Lex van Galen
2004-05-09 22:51:56 UTC
Just like most of you I am a fountain pen lover and collector.
For that reason I regularly use e-Bay. And Paypal. until a week ago.
Since two days I closed my PP account. And I wrote a mail to all my e-bay
fellows.
To warn them and to try in giving some help fighting the fraudulous actions
introduced by the PP system and /or the people that hacked and hijacked the
system. I am honestly convinced that PP used to be a good, convenient
and -once- even a safe sytem. But: Bob Dylan already sang some 40 years ago:
the times they are a changing!
Here is what I mailed to my e-bay friends and I hope it will be of some help
for you also:
Dear e-bay friends and fountain pen collectors,
You will probably surprised by receiving this mega big e- mail from me. But
I honestly hope you do not feel offended by receiving this long story from
me.
Most of you had (e-mail) contact with me on one ore sometimes more occasions
concerning am e-Bay transaction for buying or selling one ore more fountain
pens. Some recently, some even quite a long time ago. The reason I write to
you is not because I suddenly decided to become a spammer, far from that.
The reason is that I want to make a very serious warning about the practices
of Paypal. We all use (or used) Paypal because it is fast, convenient and .
safe. NO! not at all safe.
Please read what happened to me and lots and lost of other people that use
on line services like e-Bay. It's a long and complicated story, and not a
very funny one I'm afraid.
But please read it carefully and consider the advises I am going to give you
very seriously! It could possibly save you a lot of trouble in near future.
Since a few days I receive strange mails, generated by Paypal (PP). They
proved not to be incidental, or a mistake but structural, for some time now
very strange things are happening with the user accounts of e-bay and other
auction system members that also use PP. (like you and me).
This is what I know:
I found that I ran into a gigantic fraud case concerning the use of Paypal.
It is very well possible that PP itself proves to be a criminal organization
or that the organisation is more or less hijacked by (internet)criminals. I
had some very scary experiences this last week, with PP trying to drain my
account balance. Since 3 days I receive strange fake mails, seemingly coming
from buyers and sellers I had one or more transactions with, some
transactions were even months ago! The mails concern (fake) cancellations
for transactions that were already long time ago paid and delivered, and
also reversals of payments for transactions that were already completed!
Furthermore I received Mails from PP in which they announced a reversal
payment, that was actually effectuated within 24 hours. So my account
balance was debited unauthorized. Suddenly an amount of dollars was just
vanished!
Here is what I think what happens and how PP works:
1)You're doing small scale (amateur) business at e-Bay or similar systems
and at a certain moment you open an account at PP. It is very convenient and
easy and as an international buyer /seller it offers a lot of advantages,
like reasonable fees and free transfer of currency from US$ to Euro or GBP
or whatever. Good administration files and last bet not least: FAST FAST
payment. This is what we all were waiting for!
2)You work with it for some time, say, about one year, with full
satisfaction, business increases, you feel happy.
3) You build up a nice reliability file and there is a good picture of your
cash flow in the system available for PP.
4)You build up a somewhat larger balance to make transactions faster and
easier.
5) Then, especially as a seller when you have your revenues coming in that
PP account, you will start to withdraw amounts to another (real) bank
account in order to limit the balance on the PP account, or just because you
want to use the income for other purposes. (From here it gets tricky!)
6) Therefore you will have to associate your PP account with a real bank
account number because a private Credit Card (CC) does not accept third
party payments (also not from PP). So then PP will know not only your CC
account number, which PP says they need for verification and security
(sic!),but also your regular bank account number. OK. But you do not suspect
anything and you make a retraction of PP funds now and then.
7) Then the door is open for PP! Lots of people (me also) are all of a
sudden getting strange mails, generated by Paypal, all concerning
cancellations of money requests, or 'reversal' payments, what means that
payments done to you by buyers, are reversed to (they say in their mails)
the buyer! Sometimes even amounts of money are deducted from your account
not only once, but 2, 3 or even 4 or more times! You can send mails, fax,
anything, there is never an answer, never any reason why, never a clue!.
Sometimes they will send you an answer from their 'service' dept., that your
question is forwarded to another dept, but these mails are clearly 'demon'
generated.
Telephone numbers are not answered or just cut off and change all the time.
Some people experience that their account is being 'frozen', so they cannot
do payments or retractions of your own money to your own bank. In the time
your account is 'frozen' (as they call it) PP just continues the deductions
and reversals. Even worse: when your PP balance goes negative because of
these actions they will start to debit your CC account. When your CC reaches
it limits they will start a 'legal' procedure to 'get the money they owe
from you' and try to make you pay from other sources!
