“If anything, please know that I’m now going to use your story to radically change how we deal with holds, and communicate with our customers. I’m driving a lot of changes at PayPal (I took over 5 months ago), and I hope that over time we will earn your trust again. Not with words, but with delightful products, and amazing service”
– David Marcus, President, PayPal
These are the words of the President of PayPal who’s only been in office since the end of March this year. He was writing personally to a disgruntled PayPal customer who had over £40,000 frozen in their PayPal accounts.
It gets even better than that though, TNW reports an email sent out to multiple PayPal users who apparently have “above-standard performance” (Tamebay don’t know how performance is measured) saying “we want to share some good news with you. Due to your feedback and outstanding account performance, PayPal will no longer temporarily hold your funds in the event of a dispute, claim, or chargeback. These processes used to require funds to be held in a pending balance while the outcome was determined. Going forward, your funds will not be held in a pending balance“.
The biggest issue most users have with PayPal isn’t chargebacks, reversals, security – all business have these issues to deal with. The simple fact is that you either accept you’ll occasionally lose a parcel, or you ship everything tracked and win every seller protection case opened against you. The big issue is when PayPal freeze your account, put a rolling 90 hold on your account, or put a temporary hold on your funds.
Whilst we don’t know how many users the hold free promise applies to, or how quickly it might be rolled out internationally, it’s welcome news that PayPal are at last looking at the issues from their merchants perspective.
David Marcus may only have been in the job five months, but he gets a huge vote of confidence from Tamebay. Forget the empty promises from the past, this man appears to be on our wavelength, understands our problems and actually appears to be putting our interests first.
8 Responses
The PayPal/eBay unholy alliance has been a thorn in sellers’ flesh for so long now, it’s hard not to be cynical about this. As far as I know, PayPal are not subject to the same banking controls as other financial institutions; imo this is why they have based it in Luxembourg, so that UK complainants cannot have any leverage via the Banking Ombudsman. Basically they can do what they like with your money; they have a cornered market as near as damn it, and they know it. Let’s hope, then, that this bloke is as good as he says he is. I will not be holding my breath, though!
Tamebay, you’re drinking the Kool-Aid by the gallon. This guy was put into his position by people who hate their own customers, and he’s not going to change anything.
One message to someone Paypal ripped off who has the means to sue and attract a lot of negative publicity just as the Christmas season is getting started, and you think the whole company has changed? I say you’re gullible.
Paypal is making a fortune on the interest on these holds. Until some country grows a spine and starts regulating Paypal, they’ll continue to steal from their customers.
Many of our clients would be ecstatic if this comes through. Good news!