too. I called Paypal immediately, had my words with them and their response was pretty much an absolute bunch of BS. They took no liability for the fact that my bank account was over-drawn from this action and cost me 7 fees of $35 for returned checks since it drained my checking account. Admitting to me over the phone that they were going to give back the money that I was due from this mishap does me no good since it already screwed up my account. They refused to compensate me for the $245 in fees that it cost me for overdrafts and it also took them 7-10 days to put all the money back where it belonged. I threatened to sue. I got loud. I made a big ordeal. who wouldn’t? Because I was right & they knew it. I tried to remove my bank as the funding source to see if this might interrupt things & maybe I would be able to win the dispute with my bank for the over-draft fees by showing the time stamp of the transactions and other proof. It did not go well because as I was giving the paypal reps alot to think about in an online message, which would document as much as I could in writing, I tried to send the message and then got an error. I suddenly could not log into my account. Sometime later I found that my PayPal account of more than 12 years was deleted. And I was told it cannot be restored. And, they refused to give me all of statement data which proved they actually were guilty of misappropriation/mismanagement of funds. I was again infuriated, made more calls, & began to document the name names of reps with whom I spoke and the details of conversations. I was urgently trying to get on top of this and resolve it. PayPal has painted the picture that incriminates them, along with Ebay and Synchrony Bank. I believe they are a corrupt trio of businesses that seem to work in tandem while getting away with crimes that earn them as little s pennies and sometimes add up to be a very large sums of money. Pinching pennies is one thing. Stealing them from the wallets and purses of your clients is a shameful action. But the greed to try and hide it is quite the admission of guilt that shows PayPal is condoning these actions. I have a long detailed sumary of the rest of my experience from 2016 that is too much to list here but there is enough evidence and proof to exploit all 3 of these businesses towards a possible convictions in a court of law. PayPal, Ebay, & Synchrony Bank have skeletons in the closet. The world deserves to know the truth

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Michel R. April 5, 2017 at 9:11 am

I used PayPal to sell my software online for 8 years, and over the years I’ve had some dodgy buyers who tried to get their money back directly by opening a dispute with PayPal, and everytime I could explain the situation and PayPal would decide in my favour, things went smoothly enough.That was years ago with no such incidents for a few years, until a few days ago a buyer simply opened a dispute only stating “Product will not download, please refund.”, and my problem isn’t just that PayPal sided with her for no reason, the problem is that my options were only limited to refunding, providing proof of refund or providing a shipping number, which doesn’t make sense in my case, there was no alternative! I tried the shipping number form but it wouldn’t even submit, so I tried the form for providing proof of refund to explain the situation (since it was the only way I could get a word in), which of course was in itself quite maddening (either prove you refunded or that you FedEx’d something??), and of course PayPal sided with the fraudulent buyer for no stated reason and all I have to appeal is pretending like I already refunded the buyer, it’s absurd. They changed their system, it wasn’t like this before, now they don’t let you get a word in, you must provide a shipping tracking number and that’s it, doesn’t matter if you specific it was intangible/virtual goods.So the problem is twofold:1) Their dispute system is absurdly designed, you can’t explain the situation, it’s a faceless form that will only accept a tracking number as a response2) Now you know anyone who buys any software through PayPal can get their money back using the magic words “Product will not download, please refund.” They’ve made thousands of dollars in transaction fees thanks to me, and they’re siding with someone who can’t even be bothered to describe a legitimate problem and even refuses to communicate with me (I have no idea what the buyer’s actual problem was, and neither does PayPal)?So this is why people who sell software should not use PayPal, one day someone who wants their money back for some reason will get their money back and there’s nothing you can do about it. I actually kind of wish more people would use the magic words “Product will not download, please refund.” to get their money back so that more people would wake up to the lousy job PayPal is now doing with handling disputes.

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Billy Fulk March 31, 2017 at 10:04 am

I am new to PayPal! In fact I’ve only had seven transactions in the last two months with them. Three of those transactions I have gotten paid at a reasonable time just to be fair. Two I had to continually call to try to get through to customer service and then be told the rules and regulations over and over again. Of how it works! One particular transaction I waited 29 days from the time PayPal received the money to actually me getting it. Most recently 3-31-17 . I was told by PayPal that I would receive money The very next day they actually gave me a time of 12:05 AM on 3-31-17 I waited up to try to get it transferred into my bank account. It’s 12:30 AM it was not there. At 7:30 AM I called PayPal and they said that they were sorry that they would have it put into my account in 5 to 10 minutes. Keep in mind I am calling PayPal directly and it’s a PayPal people who are telling me this. I waited two hours and I proceeded to call PayPal back and they proceeded to tell me that it wouldn’t be available till the next day which is Saturday and there’s nothing my bank can do about it until Monday. Everyone of the PayPal employees that I spoke to would go down and tell me all the rules and regulations. The bottom line is when they tell me that it’s supposed to be there at a certain time it should be there. I feel that the PayPal employees failed on this matter. The last employee that I talked to was very rude for the fact that I was upset … I get that! But still PayPal should teach their people how to conduct themselves when a customer is frustrated . Unsatisfied customer ! Terrible customer service On this certain transaction.

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Kayla March 26, 2017 at 1:42 am

I sent money to a wrong account. I used a phone number to send money and my friends current phone number must have been someone else’s previous number. The money went to a random person. I messaged the person many many times and I have not received a response. I was recently told I cannot have my money back. I feel this is very very unfair. It is not my fault paypal does not keep track of double linked phone numbers. I was told from a paypal representative that paypal does not recommend using phone numbers to send money, but this is not listed on the sending money page and it is option to send money. I will never use paypal again. Not secure AT ALL. I’m out $750 because of paypal. Also the representatives of paypal are extremely rude. I have never been so disappointed in a company. I will continue to fight back for my money because this is absolutely crazy and unfair that paypal is not secure enough to recognize a phone number is not a safe option. Paypal can recognize double emails but not double phone numbers linked to accounts??

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Kathy Fennell March 21, 2017 at 3:43 am

As a regular user of paypal via ebay buying and selling, I’d like to add my two cents and recent experience. I used paypal funds in my account to make a purchase. When my purchase arrived it was NOT what I bought. Because I used paypal funds and not a real credit card- I’m unable to to get my money back without returning the bogus item to China ( which would cost just about as much as the original purchase). Seller refuses to pay return shipping, Seller gets to keep my money, and I’m out the purchase price. Lesson here is if you really want to be protected don’t use money in your paypal account- use a real credit card. One that will recognize fraud for fraud and won’t hold you liable when a seller pulls a dirty trick like this. Paypal has no power or authority to make things right for the buyer.Also, beware of overseas sellers. If this seller site had let it be known they were based in China I never would have bought.

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aimee March 18, 2017 at 3:52 am

My account has an open case for almost 3 weeks and Paypal asked me to submit documents like my photo ID so they can resolve the problem. I submitted everything they required in 24-48hrs. I had to do it quickly because my account has limitation and it needs to be lifted asap because the money is for my FRIEND WHO HAS CANCER. Paypal knows that because its noted somewhere in the account and that they asked me to submit my friend’s medical documents. I’ve submitted the back of my photo ID like 5x already and PAYPAL KEPT ON EMAILING ME THAT THEY HAVE NOT RECEIVED IT ALREADY. I called them like 3x (Im in the philippines and I make international calls) so I can resolve this case. But the customer service reps said they cant contact the Compliance team directly, etc and all I had to do was wait. THIS IS ONE OF MY WORST EXPERIENCES AS A CUSTOMER. #NEVERAGAIN

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Charles March 15, 2017 at 9:52 am

PayPal changed my preferred method of payment from my balance in Paypal to my linked bank account that never has much cash in it. This caused a 37.00 dollar overdraft fee and when I tried to dispute it they remained ignorant about the change.

Watch your transactions !!!!!!!

They care less about.

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Mayank Gupta March 10, 2017 at 11:20 pm

Paypal India is horrible. They locked my account out of some suspision and asked me to provide some verification documents online. I have submitted those documents and checked after a few days and it shows me a message that the documents are under review and we will let you know once reviewed. There is just a continue button beneath this message which logs me out. I called customer care after a week to check on the progress and they said they will lift up the block in 24-72 hrs. I checked again and called them again and they said the same thing again.It has been 9 months now and still whenever I call them they say the same thing again. There is no place to visit and no email id where I can write a mail to on their Paypal India site. Extremely horrible.

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Hugh Talty March 8, 2017 at 5:12 pm

My name is Hugh Talty, I have a company called UGoMobility. I have been using your merchant services payhere for over three and a half years. I have been EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED with your automated phone system. I have never delt with a system that good at keeping you from a human or from getting what you want answered! In addition I have grown this startup from nothing to between 10 to 20k per month with our first location. We are paying some of the highest rate (even higher than currently advertised). I have been approched by many companies to change and reduce my rates but felt some loyalty to Paypal and Elon (past owner). I am very disappointed in the fact that they dont care to retain my business. They Didn’t even try.

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Brian March 8, 2017 at 9:24 am

Paypal sent special offer via email. Clicked on link and made a purchase. Now they refuse to honor it. Been a customer for probably 20 years. Never again. Avoid this crooked company. Ebay will suffer with this type of behavior.

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William Beyerl March 4, 2017 at 11:24 am

If you do not have a paypal account but make a purchase from a vendor who uses it don’t expect to get ant help resolving issued from paypal. I made a purchase of woodworking plans and it was processed through their paypal account, when I open the download the plans were not all all for the item that was pictured. After repeated attempts to resolve the issue with the vendor and getting no response I tried to contact paypal to stop the payment. Without my own account, WHICH I WILL NEVER OPEN, I called the customer service number as a guest. After listening to all of their c**p I asked for an operator and was put into what I assume was a cue. After waiting a full half hour for a operator to pick up I finally hung up. This was repeated three different times. My only resource now is to contest the claim with the bank. PayPal has the worst customer service of any online organization I have ever dealt with.

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Christine Robert March 3, 2017 at 10:40 pm

Beware using PayPal my cash to upload cash to your account. I loaded $500 cash to a card and was unable to transfer the money to my PayPal account it gave me a error code 203… long story short I have to submit documents:Id, receipt and pictures front and back of my cash card…keep in mind they can see the money sitting on the card… they have no idea why the PIN number isn’t working. I have to wait 4 business days for resolve. Please don’t use this as a source to pay bills or emergency funds! Customer care is horrible! I’ll update this post after I hear from them on what their intentions are for reimbursing me!

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P Carstens February 28, 2017 at 5:35 pm

OMG — I wish I would have seen all the comments earlier!PayPal is holding back USD 1,982.85 as a rolling reserve without giving any comments or reasons!!! I am not a bank as they are, and we are depending on incoming funds. This is really hurting our start-up business.PeterPS: I want to take away even this one star … but that is not possible.