I know this sounds like a fiction horror story, and it IS a horror story,
except for this: it is NO FICTION! It's REAL, and I'm not Stephen King!
This is what I can tell you to do:
I strongly advice you to take the following actions:
Be sure to do these in the right order to be sure all the doors are closed
for Paypal. Please read all the steps first before you take any action.
1)FIRST thing you must do is to IMMEDIATELY retract all your funds from your
PP account. Set to zero. Make a copy/download of your full history report,
of all the transactions you had with Paypal. It's in your 'My account' tab
when you have logged in at PP.
2)Mail all your contacts that you have with a currently running transaction,
selling or buying. Ask your clients to cancel the payments trough Paypal and
cancel your own payments on Paypal. Work out another payment method with
your clients.
3)When you are sure your PP account balance is set to zero money, terminate
the account. You can do that by logging in at PP, go to 'profiles' and then
choose for the option to close your account. Be careful! If your Credit card
account is ended or blocked before you end PP you cannot end your PP
account! That is one of their tricks to keep the doors open!
4)When you are sure that PP is zero, down and ended, you can try to log on
again. If it is properly ended, your logon & password are no longer
recognized. Realize that all the administrative stuff you filed on PP is
lost for you. So make a download of these files BEFORE you close your
account! If you forgot to do that, lots of transactions can be traced trough
the feedback administration of e-Bay, but it is a lot more work, and you may
loose some data, because not everyone gives feedback.
5) Then (and only then!): Block all your PP associated Credit Card(s) and
Bank Account's. Credit Card is easy: just report lost, and you will have
another card with a new number in two days or so. In case PP is already
debiting your CC, be honest to the CC management, tell what happened and try
if they can make a refund, because of unauthorized use by third parties.
Your Local bank can assist you with your other bank accounts. Go there, make
an appointment with the manager and tell them what happened, and ask them to
help you by starting an investigation to fraudulous transactions reported by
other clients. That's the way to reveal the pattern!
6)If you are already in trouble, experiencing unauthorized deductions etc.:
realize that it can only grow into more serious financial trouble! Go to
your local District Attorney's office, or whatever it is called in your
country, or else to your local Police Agency and ask them to help you to
file an official complaint in order to generate a law suit against Paypal.
Write a abuse complaint and send it to the Safe Harbour Department of e-Bay.
That will learn them what is going on in one of their own sub companies
(sic!).
Prepare a good and clear story for all of them and collect all documents you
can use for evidence that you can find. I.e. your e-mail correspondence with
Paypal and your questions to them why they do this to you. IF they answered
(at all), also the answers!
Copies of your genuine e-mail correspondence with your fellow e-Bayers. Your
(downloaded) PP administration. Listings from 'My e-Bay and listings of your
feedback administration.
7)Write a mail story like I did to you now and send that mail to ALL your
e-Bay and Paypal contacts you EVER had (you can trace most of them back
through your history and feedback files at 'MY E-BAY' Of course you may use
any part of my text if this may help you and if it applies to your
situation. Send it as a 'simple' mail, do not use an attachment, lots of
people have their e-mail system blocked for attachments, because of virus
risk.
This is NO JOKE. This is SERIOUS. I am having a hell of a job now to warn
all my e-Bay clients and fellow fountain pen collectors. It takes and will
take me a bl...beep... lot of time. But this has to be stopped. Next step is
this internet scum plunders our bank accounts. Take contact with your local
bank and all other relations you might have that could be businesslike have
associations with Paypal (such as the Wells Fargo Bank, that handles their
transactions when you retract money from your PP account to your own bank),
and ask them to help you starting an investigation against Paypal!
Only when lots and lots of people are taking action you can expect that
higher authorities will get awake and start official procedures against
these villains!
I honestly think that Paypal started as a good honest organization. But
somehow it was infiltrated by the mob! It's just what you could expect after
the tremendous growth of virus attacks terror, spamming, scamming (what
Paypal is actually doing) and whatever Internet Terrorism this scum will
invent more!
Internet has to become a safe place again! E-bay must be fun again.
To get informed about other Internet user experiences: Read the reviews at
http://www.paypalsucks.com/ and http://www.paypalwarning.com/ There are
other sites you can find on Google with statements about Paypal I would not
believe until I became a victim myself! If you want more info from me you
are invited to mail me again. Don't expect an answer the nex hour or so.
There's a big time gap between USA and Europe!
But I am doing my best. If it is relevant I'll answer.
Lets help each other to clean this mess up!
I'd appreciate it if you can let me know if you received this mail and what
you opinion is on this matter.
Thank you for reading this long story and lots of luck getting rid of
Paypal!
