From: John Egan Yes, I too have been infected with the PayPal Scam! It began back in September when I tried to transfer money to one of my two checking accounts. When l logged in to transfer my funds the bank account was not there! Where did it go? I tried to re-establish the account, but when I did this the system told me that the bank account was in use by another PayPal account. I of course immediately contacted PayPal to report the problem. They stated at the time for my own safety (Right!) they were going to have to RESTRICT the account. This of course meant that I could receive money, but could not take any. They said they would investigate and that the problem would be resolved in about a month. Well, as of today it is still not resolved. Furthermore, I continued to receive funds and my account balance grew. Finally, I contacted them and had them lock out any more payments from being deposited. The lock out also LOCKED ME OUT! I could no longer open my account to see if my money was still there! They have asked me for almost everything imaginable to "Verify" who I am. This is what they wanted from me - The "Innocent" victim here- 1. A copy of my drivers license 2. Copy of the email they sent 3. Copy of most recent utility bill 4. Copy of most recent credit card statement 4. Copy of most recent bank statement. Well, I told them where they could get off! To date they still have my $600+. I have contacted the Ohio Attorney General and they are currently investigating my complaint. Complaint #194018 These people are crooks! If you have a PayPal account I suggest you get your money out immediately. Be thankful that nothing has happened to you, because if you continue using them it will. Believe me - They are NOT YOUR PAL!!!!! - One more thing. My last phone call to PayPal, I was informed by the girl on the other end, that I was no longer welcome to use their services. Lucky Me! Just give me my money! Hey! I'm the victim here. Hello? - John Egan

From: Jared Ballou Hey a few months back I was involved in a scam, I sent $175 to a PayPal user and got nothing. I filed a claim, 3 weeks later, I get an email that I was in the right and my money will be refunded. I've gotten $0.96 back so far.

From: Larry Lawrence PayPal continues to hold my $600. Illegally. Several months ago I was offering the general public a free copy of the popular OS called Linux 8.0. This is a freely distributable program under the general license agreement. The customer only had to pay for shipping. ($5.00 US dollars) I had hundreds of people that responded to the offer and I delivered the program as offered and according to the law. PayPal sent me an e-mail saying that they were going to suspend my account unless I could provide proof that I had permission to distribute this software. Well, I e-mailed them back several times and explained to them that I did programming on my own and would never consider distributing software that was against any law. PayPal said that I had to prove that I had permission from Microsoft to distribute the software. Microsoft has nothing to do with Linux. Linux has always been to my knowledge, a free OS. I am e-mailing you first before taking legal action as this is the professional way to do business. They have closed my account, which is fine accept that they hold my funds without paying me interest on the funds and refuse to return the funds.

From: AOL User We had a positive balance in paypal of $70. Then an old disgruntled person who we did a transaction with (who was actually fraudulent) complained about the ebay auction that resulted in a paypal payment of $150 to us some 8 months prior. Well PayPal took it upon themselves to FREEZE our account, thus making it -$80, due to this guy's complaint. When we FINALLY got in touch with paypal, they told us they could not and WOULD NOT help us, even though we had proof positive in our hands that their policy was that they would not be involved in any ebay transaction older than 30 days! We had a customer service rep swear at us and insult us and never did get our money back...

From: Mike Was a PayPal member for over year when my account was restricted. They insisted i list BOTH a checking account and Credit card. Took 3 weeks to get the restriction off (meanwhile they held $60 of my money.) A week later my account was restricted again. They wanted a copy of my credit card for verification that it was mine. Another two weeks to get this restriction off. Account worked for exactly 2 days, and now they want a copy of my driver's license, credit card statement, blank check and utility bill addressed to me. They are holding $11.00 ransom now, and I REFUSE to give them any more information. Now I have to wait 60-90 days for them to cut me a check for my money and close my account.

From: Tara Thorn I posted this on AuctionWatch.com My accounts have been frozen for over three weeks, I have faxed all the requested info in 3 times, and no one will talk to me to remove the restrictions. I found a direct fax number via a very sympathetic customer service representative and he actually put my fax on the desk of my appeals reviewer, and the jerk will still not talk to me. I got into a huge fight on the phone with the supervisor Stephanie who is nothing short of rude and a moron, spouting out all this incorrect information without even LOOKING at the facts which I painstakingly researched, collected, and faxed (3 times)! I am lucky enough to have a friend who works at CBS, and we are going to Joel Grover, who does investigative reporting for Los Angeles, and has most of his reports covered nationally by 48 Hours, Investigative Reports on A & E, and other venues. I am also lodging complaints to the BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU, the US FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSIONER, and the ATTORNEY GENERAL in Nebraska, California, and anywhere else they do business. I am going to take them to small claims court on every individual payment that has been frozen. I have lots of time. They picked the wrong person to screw.

From: AOL User I accidentally sent an Ebay auction payment to the wrong email address, and realized by mistake the second I hit the send button. I immediately attempted the cancel the payment, however, the cancel button would not work. I emailed Paypal and told them the situation and spent the next 10 minutes or so attempting the to stop the payment. 24 hours later I received an email from Paypal saying they could not stop a payment that had already been received and that I needed to contact the recipient. I emailed them back and told them that there is no way that the payment could have been received 30 seconds after I sent it. I received no further emails from paypal. The recipient of the payment claims that he doesn't have a paypal account, nor has he ever used paypal or Ebay for that matter. Solve this one.