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Finlay Lawrence February 27, 2017 at 11:43 pm

Guess this review website has never even used PayPal. If you are trying to run a business they will basically let any buyer bend you over and cost you a fortune! Nothing you can do about it…I had a customer bought something electrical… they had removed all warranty stickers leaving VOID all over the item, yet PayPal decided to refund them. They could have just swapped the internal parts for a faulty one and got them selves a free working replacement for their faulty item and put me £70 down the drain.What is the point in me protecting myself with warranty stickers if PayPal are just going to ignore people that remove them?SHOCKING.I guess if you just complain about anything you get your money back, so if you can’t beat them, join them!

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Fernando Gelbard February 22, 2017 at 8:49 pm

I have been using Paypal for a few years, with almost no glitches. Today I found a renewal charge for $ 29.95 from a non USA developer, Wondershare.. for a Mac program that apparently I bought 2 years ago. I called Paypal. I could barely hear the agent which seemed to be outside the USA. She cancelled the future renewals (which to begin with I never authorized). I requested a refund. That requiered to talk to “another department”. She transferred me and after a surreal conversation, the lady told me “but you are talking to Ebay” . I was transferred to the wrong company!!. I tried again Paypal, another nice lady, whom I could barely hear, told me I can’t get a refund that I should talk to the merchant…I insisted I had nothing to do with the charge. She put me on hold for another department? and after a certain period of time I hanged up and decided to take the loss of $ 29.95.My concern is…what happened with Paypal? What changed? Last time, long ago when I had a similar problem Paypal credited a refund. Today, Paypal sounded like a banana republic government ministery, and not the neat efficient company I knew. Sad.

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Ashfaq Mohammad February 22, 2017 at 12:57 pm

Paypal holding my non profit business money which I try to put in my non profit business bank account. The rep does not know when it will be deposited. Can someone advise what to do?

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Christie Banks February 12, 2017 at 9:53 am

Can’t stand Paypal, every time I’ve used them, they screw it up and most of the time, the so-called “customer service” reps are uncooperative, obstructive and rude. The most recent fiasco was trying to get $300 to my daughter, she REFUSED the payment and returned it to Paypal the same day, and they held on to the funds for three weeks until I finally contacted them to see what their problem was this time. They were “waiting for my authorization”. Really? They couldn’t figure out a returned payment should be returned? Should have been put back into my account immediately. They must be getting the interest from holding onto people’s money as long as possible. No idea why they are still in business. Check out numerous alternatives, almost anything has to be better.

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Nancy February 6, 2017 at 9:40 am

PAYPAL is the most useless company ever. My PayPal account has been hacked various times and of course to get a hold of someone is nearly impossible! My account showed over 5 unauthorized transactions so I tried calling PayPal yesterday only to find out their offices are closed?!?! I tried to research online for hours to find a way to pause and maybe cancel my card online, but it was nearly impossible!!! Basically, all the money in my account could have been gone and there would be nothing I could do until they open the following day! I am in awe how ridiculously useless this company is, you’d think since they are a huge corporation they would be better with customer service and have an easier, smoother process! Currently on hold for the 3rd time, you can’t even get a hold of the correct department without having to go through the dumb automatic voice message system. Absolutely am disappointed, and frustrated.

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Neeraj February 5, 2017 at 2:22 am

What an arrogant bunch of crooks these people are? I challenged an unauthorised transaction on my account and they just kept claiming legitimacy of it. So, I requested my right of invoking Buyer Protection, as I didn’t receive what I was charged for and vow, they told me that I can’t invoke Buyer Protection, if I am claiming it as an unauthorised transaction. So what???? Either it has to be an unauthorised transaction or covered under Buyer Protection. It can’t be neither! Worst was the whole staff, their supervisors and supervisor’s supervisor didn’t even let me talk. They just wouldn’t listen. Seriously…… that was end of PayPal for me.

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James E. Prue February 1, 2017 at 7:19 pm

Paypal Buyer Protection Program is a misnomer. I purchased a professionally graded coin from an Ebay seller and paid for it with Paypal under the assumption that I was protected if the coin was not as advertised and listed. The coin was a ICG graded A.U.-55 coin and was found to be an altered/repaired coin and as such “NOT Gradable” ! I requested a refund from the seller and was declined so, I filed a claim with PayPal under the buyer Protection program and after their review they also found for the seller and stated that I received the appropriate item as listed! B/S!!!!!! They are complicit in the misrepresentation and fraudulent activity of this seller and their Buyer Protection program is B/S !

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Aey January 29, 2017 at 2:20 am

I am using PayPal for 3 years now, i use it to send small payments in overseas and receiving payment from my clients. PayPal provides a good service but it sucks when it comes to currency conversion and transaction. Their currency conversion fee is too high, which everyone can’t afford and also when i receive funds in USD, then they convert it into my currency with a very low rate. For example if i receive 100$ USD then they will convert it in INR with a rate of $1 = 65 INR but when i send money in USD Then the conversion is like this $1 = 71 INR. Which is just pathetic PayPal is doing unfair business when it comes to currnecy conversion.

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matthew oshea January 26, 2017 at 7:33 am

I have been a paypal customer for over ten years i have an online ebay business the options are very limited without using paypal because of the way ebay has linked with them, they would not be my choice of online banking normally. Transfers between my paypal and personal bank account are regularly blocked by paypal once recently for over a week, for no reason. This is no use for small companies who withdraw earnings for a reason, i have lost three days of trading this week purely down to this issue. If a complaint is made by email paypal responds by saying they will respond in four weeks!? How is this acceptable? and customer services are completely useless, they have no power to make any changes or fix issues they have caused. A quick search on the web you will see that the majority of paypals customers are complaining with serious complaints, how are they still trading? Maybe because they seem to be the only main option for using ebay. Pathetic excuse for a banking system.

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Brad January 14, 2017 at 3:11 pm

DO NOT USE PAYPAL!!!!!! This company has the WORST customer service, I’ve ever seen. They straight up LIE about Thier services and and processing procedures. Don’t use them at all if u expect to have your funds the same day! They say there’s a 1 time 2 day card verification wait when transferring to your card, after that it’s immediately … it’s a LIE!!!!! it’s a 1-2 day wait EVERY TIMES you move the money to your card. The only time it’s immediate is if u have THIER debit card, and there is a 2wk, to a month to wait to get that. So if your like me, starting a new buisness and every dollar counts, DON’T WALK, RUN AWAY FROM THIS SERVICE!!!! If they lie about 1 thing, they will lie about more.. I’m sure it’s stuffed FULL of hidden fees and all kinds of things . Worst service ever

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Brian Ghilliotti January 12, 2017 at 11:45 pm

This company has some of the worst customer service qualities I have ever seen. It seems as if their customer service representative’s are following some type of script, and are not interested in trying to help you find a solution to your problem, but a way to resolve the call instead. I had my account locked up due to some security block which was a preventing me from making eBay payments. The eBay sellers would then accuse me of making up stories and not paying them and attacking my integrity. All the while I was constantly spending long periods of time trying to resolve the cause of my security block preventing me from making payments. You’re absolutely correct. He previous commentator said that you could contact PayPal many different times and get many different so called solutions to your problems. My favorite solutions included log onto PayPal on a different different computer. This was false because I had a friend log on to their PayPal account on the same computer and there were no problems. Another BS resolution that they come up with is that the seller doesn’t except PayPal. But this is BS too because when looking at the eBay sellers check out page the only option to make payments is with PayPal. Another customer service rep started to try to get us to play around with her computer settings. That is an absolute no go. They initiated this without even asking us if we had a Macintosh or Windows based computer. We told them to stop wasting our time and we emptied out the cachet and cookies of our computer. This still did not fix the problem. Another customer service rep tried to say that the problem came from the credit card and not the credit card put up a block. We checked with the credit card and the credit card said that there was no block. Another customer service rep said that there was two confirmation charges sent by PayPal to the credit card that we were using. We check the credit card online billing statement and did not see these confirmation charges. We waited a day and still did not see them. When we tried to to a manager they just kept on talking over us almost as if they felt that if they just kept talking and talking and talking we would get discouraged and go away. They do not care about helping customers fix problems they only care about with some sort of resolution, not a solution, to conclude call. Perhaps they get penalized if a manager’s intervention is required. I am a preferred customer on PayPal. This is one of the sh******t absolute sh******t customer service companies I have ever dealt with. And I get blasted by eBay sellers who think I am making up my stories about PayPal problems. f@@k you. Finally after about 4 hours on the phone, hey PayPal customer service rep said that it was a matter of a setting that needed to be changed and that I would have to wait 24 hours. I hope they’re right.

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Alexander Blair January 5, 2017 at 10:02 am

PayPal is one the most crooked companies i’ve ever encountered. I just had an hour or so long phone call with them and my bank today, about PayPal lying about holding funds. They took over $500 out of my account for a payment but claim it won’t clear for 9 days. So I made a three way call between my bank and PayPal and even my bank told them that sounds illegal. This company lies about so much it’s not even funny. One of their biggest lies is about holding funds. They’ve created this lie to be able to hold on to customer’s money so they can profit from gaining interested, before charging 3.9%. Rarely does their customer service dept. even assist anyone, they usually transfer you around for hours until you give up, or just ramble and repeat generic responses because they don’t know the answer. Also the answers change with every phone call. You can literally hang up and callback and get a different response every time. If you’re wondering who to fight PayPal contact your State Regulator. Here’s a link to PayPals website showing the licenses for every state in the US. Contact these departments if you feel PayPal is doing something crooked.https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/licenses

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Britt December 31, 2016 at 3:04 pm

Horrible customer service. One lady told me my money would be transferred into my bank account the next day. One lady told me up to 5 days.Isn’t it our money I thought!? How can they deposit and take out money to verify our account with in seconds but can’t give us our money? How can they take our money with in seconds of a purchase but we can’t receive money. Their site also said it takes 1 business day to transfer money So basically PayPal is a lying joke and the people who work there are to and are of no help to anyone

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Kevin December 28, 2016 at 10:46 pm

I might as well share my horror story as well about this unprofessional *** company. Had i known paypal had this many complaints i would have NEVER even bothered with this ****. My account has only been open 13 days. I received a couple payments for services all within maybe 3 hours totaling $125. At this time i hadn’t received my Paypal prepaid mastercard (thats just to reiterate the freshness of the account) so i sent the entire $125 to a friend who then immediately dumped it onto HIS paypal prepaid mastercard. Cool. I withdraw the money and go on about my way. Here it is today i receive a $25 payment for services (i have my own paypal prepaid mc at this point) so here i am thinking im just gonna be able to dump my lil money onto my card and im good. No. I tried several times on the paypal prepaid website to transfer my cyber space paypal funds onto my physical card just to continuously get the “Unable to blah blah” message. Of course like you all did i call their ****ty customer service who dont know **** and they called the paypal prepaid folks on 3 way. Even more people who dont know **** and speak non understanding ****in english. They tell me because i immediately tried to transfer the funds (which i didnt. I received notification of the funds around 6pm i didnt even attempt to transfer the funds til 7:30pm when i got off work) that it was denied for security reasons. [?????] Paypal puts so much emphasis on this **** “convenient” factor when in reality this is the most INCONVENIENT way to transfer money. They also told me that i would need to link a bank account to my paypal account to verify my identity which would charge $1.95 that would be reimbursed and i would be able to dump my funds then but i dont have a **** bank account and my thing is WHAT THE **** is the purpose of having the Paypal MasterCard whether its the prepaid or the regular debit card if you can’t ****in CONVENIENTLY transfer funds for immediate use?! Why are you telling me to go around the most “convenient” way?! I was on the phone with these people for 3 hours and 29 minutes total talking to a dozen people sitting on hold being transferred making three way calls for NOTHING. $25 lost im cyberspace. There should be a lawsuit against this company and the UNACCEPTABLE customer service and the FALSE advertising of convenience.