LEX
Greeting you all from The Netherlands.
For that reason I regularly use e-Bay. And Paypal. until a week ago.
Since two days I closed my PP account. And I wrote a mail to all my e-bay
fellows.
To warn them and to try in giving some help fighting the fraudulous actions
introduced by the PP system and /or the people that hacked and hijacked the
system. I am honestly convinced that PP used to be a good, convenient
and -once- even a safe sytem. But: Bob Dylan already sang some 40 years ago:
the times they are a changing!
Here is what I mailed to my e-bay friends and I hope it will be of some help
for you also:
Dear e-bay friends and fountain pen collectors,
You will probably surprised by receiving this mega big e- mail from me. But
I honestly hope you do not feel offended by receiving this long story from
me.
Most of you had (e-mail) contact with me on one ore sometimes more occasions
concerning am e-Bay transaction for buying or selling one ore more fountain
pens. Some recently, some even quite a long time ago. The reason I write to
you is not because I suddenly decided to become a spammer, far from that.
The reason is that I want to make a very serious warning about the practices
of Paypal. We all use (or used) Paypal because it is fast, convenient and .
safe. NO! not at all safe.
Please read what happened to me and lots and lost of other people that use
on line services like e-Bay. It's a long and complicated story, and not a
very funny one I'm afraid.
But please read it carefully and consider the advises I am going to give you
very seriously! It could possibly save you a lot of trouble in near future.
Since a few days I receive strange mails, generated by Paypal (PP). They
proved not to be incidental, or a mistake but structural, for some time now
very strange things are happening with the user accounts of e-bay and other
auction system members that also use PP. (like you and me).
This is what I know:
I found that I ran into a gigantic fraud case concerning the use of Paypal.
It is very well possible that PP itself proves to be a criminal organization
or that the organisation is more or less hijacked by (internet)criminals. I
had some very scary experiences this last week, with PP trying to drain my
account balance. Since 3 days I receive strange fake mails, seemingly coming
from buyers and sellers I had one or more transactions with, some
transactions were even months ago! The mails concern (fake) cancellations
for transactions that were already long time ago paid and delivered, and
also reversals of payments for transactions that were already completed!
Furthermore I received Mails from PP in which they announced a reversal
payment, that was actually effectuated within 24 hours. So my account
balance was debited unauthorized. Suddenly an amount of dollars was just
vanished!
Here is what I think what happens and how PP works:
1)You're doing small scale (amateur) business at e-Bay or similar systems
and at a certain moment you open an account at PP. It is very convenient and
easy and as an international buyer /seller it offers a lot of advantages,
like reasonable fees and free transfer of currency from US$ to Euro or GBP
or whatever. Good administration files and last bet not least: FAST FAST
payment. This is what we all were waiting for!
2)You work with it for some time, say, about one year, with full
satisfaction, business increases, you feel happy.
3) You build up a nice reliability file and there is a good picture of your
cash flow in the system available for PP.
4)You build up a somewhat larger balance to make transactions faster and
easier.
5) Then, especially as a seller when you have your revenues coming in that
PP account, you will start to withdraw amounts to another (real) bank
account in order to limit the balance on the PP account, or just because you
want to use the income for other purposes. (From here it gets tricky!)
6) Therefore you will have to associate your PP account with a real bank
account number because a private Credit Card (CC) does not accept third
party payments (also not from PP). So then PP will know not only your CC
account number, which PP says they need for verification and security
(sic!),but also your regular bank account number. OK. But you do not suspect
anything and you make a retraction of PP funds now and then.
7) Then the door is open for PP! Lots of people (me also) are all of a
sudden getting strange mails, generated by Paypal, all concerning
cancellations of money requests, or 'reversal' payments, what means that
payments done to you by buyers, are reversed to (they say in their mails)
the buyer! Sometimes even amounts of money are deducted from your account
not only once, but 2, 3 or even 4 or more times! You can send mails, fax,
anything, there is never an answer, never any reason why, never a clue!.
Sometimes they will send you an answer from their 'service' dept., that your
question is forwarded to another dept, but these mails are clearly 'demon'
generated.
Telephone numbers are not answered or just cut off and change all the time.
Some people experience that their account is being 'frozen', so they cannot
do payments or retractions of your own money to your own bank. In the time
your account is 'frozen' (as they call it) PP just continues the deductions
and reversals. Even worse: when your PP balance goes negative because of
these actions they will start to debit your CC account. When your CC reaches
it limits they will start a 'legal' procedure to 'get the money they owe
from you' and try to make you pay from other sources!
