SUBMITTED: Friday, January 23, 2009
POSTED: Friday, January 23, 2009
How Does PayPal Make Money With My Money?
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, there are approx. 100,000 complaints outstanding at PayPal (Are any of these yours?). In many instances disputes can run on for months leaving people frustrated and out of pocket as they are unable to access their accounts. So what happens to the millions of dollars tied up in frozen accounts and disputes? Well, here is a clip from the San Francisco Chronicle that basically sums it up:
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose refused to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks class-action status on behalf of thousands of PayPal customers nationwide. A common allegation is that the company brushes off or stalls customer grievances for months and meanwhile freezes the customer's account and pockets the interest (So that's how they make their money!). No wonder they freeze so many accounts!
The Lawsuit You Need To Know About
As you will come to discover while browsing through the many horror stories posted on this site by current and former PayPal users, PayPal has some tough allegations to deal with. Allegations of mishandling money, unnecessarily locking funds, not providing adequate customer support, freezing accounts with no explanation and disregarding customer complaints, just to name a few.
In early 2002, Plaintiffs Roberta Toher and Jeffrey Resnick filed separate lawsuits against PayPal, Inc. These two cases were later consolidated into one lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
The lawsuit alleges, among several other issues, that PayPal has placed inappropriate restrictions or other limits on customers' accounts and engaged in several other improper practices. Based on these improper practices, the lawsuit sought damages for money unjustly held, negligence, and violations of consumer protection statutes.
Rather than dealing with a lengthy public trial and being forced to clean up their act, PayPal decided to settle out of court and pay $9.25 Million Dollars to Tens of Thousands of PayPal merchants who processed with PayPal between October 1, 1999 and January 31, 2004. (A mere slap on the hand for a company this size)
Instead of a Judge forcing PayPal to change their questionable business practices, PayPal agreed to pay the settlement and walk away from the entire allegation.
So what does this mean to current PayPal merchants? Unfortunately, this means that PayPal is free to continue operating in the exact same way it always has. Judging by the number of PayPal horror stories we receive every single day, it appears that the situation has only gotten worse since the settlement.
Delbert Butta