By the way Im a 29 year old black man from Chicago.
Its rough here and every penny to a mf like me counts.

I’ll NEVER **** with paypal again.

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William Sarro December 22, 2016 at 12:38 pm

After many yrs of using paypal, I now find that are manipulating my account and taking money from sales and automatically applying to my personal purchases. They also with drew money from my checking account and applied it to my purchase. They say that i changed the method of payment which i know i didnt. So i went back to the site where i made my purchase and went to check out, the default method for paypay was the palpal credit card, you have to do a number of clicks to change the method of payment which i know i didnt do. So the end result was to completely remove my selling site from my personal purchases. I think they are scammers and i guess they will get everyone sooner or later. hopefully some one will challenge them and offer a more honest payment method.

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Tray Hicks December 19, 2016 at 10:57 am

Major flaw with PayPalI received an email from my PayPal that my son was requesting $250 for a computer. I clicked on the link and was taken to my PayPal account. As soon as I was logged in I closed the bank account that was on file, and opened an account that I needed the money to come out of. I was never asked how to pay the $250. I received confirmation that the account was closed. I received an email saying the new account was open. Two days later I received notification that PayPal had attempted to take the money out of the account I had closed. I was charged by the bank $30 for overdraft and $25 for returning the electronic check. I called PayPal. The lady on the phone apologized, said all she could do was write a letter to my bank asking for the fees to be dropped. I took this to the bank and am waiting to see if they will remove the fees. The $250 was taken out of my new account. I didn’t know if the bank would remove the fees but was glad my son had been paid. Today, three days later PayPal attempted to take the $250 from the account I canceled again. The bank charged another $30 and $25 fees. I called PayPal back and am now being told PayPal will try one more time after this attempt and there is nothing they can do about it. After 15 minutes talking to the representative that answered the phone and being told there was nothing he could do I asked to speak to a manager. That was 45 minutes ago and I am still on hold while I type this. So by the time this transaction is completed I will be charged $165 in bank fees and over 3 hours of my work time because PayPal has no system to not take from an account that was clearly canceled. This is all happening the week of Christmas and has put me in a bad way. I will be rethinking who I use for my online business.

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David December 18, 2016 at 4:17 am

I was always told that PayPal had the most secured credit card system in the world……not true! Recently there were fraudulent charges put on my PayPal Mastercard at a pizza shop somewhere in Florida, I live in Penna. and haven’t been to Florida in 10 years and haven’t used my PayPal MC to purchase anything from Florida or a pizza shop. How these thieves used my account to purchase something is beyond me! The real problem was when I reported this problem to PayPal, I had to talk to several CSR who could barely speak English. First they wanted to verify that I was the cardholder so they asked the security questions and I answered them all correct, 2nd. they wanted a 6 digit PIN, which I tried to explain to them that I never received one! Then they wanted to send a text message to my home phone, not understanding that it was not a mobile phone and after that they told me that I would be receiving a code in the US mail (it took 9 days) and to call back with the code to be allowed to enter my PayPal account! To conclude, they are not the most secured credit card company and the have the worst customer service that I have ever dealt with in my life!I now only use my PayPal MC account to buy things on Ebay and use Capital One card for all otherpurchases!

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Virginia M Crocker December 15, 2016 at 7:12 am

I am in Pay Pal Hell. Cannot get my deceased sister’s refund returned to her checking account and this account closed. Has been going on for over 2 months, faxed and scanned over the required document still no where close to getting this resolved. Any suggestions??

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Kavita December 11, 2016 at 10:15 pm

Pyapal is cheapest service provider and cheapest support. There was not any solution about my payments blocked by paypal and showing releasted in paypal. Anyone can help me to get my money because paypal is not replying.

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Dick Travers December 11, 2016 at 10:48 am

I have been a Paypal used for over 10 years. As I buy and sell on ebay, I have no choice – you have to use them. They are able to almost instantaneously deduct money from your account, but it has been 3 weeks since I was issued a refund for a returned item (it came damaged). The refund has been “pending” for 3 weeks – I have called 3 times – first I was told it would be in my account in “24 to 48 hours”, 3 days later I called – “within 24 hours”, and this morning I called and the customer support person told me she had no idea when the refund would be paid, and had no idea why it hadn’t been paid. Their customer service sucks, and if I had a choice I would not deal with them.

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T Main December 5, 2016 at 2:18 pm

PAYPAL…….No support …No help…Purchase assurance warranty a Joke. I buy several items on Ebay as a result it gets charged on Ebay. I had 2 issues .One item arrived damaged Paypal brushed me off and refused to help.Second was a claim for Non working item. Once again got brushed off and was advised to deal with the seller directly.My advise charge directly on your Credit Card. Pay Pal will not help the buyers. So disappointed.I get emails stating buy with confidence with PayPal. All is nothing but baloney.Stay away from Pay Pal use your credit card for purchases.

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lana December 22, 2016 at 1:22 pm

Hi,you have t contact seller first.If they are not responding you have to open return case on Ebay.

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Jack Bronson December 3, 2016 at 8:46 am

I don’t ever complain about any company,until now.One year ago I moved to a new address.Approximately nine months after moving my wife ordered something and used PayPal to pay for it.The total cost was $34.85.I had asked to have it shipped to my BILLING address.We did receive the item ordered.I had specifically asked to receive a paper invoice.I didn’t receive the paper invoice as agreed upon.Three months later ,I received a phone call saying I was 3 months behind on my payment of $34.85.The total was now $168.00. This was because of finance,and interest charges.I was told”we sent the billing invoice at your old address. That’s not our fault”.I have since had to talk with them on the phone a few times.Each time I asked them and was told ” we have it changed over so you should receive a paper billing invoice.” It was suppose to be like that all along.If I was asked to rate this business ,on a scale of 1 to 5,I’d definitely find out if there was a number BELOW ZERO.

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Kiara Hart November 22, 2016 at 9:00 am

This is the third time my account has been overdrawn due to PayPal removing funds weeks after items were purchased. Will never use again

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Kiara Hart November 22, 2016 at 8:57 am

This is the third time my account has been overdrawn due to PayPal removing funds weeks after items were purchased. My account is overdrawn now due to a payment withdrawn yesterday for a package I received in the mail 2 weeks ago. Why does it take so long? I’m considering using prepaid cards for online shopping instead of using PayPal.

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Michal Sirucek November 11, 2016 at 11:27 am

Stay away from Paypal! They are robbers! Paypal advertising the option of making a payment for/from your friend, I decided to try it. For the first time and for the last time as well. I needed my landlord to send back my rent deposit. I sent him the request and he paid. Afterwards I found out the fee is 3% and I was like F*ck, the most expensive way of sending a payment. Whatever. Problems started once (couple months later) he forgot about it, thought it is some fraud as he rarely uses Paypal so he asked his credit card company to cancel the Payment. Card company asked Paypal to cancel the transaction, Paypal took money from my account and sent them back and then let me know about it. So before I had a chance to explain that it was a regular payment and not a fraud the money was already returned to the sender. The final result is: Although the payment did not happened I had to pay the 3% of the payment plus $20 for canceling the payment. What a scam! They have never acknowledged my complains about it and don’t let me use my account until paying those fees for nothing. Paypal never more!

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Natalia November 4, 2016 at 9:42 am

I sold an item on eBay over a week ago and I still have access to my money. First it was pending over the the date I was due to have it accessible and now I can’t withdraw the money at all because my identity check failed apparently. Customer service is useless as well, going to give them a very angry call soon.

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Denotah November 1, 2016 at 7:08 am

Person brought from me same day I sent it off and laid for 2 day shipping. Used pay pal, person recieved the item is wearing my items for 6 days and still haven’t gotten my money.. They are robbers!! I called customer service and they said they can hold on my money until 21 days for my protection if the buyer doesn’t like it working those 21 days can send it back and I will not got my money back!! Complete robbery!! Smh

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Cornelius Jordan November 28, 2016 at 10:08 am

I’m going through the same exact thing. I sold an item on ebay, sent the item priority, buyer received it in 3 days, buyer contacted me saying thanks on the deal and I still haven’t received my funds that’s supposed to be available today! Called PayPal before I shipped to be ensured my funds will be available 3 days after buyer receives merchandise. Now they telling me it’s a 4th day I have to wait for my money. I can’t believe the experience in having on my first sell through paypal!

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Jeanne Dillon October 26, 2016 at 3:17 pm

Customer Service is unresponsive & useless. I should have given the payment to a stranger, which in reality is what I did. I’ll never see my money again.

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Andrew Smith October 14, 2016 at 10:10 am

I am fed up with using Paypal. I have been using them for 5 years as a business account and too often do fraudulent buyers open a chargeback case that Paypal decides in their favor. It is unacceptable that I have to pay for the cost of goods and shipping only to send it to a seller and have Paypal reverse the funds from my account. Then they also charge an additional $20 hidden chargeback fee when they email they sent me actually stated that I was debited a $0.00 chargeback fee. They flat out lied and I am sick that this has happened many times throughout the years. It’s a large greedy company that doesn’t care about buyers protection. Do not waste your money or time using Paypal

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James Chapman September 24, 2016 at 5:44 pm

PayPal is pathetic. I have account limitations they have been unwilling to remove – despite me submitting the required documents numerous times AND the account is years and years old, with hundreds of buy and sell transactions listed AND no problems. Idiots destroying what was a good business. Avoid – use their competition.

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Jack Schafer September 20, 2016 at 12:59 pm

Pay Pal credit is an embarrassment to EBay, and every source that uses them. I dropped my account today, BUT to make my point, I will never again do business with any vendor that uses Pay-Pal Credit as an option. These folks are thieves. After literally stealing $114.00 from me in fees ??? ILLEGALLY (knowing that they are under the radar and for that amount I wouldn’t cause them grief)… I closed my account, and in the process of paying off charges that I just made THIS MONTH – that were not due yet, I was charges some account termination fee for another $35.00 (seems to be their magic number.
In 2016, I was charged $2.16 in interest – and $114.00 in FEES.
THESE are the kind of lender that NEED a “class action suit”, and I.m damn near mad enough to do that. Right is right… WRONG is wrong, and should be punished !
Pay-Pal Credit will see this message on every available rating site.
Hint: In the future – don’t mess with someone that has nothing to lose. You can’t win !
Jack Schafer

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Kelsi A September 10, 2016 at 12:57 pm

Recently paypal charged me 12 times for a single purchase. Somehow this took over three days of 2 hour long phone calls to fix. On top of that, every employee I spoke to has been nothing but rude and argumentative with me, and in one case an employee actually did things to my account that I specifically told him not to do. Absolutely awful.