I know this sounds like a fiction horror story, and it IS a horror story,
except for this: it is NO FICTION! It's REAL, and I'm not Stephen King!
This is what I can tell you to do:
I strongly advice you to take the following actions:
Be sure to do these in the right order to be sure all the doors are closed
for Paypal. Please read all the steps first before you take any action.
1)FIRST thing you must do is to IMMEDIATELY retract all your funds from your
PP account. Set to zero. Make a copy/download of your full history report,
of all the transactions you had with Paypal. It's in your 'My account' tab
when you have logged in at PP.
2)Mail all your contacts that you have with a currently running transaction,
selling or buying. Ask your clients to cancel the payments trough Paypal and
cancel your own payments on Paypal. Work out another payment method with
your clients.
3)When you are sure your PP account balance is set to zero money, terminate
the account. You can do that by logging in at PP, go to 'profiles' and then
choose for the option to close your account. Be careful! If your Credit card
account is ended or blocked before you end PP you cannot end your PP
account! That is one of their tricks to keep the doors open!
4)When you are sure that PP is zero, down and ended, you can try to log on
again. If it is properly ended, your logon & password are no longer
recognized. Realize that all the administrative stuff you filed on PP is
lost for you. So make a download of these files BEFORE you close your
account! If you forgot to do that, lots of transactions can be traced trough
the feedback administration of e-Bay, but it is a lot more work, and you may
loose some data, because not everyone gives feedback.
5) Then (and only then!): Block all your PP associated Credit Card(s) and
Bank Account's. Credit Card is easy: just report lost, and you will have
another card with a new number in two days or so. In case PP is already
debiting your CC, be honest to the CC management, tell what happened and try
if they can make a refund, because of unauthorized use by third parties.
Your Local bank can assist you with your other bank accounts. Go there, make
an appointment with the manager and tell them what happened, and ask them to
help you by starting an investigation to fraudulous transactions reported by
other clients. That's the way to reveal the pattern!
6)If you are already in trouble, experiencing unauthorized deductions etc.:
realize that it can only grow into more serious financial trouble! Go to
your local District Attorney's office, or whatever it is called in your
country, or else to your local Police Agency and ask them to help you to
file an official complaint in order to generate a law suit against Paypal.
Write a abuse complaint and send it to the Safe Harbour Department of e-Bay.
That will learn them what is going on in one of their own sub companies
(sic!).
Prepare a good and clear story for all of them and collect all documents you
can use for evidence that you can find. I.e. your e-mail correspondence with
Paypal and your questions to them why they do this to you. IF they answered
(at all), also the answers!
Copies of your genuine e-mail correspondence with your fellow e-Bayers. Your
(downloaded) PP administration. Listings from 'My e-Bay and listings of your
feedback administration.
7)Write a mail story like I did to you now and send that mail to ALL your
e-Bay and Paypal contacts you EVER had (you can trace most of them back
through your history and feedback files at 'MY E-BAY' Of course you may use
any part of my text if this may help you and if it applies to your
situation. Send it as a 'simple' mail, do not use an attachment, lots of
people have their e-mail system blocked for attachments, because of virus
risk.
This is NO JOKE. This is SERIOUS. I am having a hell of a job now to warn
all my e-Bay clients and fellow fountain pen collectors. It takes and will
take me a bl...beep... lot of time. But this has to be stopped. Next step is
this internet scum plunders our bank accounts. Take contact with your local
bank and all other relations you might have that could be businesslike have
associations with Paypal (such as the Wells Fargo Bank, that handles their
transactions when you retract money from your PP account to your own bank),
and ask them to help you starting an investigation against Paypal!
Only when lots and lots of people are taking action you can expect that
higher authorities will get awake and start official procedures against
these villains!
I honestly think that Paypal started as a good honest organization. But
somehow it was infiltrated by the mob! It's just what you could expect after
the tremendous growth of virus attacks terror, spamming, scamming (what
Paypal is actually doing) and whatever Internet Terrorism this scum will
invent more!
Internet has to become a safe place again! E-bay must be fun again.
To get informed about other Internet user experiences: Read the reviews at
http://www.paypalsucks.com/ and http://www.paypalwarning.com/ There are
other sites you can find on Google with statements about Paypal I would not
believe until I became a victim myself! If you want more info from me you
are invited to mail me again. Don't expect an answer the nex hour or so.
There's a big time gap between USA and Europe!
But I am doing my best. If it is relevant I'll answer.
Lets help each other to clean this mess up!
I'd appreciate it if you can let me know if you received this mail and what
you opinion is on this matter.
Thank you for reading this long story and lots of luck getting rid of
Paypal!
LEX
Greeting you all from The Netherlands.