From: Ross Cook I recently had a very bad paypal experience. I purchased a lathe through EBay. I made the transaction through paypal. My bank funded paypal. Paypal initially funded the transaction to the seller and then reversed it holding the funds without telling me why. I tried desperately to find a phone number but was unsuccessful. I emailed them only to get a response that indicated that my account was suspected of being fraudulent. I emailed them several more times in an attempt to get them to be more forthcoming. All kinds of thoughts went through my mind. Could someone have stolen my identity, etc.. After a few weeks of emails I finally received a email telling me to fax them copies of my bank statements etc.. During this time my money was frozen. The seller of the lathe was nervous as he had already shipped the item and it was sitting on the dock in my city. I wondered if this was some sort of delaying tactic by paypal to manage their cash flow? Fortunately, the seller was very understanding and allowed me extra time to make payment. The freight company was not. They wanted their money and the item removed from their dock. The seller had put a hold on the item until payment was received. A week or so later the funds were released to the seller without so much as a email to let me know. I was already in the process of making payment by wire transfer. Fortunately, I checked my paypal account one last time just in case. I called the seller and he confirmed he had received the funds. It took about five weeks to get paypal to this point. I never did receive any more info as to why they held up payment. I never was able to talk to anyone over the phone. I never was given a name of anyone as a contact. Despite repeated requests. My emails were polite, short and to the point. Needless to say I was disgusted with paypal. This led to other thoughts a bout payal. Shortly after I opened my paypal account my bank account was hit for about 20 grand. Of course the bank took care of all that. The bank never did conclude who did it, but I wonder if there was a connection. I'm sure the bank just filed the claim and turned it over to an investigative agency. I wonder if this a way to commit bank fraud?

From: Tony I used to use PayPal to order phone cards online. I had both a bank account and a credit card registered with PayPal. I wasn't working at the time that I last used the service to get my phone cards, so I didn't have a lot of money in the bank. For that reason, I went to "Funding Options" on the purchase screen, before buying my phone cards, and explicitly chose CREDIT CARD. What happened? You guessed it -- PayPal tried to take money out of my checking account instead. I incurred stiff banking fees as a result of lacking funds. Two full days after I had e-mailed PayPal, informed them of their error, and asked them to look into it, they charged my account a second time. I had received no reply to my original e-mail, so I wrote again -- this time quite angrily. 2 days later, I received 2 replies telling me that I had made an error. I should have chosen CREDIT CARD under funding options, they said. "I did that," I told them in reply. Still no answer to this day. Guess what happened next? THEY TRIED TO CHARGE MY BANK ACCOUNT A THIRD TIME. When that didn't work, they decided to charge my credit card (finally). I e-mailed 3 times after that and still have not gotten replies. Having given up on them, I reluctantly paid my bank fees and chalked the experience up to a lesson learned. If I weren't so lazy, I'd probably have created more of a fuss. Unfortunately, I am so lazy.

From: Harvey Beagle (Monsignor) I'm a retired Monsignor with an Old Catholic Church and have been selling postcards on e-bay since January 1997. We raise small amounts of money to help support an Orphanage in Mexico and other charity programs. We joined PayPal over a year ago and found the service wonderful. When they issued us an ATM card it was even better as we used it to pay e-bay, and postal charges, etc. For the past 6 months at various times money has been taken out of our account. We notified PayPal via their red carpet phone number and took their advise, changed our pass word, etc. We finally opened a new bank account with only $5.00 in it and got a secured credit card that was almost maxed out to keep PayPal from dipping into our funds. Over the Thanksgiving holidays we were horrified to find PayPal was able to withdraw over $500 from our bank account with only $5.00 in it, they also tried to keep billing our credit card. When I called to report the unauthorized activity I was told if I made a complaint they would restrict our account. I made the complaint with our bank and the police department. PayPal immediately suspended our account, but continued to send e-mail to our buyers and collect money from them. Today I am informed the following: Thank you for contacting PayPal. We have completed a thorough investigation of your case and have denied your Unauthorized Account Use Claim. Also, we have terminated your further use of PayPal. This termination is per PayPal's Terms of Use, Section V. Rights and Disclaimers of PayPal, number 4: "Termination. PayPal, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to terminate this Agreement, access to its website, or access to Service without notice for any reason and at any time." Your account will remain locked indefinitely, and we ask that you not attempt to open a duplicate account, as any additional accounts will be locked from use as well. We thank you for your business with PayPal. They have hurt us bad, not only taking the money that is not theirs, but trying to ruin our reputation with the credit card company and our bank. We will make good on all the customers that paid through PayPal, but we operate on a very small budget, most our funds going to the kids, and this hurts bad. In all my years, and I'm over 60, I have never seen an unregulated business that can literally get away with anything they want and don't care who they hurt. I hope someone can shut them down and jail the owners. [Editors note] Have they no shame? Forgive them father, for they have sinned.

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