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Fritz September 8, 2016 at 6:55 pm

Avoid these thiefs….. They will place account limitation on you, and freeze up you account and funds. If your a medium to small business, avoid them, this is a hassle on your cash flow. They will hold your funds for 180 days, and that will screw you and your customers.

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Stickfigure Distribution September 8, 2016 at 7:10 am

Paypal had a bug and “lost” some of my money.

I understand it is the real world and these problems happen from time to time, but rather then just credit me the missing money Paypal told me that I have to call them EVERY 1 – 3 days about this problem until it has been fixed. That’s EXTREMELY POOR customer service.

So the customer has to suffer for Paypal’s error? 0 stars.

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Ashley September 7, 2016 at 12:39 pm

Paypal froze our account for no reason and is demanding information oh how we run our business. We are a small business and have provided it to the best of our ability and its not enough. We’ve done over 70,000 in sales with them over the previous 3 years with happy customers with no issues or chargebacks and they just don’t care. Save yourself the aggravation and avoid them at all costs!

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Lixandra Gonzalez September 2, 2016 at 5:26 pm

Sold a client a product through Ebay. Shipped the product and included the Tracking Number both on Ebay and Paypal. Our funds were locked for more than 15 days. Called Paypal telling them they had taken their commission on sales and we didn’t get our funds released. Called multiple times to no avail. Everybody is happy, the client, Ebay and Paypal but us!!!!! We are still waiting!

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Linda Conaty August 28, 2016 at 5:58 am

After sending a color inquiry and receiving an Email confirmation from MadamBridal that the site picture was what I was about to order, I received a pink dress rather than a blue grey dress. I tried to contact the agent that sold me the misidentified dress but he would not take my calls. (turns out that he was the owner) I attempted to resolve the problem through Paypal ‘s expedited resolution department. I sent the original Email color confirmation with the site picture along with a photo of the dress that was sent. I was assured by Paypal that someone would contact me if further information was needed. I then received a Email from Paypal stating that the item was “substantially as ordered” ! (try wearing a pink dress to your daughter’s blue wedding and see if she thinks it’s substantially as ordered…) Bottom line and despite their assertions, Paypal is not in the business of protecting the buyer. of protecting the buyer.

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Hoggdoc August 30, 2016 at 3:48 pm

That’s total BS, PayPal exists to buffer between an on-Line merchant and the on-line buyer. That’s the only reason to use there service.

I have had them go to bat for me many times and the answer they gave you is total BS as you stated. If it is still within the 45 day time windows I would request a supervisor review the claim. Also was the payment made through PayPal to a Credit Card, if so dispute it with the Credit Card Company.

Hope it works out.

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Shah August 25, 2016 at 7:11 am

Paypal is just doing fraud now, I bought an item 112074420905 on ebay and paid through paypal. Seller never posted the items, I opened the case in paypal and next day I got an email that the case is closed, it’s not under buyer protection.I called paypal a few times but they didn’t even tell me the reason why the case is closed in favour of seller, I lost £230. NO refund, no items, no postage, no tracking. The seller didn’t even respond to the case. The case details said: Phone call with seller. It means paypal believed what was said to them by the dodgy seller on the phone, but paypal didn’t ask for any evidence or didn’t follow the case procedure. It looks like paypal is just supporting dodgy sellers

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Hoggdoc August 30, 2016 at 3:49 pm

Did you contact Ebay, the are the ones that should pay you…

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Robert M. Johnson August 31, 2016 at 11:54 am

Paypal has some partner shops and businesses that exist in the shade to allegedly make extra shady money for the corp. world. Those kinds of shops or stores or individuals don’t ship anything, don’t communicate, don’t respond inquiries, but just charge the buyers wallets. If buyer complains about such shady Paypal merchant, Paypal returns the money, but never punishes the fraudulent business and never closes the store’s Paypal account. I tested such stores and after fraudulent transaction was resolved and money was returned to me. Then year after year after year I kept test-sending $1 to the Paypal accounts of those fraudulent stores and those stores (shops, individuals) would just accept the $1 from me with utter silence, without asking what the money is for and not asking or providing any invoice. Really mysterious stuff. Also, Paypal support loves to insult customers by openly teasing their name and or surname, for instance instead of Johnson the Paypal support female would write to me: “Mr. John’s Bum” and I am not kidding! I have proof of all I just said. This is how BAD corporate impudence has become after the 9/11.

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Eric Lee Duvall-Winscher June 20, 2016 at 9:08 pm

This is a customer review of Paypal after dealing with customer service to no success. For a while now I have used paypal but very recently they messed up and refused to take liability for their mistake. I have my account set up so it pulls money out of my account on the 3rd. of each month. My account is set up in a way so that their is only money in the account on the day I am expecting money to be taken out. For some reason paypals system took money on the wrong day which caused me to have a negative paypal balance and a NSF charge on my account. When I contacted Paypal customer support I expected to be greeted with a welcoming face and Paypal’s willingness to absorb the cost of their mistake, as any business should. Instead I was faced with paypal customer service that would not admit fault and would not absorb the cost of their mistake. Instead they kept persisting that they were completely in the right and kept trying to charge my account, even after I explain, over and over again, that money is only in my account the day it is supposed to be charged. As I explained, this is a way to keep my money safe. Still paypal refused to accept fault for this mistake and I have had to pay $22 so my bank will stop paypall from charging it. Even since, Paypal tries to get the money, which they are not entitled to. Even after formally requesting they take my account down, multiple times, they refuse to do so. My advice is to not use this company. As long as things work right they are fine, but as soon as the company does something wrong they are unwilling to accept fault or do anything to fix the problem. I would not recomend this company to anyone.

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todd June 18, 2016 at 12:03 pm

Thanks for providing excellent information about the pros and cons of Paypal. As you know Paypal
has changed their format and it is difficult–impossible for me–to find the Virtual Terminal. Do you know where it is? I’ve looked on the blogs online and can’t find an answer. The business office is closed and I would like to process an order today.

Hope you can help.

Best, Todd Mills

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Peter K. March 27, 2016 at 11:01 pm

Never use Paypal merchant service! If you need to sell on ebay, just use paypal ONLY for this purposes. If you want to offer your customers safe payment option, use Amazon checkout service. Lack of Paypal on your website does not influent on sales at all. Why?- paypal false advertising. I called 6 months ago to PP , and asked for discount (if sales over 10K monthly, the rate is 2.2%). Rep told me this is ok, but after couple of months I discover they still chargeme $o.3 plus 2.9% per transaction- paypal doesn’t have bank license to conduct business. They get money transmitting license in all states. This mean if paypal become bankrupt one day, your money may be lost for you forever. There is no FDIC insurance. As money transmitter Paypal do everything to keep the client money on their system. All account limitations are designed to prevent sellers to get their money fast or even back. – paypal only one merchant provider who doesn’t conduct automatic ACH deposits/transfers. They need your money to maintain liquidity inside paypal. – because paypal doesn’t have bank license it is very hard to get your money back if account is limited. You can sue Paypal only in 2 states , and they lawyers do fantastic job with Agreement you sign as merchant seller. I lost business couple year ago because of Paypal, and damage for me 1000 times worse that tiny profit I got between paypal merchant rates and other merchant service companies. The worse investment in my life (as many thousands or hundred thousands customers who suffer from paypal).

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Robert M. Johnson August 31, 2016 at 12:09 pm

To prevent money loss always withdraw money from Paypal account once it reaches $100, $5000 or $1000 and transfer it (for free) to your bank account.

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Kate Clark March 18, 2016 at 6:47 pm

Paypal has good and bad for our purposes. You can easily set up an account and only pay based on what comes through. We pay for the Pro version to interact with our softwares so the % we actually pay is not what is quoted, but more like 3.4-3.9% even with volumes over 30,000 a month when you average the costs with what we took in. You can get a person, and get basic friendly help easily for basic things, but I find you don’t get correct or helpful answers with how to properly have it interract with other softwares like moodle. You are basically on your own. I also don’t like that to download a log, even with less than 10 items, takes overnight and it never used to. Very inconvenient. It is nice that people recognize and look for paypal and don’t need to own a credit card. We will continue to use it, but I do wish some changes would be made and our voices heard.

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Evan Kottiel March 15, 2016 at 10:05 am

I have no idea how PayPal has 4 stars. They should not be given a single star. DO NOT USE. It is not worth it. The have screwed me over more times than I can count, and for absolutely no reason. It infuriates me just writing about it. They are selfish, unfair and far from professionals. PayPal needs to be shut down, I do not know why it has not been already.

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S/Smith June 5, 2016 at 12:48 am

I could not agree with you more! They screwed me twice. Selfish, greedy institute..Customer Service is good for nothing. I had recently a dispute with them and despite I got scammed they did not approve the dispute in my favour. phew

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Damodar Prasad March 14, 2016 at 9:31 am

I Limited my account, because from last time my sales are increase and obviously increase disputes, because i am selling digital goods, so some customer after getting product, open charge-back and get money back. i am happy to give charge-back money, but should be continue my account to receive money.

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Peggy Farabaugh March 12, 2016 at 6:08 am

I’ve been using PayPal for 10 years. Not a fan for so many reasons. If I had it to do over again I definitely would not choose PayPal. Switching to another processor is on my list of priorities but it’s not that easy and it takes time– so here I am having to deal with another PayPal failure again. They’ve had a glitch with PayPal Express for over a week. I called Paypal on Thursday and got nowhere. Then I called again yesterday (Friday) and was abandoned while on hold for an hour. So I sent an email and they got back to me with an email telling me to call. I called just now, on Sat and got a recorded message that they don’t work on Saturdays. OK I run a tiny company in Vermont with a handful of employees and I work on Saturdays. Paypal is one of the biggest businesses in the world and they don’t work on Sat. Unbelievable. Weekend days have by far the most shopping traffic of the week.

Like most others who use PayPal, my store is my livelihood and I can’t process sales. I will be moving to an alternative merchant processor asap. Paypal, in my opinion is going downhill rapidly and I can’t afford to keep suffering the brunt of their mistakes.

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Kris May 12, 2016 at 10:45 am

Did you call 888-221-1161? They are open everyday. I have called on Saturdays and Sundays. Although it seems they close a few hours earlier, that’s all.

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Peggy May 13, 2016 at 12:13 pm

Thanks Kris. I have called many times and they respond. They just don’t agree with me. Their seller protection policies don’t usually protect sellers of high ticket items (in my case furniture) from scammers.

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R. Preston February 21, 2016 at 3:14 pm

I signed up with them as a merchant in December 2015. They took money from my clients. Then slapped on arbitrary changes – a $25,000 per month withdrawal limit, 3-week holds, then a $10,000 per month withdrawal limit – just to hold my clients’ money. Their customer service reps are hopeless – always blaming issues on the “system” and claiming they cannot override. You get a different answer and reason every time you call. Their practices are shady. But they are big and settle out of court every X years for pennies on the dollar and don’t give a damn about merchants. I finally had them reimburse my clients, had to explain to the clients what happened so I could charge them again and signed up with another merchant provider. I would avoid Paypal like the plague.

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aaron north January 25, 2016 at 6:06 am

Somebody bought my ebay item and paid through paypal a total of £200. 7 weeks later paypal then give me a negative balance of £200 from this transaction stating that the card which the buyer used was stolen so they need to recover the money.Why should I have to pay the £200 when they’re the company who’s accepted a stolen card into their system, also why has it taken 7 weeks for them to realise this. When ringing them you go through to an automated service which takes literally 10 minutes to get out of, and then the customer service have no explanation for the events. All they say is ‘you should have remembered your tracking info.’ I keep all tracking info for about a month and only send it to the buyer on request, I wouldn’t expect there to be any problems 7 weeks down the line.PayPal’s unregulated and I will not pay back the money, the consideration was in the past therefor they have no leg to stand on, take me to court!

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Jeff January 19, 2016 at 12:52 pm

I would advice AVOIDING paypal as a seller at any cost. I was scammed over ebay from a buyer for over $1200. Ebay and paypal new it was a scam to the point they closed his account within days. I begged paypal to not return the money as I wanted to provide more information to reveal the scam. They ignored my request, they ignored the buyers 3 contradictory statements which were contradictory to the post office, they ignored documentation I sent, they ignored due process and proceeded to assist in a fraud. I was scammed over $1000 by both the buyer and paypal. Paypal then waited until I had the exact amount from sales in my paypal account and then froze everything. They are willing to talk for hours but like a good politician do not say anything help to resolve the situation. Eventually when my facts could not be disputed they simply lawyered up and said they would only receive these points through a lawyer and then after waiting over a year to get back to my proof said it was now expired. I am frustrated that ebay makes us use paypal. Paypal takes no regard for fair process yet I am forced to use them. Bad business, bad company and forced relationship. Hoping for better opportunity for online money transfer soon with Ebay,Jeff

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J_Jank January 17, 2016 at 12:04 pm

Paypal went extremely downhill in these years.I sold an item recently via Paypal (postage:collection only). Delivered the item to the customer’s specified location myself, and the customer was happy with it. To my great surprise, now I have to wait at least 21 days to receive the paid money of the item to my account. Of course, both Ebay and Paypal charged me extra for using each of their services. But my issue is with Paypal, not ebay.What is more outrageous is this – when I called Paypal, they said that I should have known about the 21 days waiting period, when listing the item ebay emphasises it 5 times!!! Really??? However, he failed to provide any valid references to prove it. Then the Paypal customer support said, that EVERYONE knows about the 21 waiting time. Yet again, really? So how come I am calling the support? Finally, without asking me he just transferred me to another Paypal person, who hang up on me.This is draconian absurd way of treating anyone who would like to sell via ebay using Paypal. Paypal customer service is very poor now. The sad thing is – my buyer is trying to help me to get the money faster, while Paypal customer service member just hangs up on me!Don’t use Paypal unless you want to get disappointed.

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Bernard Nelson January 13, 2016 at 10:28 am

I had a customer dispute a charge that is clearly a charge in December 2015. The charge was initially made in October 2015. American Express decided in his favor, even with all the evidence that is was a legitimate charge. Paypal response was… it was nothing else that they can do. My account has a chargeback of 1,220.00. DO NOT USE PAYPAL.

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Britt October 15, 2015 at 11:48 pm

After a year (almost to the day) of successful business through PayPal, they have recently decided to withhold funds on my account claiming risk. I run a monthly subscription box service and let customers know before signing up, when signing up, and after signing up that they will receive their first box 3-4 weeks after starting the subscription. This is apparently now too risky for PayPal as they want me to ship items within 3-5 business days. This is a personalized subscription that I hand make items for depending on survey answers from the customers. There is not stock on hand to throw in a box and ship out. This is why I put so much effort into letting my customer know to expect a wait. PayPal has effectively stolen my customers money as I cannot use it to purchase the items for their boxes. I will definitely be switching to another company and will not be recommending PayPal to anyone who does business online.

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karen dampeer October 9, 2015 at 5:32 pm

I am president of a non-profit organization and we have had a horrendously bad time trying to deal with PayPal. Their information is years out of date and our efforts to supply updated information are met either with complete indifference or hostility, depending on which business customer service representative we encounter.We have faxed packets of information to review and we are given projections for review which are never accomplished.It is a situation in which we are powerless to improve, and in which PayPal is apparently powerless to update. DON’T USE THEM.

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s September 16, 2015 at 8:39 pm

Have to be very careful about Paypal Credit. Even though you have approved credit, they may pull your credit @ each purchase. This is hard hit not a soft hit on your credit. That may impact your credit score. I had same experience and called Paypal to ask about this. They said they have this in the agreement and they can pull the credit whenever they want. Be aware of it before using Paypal Credit.

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Gina September 14, 2015 at 6:13 pm

Be very careful when using paypal. They have a service called paypal credit that when you sign-up (I didn’t even realize I was signing up for it), makes all these selections for you. Like the way they will bill you(though email that went directly to spam). Then they charge you ridiculous fees. I will be staying away from paypal all together. Please share so others don’t fall into their trap.

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Mike September 10, 2015 at 12:44 pm

HelloPlease be advise that PayPal does not provide any protection for sellers who sells the service; if you are selling service which is intangible you will easiliy lose your money as the buyers can open a chargeback with their card issuer and they will be refunded after a week and PayPal has no way of protecting you and it will charge you an extra 20$ for the fees beside the money you lost for giving the service!I strongly recommend people to not to open paypal account as a merchant or if they have to close it!

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Nicholas Volz September 8, 2015 at 1:45 pm

Not happy with the time that it takes to transfer funds from checking account into my PayPal account. Past 2 transactions that I have done in uploading funds into PayPal have taken almost a week each time. I know why now why I have not been using them. Better off using Western Union..

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Sam August 27, 2015 at 7:44 pm

Very disappointed with the service that Paypal offers a company credit card processing, resulting in the loss of many customers who do not complete the payment goes to another Internet-store.I want to mention about technical support, which sometimes are not able fast solve the technical problems . I do not recommend this company as the company makes credit card processing and execution of money transfer services.

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billy blanco August 22, 2015 at 3:54 pm

Paypal closed down an account I had been using for 6 years because of a disputed transaction 8 years ago where they closed down the account because I was defrauded but held responsible, as a result they also closed down my newer account and stole my remaining funds because I refuse to pay for an item I had proof of sending off and the customer receiving the item but I was still held liable!! Absolute joke, PayPal does not protect seller..be aware

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Barry August 5, 2015 at 1:18 am

I guess I’m VERY Lucky! 2 days ago I received an email from Paypal saying that my account was limited. This came out of nowhere. As it turns out they were right. I violated a policy that was a bit crazy. I had no idea. There was ZERO warning. No phone call, no email, nothing. My account was limited. for those who know what I’m talking about you know that you are at the mercy of Paypal. All I did was saying over and over again how sorry I was to their customer service department. I followed up with several emails. I had to sign something and then hoped for the best.

The next day everything went back to normal.

So what is the new normal? Well it doesn’t include Paypal. Paypal owns you. There is no way that you can work with them. They can steal your money at a momernts notice. I am now looking for another way to accept payments. Hopefully with a company that doesn’t own you.

Paypal is so large there chances of winng are not very high. How can the average person fight them? You can’t. If you spent all day and night I wouldn’t count on winning.

I read the horror stories. I read how it almost distroyed peoples lives. It goes on and on. Last week Paypal was fine. Since my account had no problem I had no idea how little protection I had. If they wanted to keep my money for 180 days they could. I had under $1,000 so a lawyer would have cost me more.

My advice… Any money that you have in account should be money that you can afford to lose and not effect you. If you are a seller have another way to accept money “when” something goes wrong. In my case it took 15 years. There were NO complaints, no fraud, no disputes.

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TP August 1, 2015 at 2:41 am

I was a PayPal “customer” for more than a decade. I can’t recall when I ever had normal service. When people give PayPal a favorable rating, my head wants to explode. In any other business transaction where a legitimate, legal payment processing financial institution is handling your purchase, the process occurs seamlessly. PayPal–however–randomly blocks transactions, leaks your credentials, and throws innumerable random barriers to use and a multitude of errors with no explanation. There is no outward-facing customer service at PayPal, and it regularly destroys relationships between business and customers by souring business deals and causing financial loss.In NO other endeavor is it the customer’s responsibility to sort out transaction processing problems, but for some reason it’s expected of PayPal victims. That doesn’t even make sense! There is no real support and no one cares about customer relationship management because apparently no one in upper management is actually monitoring the activities of the company with respect to its customers. PayPal consistently rates at 20% (!) satisfaction or lower on legitimate consumer sites where the content is not paid for by PayPal or eBay. The company is rumored to have in excess of 10,000 employees–most of which are in customer service. Really? Did PayPal forget to buy them phones or something?This is truly the most awful payment processing company in the world–and like eBay–most people begrudgingly use it because shady, collusive business practices prevent competitors for entering the market. STOP USING PAYPAL.

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Bill Williams August 1, 2015 at 5:05 pm

What system did you replace PayPal with?

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Jon Ramos July 29, 2015 at 10:00 pm

Try getting PayPal to transfer money into an alternative account. After running a test a week ago, they now claim I never made a request to transfer money. They are operating on my money, foot dragging every step of the way. Next week, I plan on submitting a complaint with the cfpb, then PayPal has another 15 days to review my complaint.

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Shawn July 27, 2015 at 9:33 pm

PayPal held $500 for a PS3 I sold back in 2006, to a customer who wanted a refund. PayPal gave him his refund, and he got to keep the PS3. When I tried to tell them that he never sent the money back, they told me the case was closed, and it was too late. They did nothing to try and compensate. Both Ebay and Paypal are on my Black List for life. I prefer Amazon and really any other company to these scammers.

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Harlea August 2, 2015 at 11:05 pm

Make sure you have proof when selling on ebay since ebay is about showing proof and making sure they have enough or else you will lose

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Bartholomew July 22, 2015 at 3:41 am

WARNING. DO NOT USE PAYPAL.Just do a web search for pay pal horror stories. It happened to me. They won’t tell me why. All I ever did was sell personal items like heaters, guitars, amps, computers, books, and buy. They held almost $2000 for over 6 months. It almost destroyed me, I am not a rich man. I’m banned for life, for no reason.WARNING. DO NOT USE PAYPAL.

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Christina July 13, 2015 at 8:06 pm

About a month ago, I received a letter from PayPal stating that someone attempted to open up an account in my name, When I called to speak to someone at PayPal, they stated that someone attempted to open a second account in my name, applied for a PayPal line of credit (I already have one), and they turned it down because they could not authenticate my identity. Specifically, I have credit freezes on my bureaus which doesn’t allow for an underwriter to open a new line of credit in a consumer’s name. After talking to several representatives, they stated they would close the fraudulent account opened in my name and flagged the PayPal credit application as identity theft. A few weeks later, I attempted to make a purchase on my PayPal line of credit through eBay, a purchase of about $100. They denied the purchase which confused me. A few days later, I received a letter in the mail stating they needed to authenticate my identity. So I called them, verified all the needed information, and the representative stated I would receive a letter in the mail in a few days regarding the account. During the conversation, I told him this account had nothing to do with the other account that someone had attempted to open in my name, and I was confused as to why I was being put through this process again. When I received the letter, they stated they closed the account due to fraudulent activity which is bogus. No fraudulent activity has ever occurred on this account; rather, it was only on the second account someone else attempted to open in my name. Moreover, I believe PayPal really closed the account because I had also reported them for improper billing, specifically charging me more on eBay purchases than what was advertised. They have stated they were shipping charges, but this is incorrect and a blatant lie. I have records from eBay showing there were no shipping charges on these purchases. eBay always itemizes shipping charges when the seller charges for them.Because it is impossible to get account resolution through PayPal’s customer service, I contacted the company through Facebook’s social media messaging about the ongoing problems. I told the representative, Adrian, how dissatisfied I was with PayPal and that I was considering reporting the company to the Attorney General’s office, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the BBB. I also stated I would not use my PayPal account in the future, even though only the line of credit had been closed, because I was so dissatisfied with their service. Adrian’s response was flippant; he advised me to go ahead and report them, an extremely poor response to a major customer service issue. In addition, the company has recently disabled the ability to make comments on their Facebook page, whether it is a general comment or comments on one of their posts. I would assume they have done this because tons of people had lodged complaints on their page, making them look really bad or possibly setting them up for a class action lawsuit.Besides your organization, I have also reported this to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Attorney General of California, the Attorney General of Kansas, the FTC, and the BBB. If anyone who reads this post has similar problems with PayPal, I’d suggest that you also file your own reports.

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rj hardan July 22, 2015 at 12:43 am

I had a very similar problem. You explained it well and without getting angry. It’s frustrating when you cannot get ahold of Paypal to correct a situation in which they might have been the one in error. My account has several address where I send gifts to my children, grandchildren, etc.. We spent Christmas in Montana and my children and I waited patiently for the gift of a luxury hand knit afghan I ordered from Uggs as the big gift ($286.00) which I did not receive because Paypal all of a sudden refused to send my orders to the agreed on addressee, even after I had received notice my shipment would arrive before Christmas. the I didn’t receive any explanation or email to warn us that Paypal hadn’t okayed it. I have gone online and tried to answer any questions that would get me to the right customer service person. Not only did none apply in my case and when I decided to call, I STILL couldn’t get to talk to a real person and hung up after 20 minutes, not sure whether they would EVER answer my call.

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Thomas Ford July 13, 2015 at 7:13 pm

Tell the government you want PayPal to be fair in the way it handles your money. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/stop-paypal-taking-3-5-business-days-transfer-money-customers-accounts

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Jake May 12, 2016 at 10:59 am

This would be a great idea except it is out of Paypal’s hands once you initiate the withdraw. It travels through what is called the ACH process. This is a governmental process that is required. This is not something PayPal can alter in anyway.

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Ghislaine Cuellar July 12, 2015 at 6:00 pm

This buyer in California made three ebay purchases from me back in Feb 09/2015 – $118.15, $75.00 and $592.45, paid with PayPal, received the items, and filed “unauthorized charge claims” with her Credit Card company on file.On July/09/2015 PayPal charged me $193.25 for the first two transactions leaving my account with a negative balance. Luckily, the $592.45 purchase was not reversed and the case is now closed. It seems that either PayPal or the Credit Card company on file finally smelled a rat or it could probably be that I had added “signature confirmation required” to the postage.I called PayPal, and talked to a representative somewhere in Asia, who told me that they sent me e-mails on the subject, and nothing else could be done to reverse the charges. I had no knowledge of such e-mails and might inadvertently erased them among all my other ebay transactions or it could also be that they just went to the junk mail. What about sending me letters by mail like any other reputable financial institution would? How PayPal can allow this type of Internet Fraud to happen? My ebay and PayPal accounts are linked together, and the transaction status are shown simultaniously in both sites, including the USPS tracking numbers that prove that the buyer received the items. Needless to say that the buyer kept the items for free.I’ve also filed a claim with ebay, and the IC3.Gov. I hope I’ll be able to have my money back, which I doubt it very much.

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Craig Heartwell July 11, 2015 at 6:59 pm

NEVER USE PAYPAL FOR SOFTWARE PURCHASE – NO BUYER PROTECTION. PayPal does not provide buyer protection for what they call “intangible” items or “intangible” deficiencies. PayPal used that excuse to avoid assisting me in reclaiming $80 from an online seller despite clear evidence that the product involved has serious deficiencies and there have been prior claims and evidence. PayPal simply did nothing to “investigate” the claim – they simply closed the case as being “intangible”. Software is not intangible – it has to exist as code, it has to be measurable in operation and function, and it does or does not provide features that it claims. These are easily determined as true or false. My complaint was not about any intangible aspect of the product – it was clearly that there is a major flaw in the software and clear evidence that this flaw causes significant operational issues such that I could not and would not trust using the product.A software vendor could simply send you garbage and you will have no recourse through PayPal for obtaining a refund. Since PayPal is a very common payment method for foreign vendors, independent developers and many smaller software producers this becomes a huge risk for the consumer. Many software products such as browser plugins, WordPress plugins and independent apps are only payable via PayPal – for good reason – once you have paid you are on your own and all the evidence in the world that the product you purchased is flawed will not convince PayPal to take any action on behalf of the buyer (as long as they are making their cut of the sales, they have no incentive to chastise sellers for selling garbage and no reason to support refunds to buyers). Once PP has decided against you in any claim there is no opportunity for rebuttal, appeal or additional evidence to support your claims – something they do not make clear from the outset; users are lead to believe there is a process, but in fact once the seller responds you likely have no further opportunity to contribute.

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Eric Hazelrigg July 11, 2015 at 7:46 pm

Completely agree with Craig and will add they also don’t even attempt to pursue an sale that is a “custom-made” product. You will have no recourse on tailor made suits, pants, shirts… purchased from venders. I also had a strange situation with Paypal where the payment to the vender was split between using a credit I had with Paypal and paid the remainder with a credit card I had on file with them. The vender sent the wrong product, so I filed two separate claims, one with Paypal (for ONLY the amount I charged directly to Paypal) and one to my credit card (for ONLY the amount I charged to the credit card). Paypal said once I tried to recover charges from my credit card (even though it was ONLY the money charged to the credit card), it automatically stopped any action Paypal would take. I spoke to about 10 people at Paypal. They wouldn’t budge. I lost $126 on that purchase.

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Kristine Claremont July 7, 2015 at 5:22 pm

It is quite clear to me and to many consumers (and my brick and mortar bank who has been on 3-way calls with PayPal regarding fraudulent activity on my account) that PayPal is rife with security and organizational issues that prevent this company from providing a basic level of effective customer service (this is an indicator of a dying service-based entity). Fraudulent charges can have a significant impact on everyday consumers, although after dealing with numerous call center reps (US and European-based) for over three weeks, PayPal would never acknowledge this on any level. Apparently, I, as the consumer, have hours of time that I can take out of my own schedule to devote to convincing PayPal reps that they have already resolved my disputed transactions; apparently this is due to the fact that their customer tracking and call note systems are not aligned between different call centers. Not to mention that being regarded as an “inconvenience” by customer care reps must mean that customer care training must be sparse to non-existent in the PayPal corporate budget.

After using PayPal since 2004, I currently can identify no tangible benefit from using this service that justifies the risk for potential fraud, either as a merchant nor as a consumer.

As I type this, I am presently on the phone with an extremely defensive and irascible supervisor at the Irish call center for approximately 54 minutes. After 54 minutes, the supervisor (who refuses to provide her name) claims that she is deleting my account, as PayPal is still attempting to withdraw fraudulent charges from my checking account, even though PayPal has already confirmed that the charges are fraudulent and have been credited back to my account (I read the confirmation numbers from the PayPal dispute center resolution email sent to me over the phone and this just confused and frustrated the call center rep further).

I don’t see how a company that has such difficulty managing basic account transactions can possibly thrive in an increasingly fraud-dosed marketplace. My old time brick and mortar bank 1.5 blocks down the street from me is more capable of handling fraud than PayPal, as is Visa and MasterCard.

So, again, what is the raison d’etre of PayPal?

This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.

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Sue B June 20, 2015 at 9:42 pm

Zero stars is not possible. Don’t do it!!! Unless you never want to be able to close your account and have your bank account information held fraudulently. There are so many other means available for online payments and credit. Tried to close my account because I do not need anymore and am quite irritated with the multiple fraud attempts on the account that they could not deter- online kept coming up with an error to contact customer service. 20 minutes on the phone with multiple people to have them tell me “I’m not sure why it won’t let you close but I’ve gone ahead and closed for you”. Lies- all of it- and they continue to hold my account open and won’t even let me remove my bank account.

1

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Sherri ferris June 15, 2015 at 1:41 am

I need to download a file to PayPal I tried to but wouldn’t not enough space available had already sent files need to send one more. Thanks hope you can help.

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Mala Papachan June 7, 2015 at 8:20 am

Paypal Ain’t My Pal No More=======================Heavenly blighters, where shall I start? Since PayPal’s launch of their new graphical user interface (GUI) and perhaps even new functionality on the 1st of February 2014, my relationship with PayPal, collapsed in a heap not long after. Here’s the thing, it’s hard to give up a pal that you’ve known for some time. You know all their secrets, their mess ups, the joys, the laughs, the tears, holidays, their warts and all, so you blindly still keep it going as they are after all, your pal. However on specific occasions where the mess ups have just gone a tad over Mount Everest, and you have to just stomp your feet, and say enough is enough buddy! So, I said my adios to PayPal and wandered off to Payoneer, and I am enjoying that blossoming early stage moments building our new friendship. So, I’ll chat about Payoneer some other time.The PayPal Classic Site was extremely simple, fast and effective to the point, where you could effect transactions blind folded. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I could train my cat to do my payments for me. So, why on earth have they changed it as now my payments and withdrawals are taking decades to clear? I cannot do anything on PayPal these days without tears and pain. If it ain’t chickens, its feathers. Okay, so let’s get down to it and here’s my definitive list on what “were” and still “are” the problems:- New GUI & Functionality1) I cannot Add or Withdraw monies, especially “Withdraw”Here’s my theory as to what my lovely Gangsters at PayPal Inc are up to, and of course I cannot verify this with banking data. Give me extra time, there are ways of finding this out, legally. I just cannot find any other reason as to why PayPal would delay payments and withdrawals? Most banking or financial products can afford a top class IT Development Team, so I know it wouldn’t be them. At least, not on purpose. This has now become purely a financial issue. Personally, I am guessing that PayPal are withholding your funds to earn “overnight deposit”, if you do not know what that is, let me explain.Basically, anyone that has a bank or building society account can instruct their banks to place their monies in what is known as “overnight deposit”. Namely you are “lending” your bank your cash for 24 hours, and they very kindly return the favour and pay you interest for it. It’s a very closely guarded secret, not many people know about it. Luckily, in my past career I worked with banks so I can confirm this is true. In the other words, The “Overnight Rate” is a depository institution lends funds to another, and the rate tends to be the lowest available interest rate. It’s commonly used by banks, multinationals and other commercial organisations, and believe it or not even charities! It’s money for ol’ rope, for basically doing nothing! So, I’ve used real PayPal figures here and this is how overnight interest rate is calculated:-PayPal’s Current Total Assets US$265,901,000 x Typical Overnight Rate 0.01% =US$ 2,659,010 / Divided by 360 Days = US$ 7,386.14 Interest Earned Per DayThen, let’s just see how much they can earn from all your monies over 1 month:-$7,386.14 x 30 Days = $221,584.20An average monthly wage bill for a Philippines Call Centre Staff = $703.23Hypothetically Paypal can afford to employ 315 Call Centre Staff in the Philippines on just your overnight deposits. As, it did not cost PayPal a cent or penny!Due respect to accountants out there, as I need to explain that “Total Assets” include freehold buildings, land, cash at bank, deposits, investments, inventory, vehicles, equipment etc but I am merely trying to use the best figures available to me, today 6th June 2015 from Nasdaq. Also, there is the other important factor where the overnight interest rate and principal amount will vary every day and all of PayPal’s “offshore accounts” are NOT included! So, goodness knows how much PayPal has in offshore accounts.PayPal Ticker Symbol = PYPL (not yielding much results on the Internet due to EBay split)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overnight_ratehttp://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/company/paypal-inc-91149-15046?tab=financials2) PayPal’s Major New GUI & Functionality IT ProjectAs I was an IT Contractor myself, I know for a fact that any major software project or re-haul will need “Sign-Offs” from the Senior Executives at PayPal. So, if the executives are giving you all kinds of excuses that they do not know what is going on, don’t believe them for a nano second, as it’s simply not true. All we need now, is to find an ex-IT employee of PayPal that will do the right thing and become a whistle blower. Let’s just wait and see what happens in the next few months. Most developers I worked with and know are free spirits, clean living and anti-establishment. It’s only a matter of time!3) Other FunctionalityI also suffered issues with removing and replacing my bank account details. This was due to a company that I worked with 3 years ago, where they were still trying to access my PayPal and get a payment. I struggled with both PayPal and this company for 3 years, same issue every year!! 4) Need I Go On Anymore Apart from EBay SplitPerhaps, I have been most nasty and lacking in compassion. Is PayPal suffering from divorce stress syndrome with eBay? Are they in depression or post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD)? Or, was there a Pre-Nup Clause, that we the customers do not know anything about?5) PayPal Call Centre & Contact WebForm is How Can I Put It … “Hopeless” I must have called PayPal nearly once or twice a week over the last 8 months, only when I had an issue. You see most of the time, my transactions were stuck in PayPal. I think one particular payment was stuck with PayPal for nearly 1 month! Prior to the new GUI, my transactions were cleared within 2 hours!!6) Senior Executives at PayPal Europe and PayPal UK I have written to possibly every Senior Executive at PayPal Europe and PayPal UK, no luck here either! I will be spending the next few days collating data on how many times I wrote, called and pestered the Contact Centre and Chief Executives Office. So, watch this space as there was a lot of wasted toing and froing, with not much action from PayPal.As I mentioned earlier, I have decided to invest my time in developing my brand new relationship with Payoneer, as sadly PayPal and I no longer have drinkies at my local pub.

1

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Online Merchant June 1, 2015 at 3:22 pm

I loved them for years, until this year and the new Buyer Protection started. I had a perfect reputation NOT 1 single dispute in 10 years and 100,000’s of $ each year processed with Paypal. I offered Paypal and my own merchant provider. A buyer purchased from us and paid for the item and picked the cheapest slowest shipping option. She then contacted us 3 months later to say the item never arrived and she wanted refund. I check the tracking in the USA and it showed tracking not available for Thailand. So I tracked on Thailand Post, It says out for delivery —- Recipient Moved No forwarding.It had made it there in 4 weeks and she has moved in 3 weeks (our products are for relocating) So I sent money to her via PAYPAL SEND MONEY for the items purchase price since refund was no longer an option for this old of transaction.Buyer insisted she get the shipping refunded as well, I refused. She did dispute and I got all documents including USPS international tracking from my Post Office showing shipped same day and cleared US customs in 2 days so we were very prompt.SHE WON… entire amount was refunded including the product purchase price I had already sent to her for a second time. BIG FRICKEN rip off that a USA perfect seller with exceptional reputation with all the documents I provided still buyer wins and actually gets a bonus double payment for her item. I removed them as 2nd option that minute from my site and am happy to do so. They offer absolutely no seller protection and will completely veto your return/order policies. Even if the buyer is completely at fault.With this type of policy a buyer can order something cheap with very expensive Overnight service and then refuse to accept the package the next day and the merchant would be responsible for the entire amount refunded including the HUGE OVERNIGHT SHIPPING FEE. It is Crazy and MAKES no sense.

1

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Robert May 30, 2015 at 8:16 am

It has been 2 months now battling with Paypal’s “customer service” to try and solve an issue which is not supposed to be there. I have around $500 which are listed as pending, however the transaction by the merchant was cancelled because the money were sent through another method due to some complications which I will not go into. The merchant had to contact the customer service himself to advise them regarding this issue, however they told him that the problem was coming from my bank. (In the meanwhile, they have never mentioned this possibility while I was in contact with them) I contacted my bank immediately and they told me that the transaction was closed and the money were in my account. However I was concerned because the transaction on Paypal was still pending, meaning that at any time they can retake the money. My bank told me that if they do so, it will be a fraud and they would go after Paypal themselves. After tens of emails to Paypal, they told me that they were going to pass this issue to a “Technical Specialist” and that I should receive a response in 24/72hrs. Its been a week now and still nothing. I think he is dead or something.. Now they simply do not respond to my emails! And the best thing is that I cannot close my account because this transaction is still pending. I will never use Paypal again! Shame on them!

1

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Carol LeDoux May 19, 2015 at 5:40 pm

A month ago I received a call from a PalPal credit employee with a heavy accent asking if I recognized a charge from “amerisgar”. I was not at my computer to be able to check the transaction and I did not recognize the name, so I said, “no”. I was advised that the account had been hacked and that I should call and alert the credit bureaus. I did this immediately. When I got to my computer about 30 minutes later I accessed my PayPal account and saw that the full name of the merchant was “America’s Gardening Supply. The charge was valid. I immediately called PayPal and told them of their error and that the charge was valid. Since then, I have called in 10 times trying to get this straightened out. They are totally unresponsive and told me that since the account had a fraud charge, which they knew it did not, that I would have to respond to the affidavit when it arrived. It took 3 weeks to arrive. In the meantime, I actually had my regular PayPal account frozen and couldn’t even buy postage to be able to ship to my Ebay customer. After a long animated phone call, I was able to get the account unfrozen, but my PayPal credit account remains inaccessible. I can’t even look at the account myself to see if payments have posted or any transactions have occurred. These policies are outrageous. They actually have hidden my account from me and they have no policy or procedure that would allow them to reverse their course of action. My prayer is that when they separate from Ebay, that we have another choice for transactions. No credit card company has policies in place that operate like this. I am vigilant about my credit accounts and monitor them at least twice a week. When I have had a suspicious charge, I report it to the card company and they close that number down and send me a new card. It is simple and effective. I know this works because I have cards from Visa, MasterCard,Amex, and Discover. They are consistent in how they handle suspicious activity and disputed charges. I totally understand now why they can’t even be rated by the Better Business Bureau because they have so many complaints against them.

1

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Paul Lam March 8, 2015 at 11:23 pm

I have unfavourable experience with Paypal a decade ago and I gave them some feedback. I have not used them until last week because I sold an item from Canada to US and the buyer wanted to use Paypal. The problem that I have with paypal is the currency. Since buying and selling over internet is so global and there are more and more bank account can have foreign currency, why Paypal cannot allow different currency in one country. For example, I am from Canada and I have both a CAD and a USD account. Paypal needs a CAD account. For some bank account, they can even have multicurrency in one account number. With those account, a USD fund in Paypal should be deposited into the USD portion of that bank account without conversion. I don’t believe it is technical issue, I think they are ripping people off by currency conversion in addition to the commission and transaction fee.

1

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peaceful balance March 7, 2015 at 12:14 am

HORRIBLE use another vendor. I used paypal based on reputation to run a my first ever gift certificate promotion, which ran for only 10 days. I had paypal walk me through the best way to offer my special. Money was deposited in my account, spent over an hour with several agents trying to find out why I couldn’t release my money only to learn that since it was a gift certificate that it then had to be redeemed even though the client was charged – okay get that. Was helped to create a link, sent to all of my clients and the redemption codes don’t work. I spent another hour plus on the phone yesterday to be told that they really wanted to help me but that it was best for me to go through tech support. The agent helped me create my ticket and I was promised they would call me. Eight hours later received a response to call customer service because there wasn’t enough detail. So, I decide to refund all of my clients, eat the fee and ask for them to just pay me – makes me look stupid as a business owner. So, I log onto paypal this morning at 10am and there is a technical problem on their end, try again, then call after 15 minutes talk to an agent who again, “promises” that paypals updates will be done in a few moments. – it is six hours later – still can’t refund clients and have someone coming tomorrow morning for a service which means I won’t be paid unless I can show that I redeemed their money – this truly sucks! Going back to Square

1

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Aaron kastniing March 4, 2015 at 3:14 pm

I gave them one star because I cant go lower. They are the devil. I applied for a merchant account with paypal. Got approved and after a month, they decided I was a security risk. They would not tell me anything but that. paypal is now holding almost $5,000 for 180 days. Never, never, use them. Oh, in case you are wondering, yes I tried to find out what the problem was and could never get an answer in order to fix the issue. I now have 3 merchant accounts with major banks and guess what: no security issues.In discussions with other small business I have found other issues like this. I think it is a racket by paypal to improve their cash positions. While $5,000 is not earth shattering, what if you had thousands of these account you were holding.Remember, you have been warned.

1

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Carol LeDoux May 19, 2015 at 5:42 pm

Hopefully, when Ebay separates from PayPal we will have another choice. They have so many complaints that BBB will not even rate them.

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Allana February 8, 2015 at 10:08 am

Unconscionable Conduct!!I have been selling on ebay for years and have a 100% perfect rating as a buyer and seller. I always thought it was utterly ridiculous that it takes 3 to 5 days for the money to reach my account once I have withdrawn it from my PayPal account. Then, with my most recent transaction, going on a month ago, they have decided to hold all monies paid by buyers for 21 days!!!! So, the item has sold, I sent it the very next day, the buyer had received the item and we have both left positive feedback for each other. This was all completed a week ago and PayPal are STILL holding my money and will not release it for another week or so. I have entered the shipping details and PayPal state they will release the money once the item is marked as delivered through eBay – check! And the buyer is given 3 days to raise an issue – it’s now been a week and they are still holding my money earning interest on funds that are not rightfully theirs to hold! If I had a bad seller rating, had any issues in the past… anything along these lines, I might understand. But this is disgusting.I will be making a complaint to the financial ombudsman and never ever selling on any platform that forces me to use PayPal.

1

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Frank January 21, 2015 at 9:44 am

I would not listen to some of the whiners, which complain about $1.95 and call PayPal thieves. Does anyone with even a limited intelligence think PayPal wants to steal $1.95? Notice they all want you to not use PayPal, but have basically zero to offer as a replacement. They also complain that PayPal’s prices are high, which is also ridiculous. I can only guess that they are comparing the PayPal price with some advertised prices and not from experience. Small businesses pay more and that’s life. You get better pricing when you order more. We all know that, so they pay the higher PayPal price of 2.9%, plus 30 cents/transaction. And of course anyone who has looked for a Credit card processor has seen the ads for lower rates. Here is the problem.. Those lowest rates are for card present transaction where you use a machine to send the card information. Online fees are always higher (even though I think they should not be, as the business has the risk). Most importantly, you do not always get your lower rate, either. The processors have a neat trick to charge you almost double. The call it non-Qualified. It means that those transactions are Not Qualified for the base rate you were quoted. One processor we had, kept bumping up the transaction until a full 65% of our transaction were in the non qualified section, costing us almost double. PayPal doe snot do this nasty little trick.Add to that, there are usually fees for monthly minimums, gateway fees, batch fees, etc. When ever a credit card thief charges a couple of thousand dollars, you pay the fee, then have to pay the fee again to refund the card and if you miss it, you get soaked with a charge-back fee. We have had several processors and have had every single trick in the book played on us. Large companies like First Data do not always send your charge-back rebuttal to the bank which means you automatically loose. PayPal Not only does NOT charge you for a refund, they will also refund your original processing fee, as well. We have saved over $1,000/month with PayPal from any other processor we have used. We pay 2.2% and a 30 cent transaction fee. All of our other processors gave us lower prices, but when we got our monthly statements and calculated our total cost, it always came to over 4% and that did not include charge-back fees. We actually hit 5.2% on some months. Disgusting! So go ahead and listen to the whiners, if you want to, but if your smart, you will add PayPal to you payment methods. There are just too many people who like PayPal and it is much safer for them, since they do not have to enter their credit card information on every order they make. Our sale would be about 40% less, if we did not have PayPal as one of our payment methods.

5

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Samantha December 5, 2014 at 9:36 pm

I am a first time user to PayPal and I will NEVER use their services again. You would think a refund using a site like PayPal would be easy but that is far from true. PayPal uses credit card wire transfers to exchange funds from buyer to seller and most people would think that it would be the same from seller to buyer if need, but no that is not how it works. Even though sellers can get their funds right away buyers do not have the same privilege or respect in the reversed situation. They can hold your returned funds for 30 days and if they are not refunded by 30 days the only solution PayPal offers is to file a report and they will investigate. Also when contacting PayPal at 1-888-221-1161 the “customer service representatives” give you the run around and do not even have consistent company training or policies. I had several CSR’s and even a manager straight up lie about the issues with my refund and blamed my bank for the problem. I addressed issues with my bank regarding PayPal to find my money had not been processed or transfered to my account/ bank. The lack of customer service and consistencies in company polices/ training is appalling. PayPal and its CEO’s should be ashamed of how they treat their customers and their company standards.

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A Seal December 2, 2014 at 8:48 pm

I will never use PayPal again, customer service is horrible and they make it seems as if you can easily send and receive money as a service when in fact it is more geared for the purchase of goods. I used it so someone could send my money as refund only to have it disputed by as failure to ship goods. I clearly stated in the request that it was a refund yet the only 3 resolution choice was , offer full refund, provide tracking number or show that funds were refunded by other means. I have email correspondents to prove my case but they are not in the business settle disputes fairly. Then the tell you to read the fine print but my answer to that is “then don’t advertise service you don’t provide and hide it in the fine print as a disclaimer”

1

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Isaac December 1, 2014 at 3:41 pm

I have used PayPal to process my credit and debit card payment for over 2 years and I have not had any major issues with them. Keep in mind that with all credit card payments you are getting a loan and there are risks associated with that. And with PayPal you need to carefully read their user agreements so that you stay in good standing and your account is not frozen. Keep an eye on those changebacks. My only bone of contention with PayPal is their high fees, that’s why they only get 4 stars. Having said that, I find it’s really hard to find viable options for non-US merchants.

4

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Jack November 26, 2014 at 1:01 pm

Paypal has the worst customer service i have ever experianced with any company ever. They seem to play god with your money, holding onto it and charge a fortune to do it. Not great the are much better companys out there

1

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Carol LeDoux May 19, 2015 at 5:42 pm

I have had a horrible experience too. Can you post who you do business with?

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Deana Morgans October 8, 2014 at 8:29 pm

I usually don’t write reviews. But plan on taking a minute out of my day to write a review on Paypal. I ❤️ Paypal !! Best company ever!! Everyone needs to get there MasterCard debit card. You get protection and 1% back on anything that you purchased. Also you can pay friends and family for FREE with your paypal account. I also love the Paypal credit. My clients use that for hair extensions. You can get interest-free for 6-12 months on purchases. If you have an issue with a place that charges your card. They take care of it! Thanks #Paypal

5

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stuart August 29, 2014 at 2:55 pm

Paypal limited my account because a customer sent an envelope to Sudan. They gave no explanations and would not review the case. My money is now locked in their bank for 6 months while they “investigate”.

They say that sending an envelope to Sudan poses a security threat. Quite how, I have no idea!

If you run a business, do not use this company. Read the other reviews as this is a common issue. Use sagepay/Worldpay etc etc, but not paypal.

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Laura August 13, 2014 at 1:26 am

I run a tour business. People have bought tickets on Pay Pal and I never received a confirmation…just out of sheer luck, I decided to log into Pay Pal and saw the orders. The last three times I needed customer service, I waited so long, I hung up. If you have a serious business, Pay Pal is NOT the provider for you.

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Rose Petgrave August 5, 2014 at 11:45 pm

PAYPAY IS AN INTERNATIONAL RIPP-OFF! THIS IS MY DETAILED ACCOUNT OF MY EFFORTS TO START UP A PAYPAL ACCOUNT – WARNING FOR ALL CARIBBEAN PEOPLE…SEEK OTHER WAYS OF COLLECTING YOUR MONIES!
I APPLIED TO PAPAL APRIL OF THIS YEAR FOR AN ACCOUNT TO COLLECT MY COMMISSIONS FROM MY ONLINE CLASSES ON WIZIQ & ALSO FOR MY BOOK WHICH WILL BE PUBLISHED THIS SUMMER. I WAITED FOR FOUR WEEKS BEFORE GETTING A RESPONSE…THE FIRST DEDUCTION OF $US1.95 WAS DEDUCTED ON THE 12/6/14. TO MY SURPRISE A SECOND DEDUCTION WAS MADE ON THE 16/6/14!
NOW PAPAY STATES THAT ONCE A POTENTIAL CLIENT CONFIRMS THIS DEDUCTION THE MONEY IS RETURNED TO THEIR ACCOUNT. IN MY EXPERIENCE THIS IS NOT SO. I CONFIRMED THE ACCOUNT AND KEPT WAITING FOR A RESPONSE FROM THEM TO REPLACE THE MONIES WITHDRAWN – STILL NOTHING. AGAIN I WENT ONLINE AND MADE A COMPLAIN ON THEIR PROVIDED FORM, AT LEAST THREE TIME WITH ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSE.
I DECIDED TO CALL YESTERDAY TO GET THIS THING SORTED OUT. I WAS CONNECTED TO AN AGENT WHO CALLS HERSELF CECEILE – I WENT THROUGH MY ISSUE WITH HER IN DETAIL. SHE PULLED UP MY DATA AND I ANSWERED THE QUESTIONS CONFIRMING MY IDENTITY. SHE DIRECTED ME TO GO ONLINE TO CORRECT THE ISSUE. TO MY AMAZEMENT MY ACCOUNT HAD SOME OLD ADRESS TWO YEARS AGO THAT I AM NO LONGER ASSOCIATED WITH. I HAVE NEVER DONE BUSINESS WITH PAYPAL BEFORE. THIS DATA WAS ENTERED WHEN I FIRST HEARD OF PAYPAL AND WANTED TO SEE HOW THEIR SYSTEM WORKED. I DIDNT HAVE AN INT, DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD AT THE TIME. NO MATTER WHAT I DID HOWEVER THE SYSTEM WOULD NOT TAKE THE NEW ADDRESS THAT I SIGNED UP WITH MY CURRENT VISA CARD – YET THIS IS SEEN ON THE SYSTEM. THE WOMAN REFUSED TO CHANGE IT EVEN AFTER BURNING 48MINS OF INT. CREDIT TIME WHICH IS OVER US$20! I GOT ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE. I STARTED THIS ACCOUNT FOR BUSINESS PURPOSES,, TO COLLECT FROM MY ONLINE STUDENT ON WIZIQ AS WELL AS MY COMMISSIONS EARNED ONLINE, IF THESE PEOPLE ARE STEALING MY FEW DOLLARS, WHAT WOULD THEY DO WHEN MY STUDENTS PAY IN? IMAGINE HOW MANY $1.95 THEY HAVE STOLEN IN THIS FASHION OVER THE YEARS. THEY ARE CROOKS AND HIRE THESE PEOPLE TO PLAY DUMB ONLINE SO YOU GET FRUSTRATED AND WALK AWAY, BUT I AM GOING TO SIGN A DISPUTE FORM AT MY BANK TO HAVE MY MONEY RETURNED OR WHAT EVER ELSE IS LEGALLY POSSIBLE.

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LOC NGUYEN July 11, 2014 at 8:31 pm

It’s very fast to deposit money into Paypal no questions asked. On the other hand, it is very hard to withdraw your own funds to your own bank account. Even tho you have verify your bank and credit card number.

I tried to call the help line and was on waiting for 45 minutes! I fell asleep during waiting! I was so frustrated that I hanged up.

Next I tried to contact by email and all I get was an automated reply with directions to help forums. This company is horrible in customer service! Stay away if you can!

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Sibyl June 26, 2014 at 8:45 pm

I really appreciated all the objective information you provided. As a small start-up company I have been going back and forth on the payment solutions issue (even took a SCORE class on e-commerce) and your article has provide me with enough information to realize despite the cons PayPal is a good start-up option. Thank you so much for this article.

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Brandon Mars June 24, 2014 at 1:44 pm

Service is horrible & it takes forever for paypal to send the money back once u accidently send the money through the wrong money currency so I refer ppl not to use PayPal

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Hector January 26, 2014 at 12:52 pm

Ever thought of filing complaint with DOFS, the only way that paypal would be able to hold your money and freeze it would be by a court order other than that you may be able to go to court and have your assets unfrozen, Dept of Financial services are the one who license these company to operate in the city, 3 steps, to succeed in this matter, 1, small claims court, 2, complaint to BBB, copy of complaint to your State Attorney General ,and DOFS with copies to US Attorney General ( federal level since trans action via internet is a federal issue,
Make sure on smail claims court if the claim is under $5000. if over $5000. you have to file in supreme court.

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