Consumerist
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don't buy a macpadd
MacPadd Inventor Drinks With Wife, Brags About Education, Curses, But Does Not Provide Tracking Number
Some people should never go the entrepreneur route. Meet David Free, the man behind QMS, a company that sells and sometimes even ships an aluminum mousepad called the MacPadd. When the guys at TomsHardware.com started asking why theirs hadn't arrived, they discovered that Free does business his own way. Or sometimes not at all:
More »Free then exclaimed, "Get out of my f***ing life!" And hung up on us. By now it was becoming clear to us that we weren't going to receive the product we paid for.
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glitches
PayPal Asks Customer To Travel Back In Time To Make $0 Payment
Whenever a financial institution says you've owed them money for nearly 40 years, it's cause for concern. But luckily Justin, who sent us this screenshot of his PayPal line of credit account overview, has a reasonable $0 payment to make. More » -
give me your money
PayPal Links Account To Mysterious Email Address, Won't Unlink Or Explain Why
PayPal has locked Jessica's account and won't release her funds until she pays off the negative balance in her other account. That's fine, except that she doesn't have another account. Whatever they linked her to, it's not hers. Of course, this being PayPal, they won't give her any information about the other account. She can't even access it to see what the balance is or who it belongs to. More » -
real pals don't make you pay
PayPal Takes Bite Out Of User's Funds, Calls It 'Rolling Reserve'
In addition to tacking on some sneaky new fees, PayPal apparently has instituted another off-putting practice on some accounts. According to reader Melissa, the online money changer was taking 20 percent off of her monthly sales and keeping it in reserve in case a customer initiated a chargeback. More » -
paypal
Nobody Look At The Paypal Secretly Adding New Fees
Starting in June, Paypal started assessing a fee of 2.9% on on purchases marked "goods" or services" to personal accounts. They can do whatever they want, but the problem is they were very quiet about it. Almost sneakily so. More » -
real pals don't make you pay
Now You Can Deposit Your Money Directly Into Your Xbox 360
If you were sitting there staring at your Xbox 360 thinking, "Ya know, I really wish there were a way I could start getting you to take money directly out of my checking account," your dreams are realized. Microsoft is now taking PayPal deposits to buy downloadable content. More » -
cell phones
DealTree Sends Phone Trade In Money To Imaginary PayPal Account
What's going on with DealTree? They handle Nokia's "Trade-up" program, which reimburses you cash for your old phones. It says clearly on the "how it works" page as well as in their terms and conditions that they'll mail a paper check to you after confirming your phone's value. In Paul's case, they say dumped his money into a PayPal account—and Paul says there's nothing in his account and PayPal has no record of a transaction. More » -
skype
Hey, Skype, Why Can't I Change My Billing Information?
Reader "Ian" has a problem with Skype. It should be relatively easy to fix, but it isn't. His credit card was replaced in a Bank of America data breach, and all he wants to do is change the auto-billing for his Skype account to his new credit card number. Skype is apparently unable to do this, since subscriptions are tied to a specific credit card. Or something. More » -
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paypal
PayPal Is Very Sorry About (briefly repeat member's situation)
Sure, far be it from me as Consumerist tipline czarina to criticize people for having canned responses to e-mails, and especially for mixing up said canned responses, but this was still too amusing not to share.
(From The Daily WTF) Thanks, Mike!
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scams
Bad Luck Facebook Scammer, You Picked A Target Who Reads Consumerist
When some lowlife tried to scam Andy the other day through his friend's hijacked Gmail account, Andy tried to get him to use PayPal, and he came up with a great reason why. "It's the fastest way to send money," Andy told the scammer. "Once I deposit the funds, you can print it out of any color printer and it's real money!" Another reader was so amused by it that she decided to use it on her own Facebook scammer earlier today. More » -
security key
Free iPhone App Improves Paypal And EBay Security
We've posted before about security keys—those little digital keyfobs that generate expiring security codes over and over and make it incredibly hard for someone to gain unauthorized access to your account. They're a great idea, and now if you own an iPhone you can install a Verisign app that will work with Paypal and eBay, as well as about two dozen lesser known sites. It's probably the easiest step you can take to vastly improve security on those accounts. More » -
wcia 2009
Worst Company In America: eBay VS GE
An internet auction giant, payment processor and ticket broker? Or the parent company of CNBC, retail store card giant, maker of light bulbs and appliances... No, we don't mean the Sheinhardt Wig Company...
More »
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online brokers
Google Checkout Just As Bad As PayPal
Web brokers Google and PayPal don't believe in human-to-human communication, and one place where you really need that is when you're troubleshooting financial transactions. An interface designer/developer who used Google Checkout to sell an ebook has just been given a huge serving of suck by the "don't be evil" company—they closed her account on her without warning and refuse to tell her why the closed it. The $200 in earnings that hadn't been paid out yet are unretrievable, and she can't open a new one. More » -
tips
How To Delete Your Online Accounts
PC Mag has assembled a list of instructions on how to wipe your account from a long list of websites, including Classmates.com (you'll have to call), Windows Live ID (it's complicated), and Friendster (ha ha ha). In many cases, canceling is as straightforward as clicking a link and authorizing the cancellation, but it's nice to see all the phone numbers and tips collected in one spot. More » -
follow ups
EHarmony Reunites Customer With His Money, Apologizes
David, who we noted earlier this week was out an extra $140 because eHarmony decided to open a second account in his name, has written back with an update. More » -
eharmony
E-Harmony Gives You 58 Dimensions Of Suck By Billing You For Two Accounts
David tried to sign up for an eHarmony account, and there were problems. For instance, after he signed up and paid, the company kept asking him to join. He called and was told the transaction listed on his PayPal screen wasn't showing up on their side, then that it was a "pre-approval" and would go away. It was not and it did not, of course.
Update: eHarmony has returned the money. More » -
whoops
PayPal Charges $81,400,836,908 For $26 Tank Of Gas
Juan Zamora fed his 1994 Chevy Camaro $26 worth of gas, a transaction for which PayPal charged his debit card $81,400,836,908. Unsurprisingly, PayPal saw nothing wrong with the charge and demanded that Juan prove that he didn't actually buy $81.4 billion worth of gas. More » -
scams
eBay Scammer Says PC "Destroyed" In Mail, Takes $500, Sends Back "Destroyed" PC Minus Parts
By exploiting loopholes in their policies, scammers are using eBay, Paypal and UPS to rip unsuspecting sellers off, like reader Chad. The buyer reported the item as "destroyed" and demanded and got a refund from Paypal. When the buyer shipped it back to Chad and he opened it, he found there was nothing wrong with it - except that the scammer had removed the memory, processor and hard drive. Now Chad is out $500 and left with a shell of a computer, and since the item was "received" Paypal won't do anything. His sad tale, inside... More »
paypal
New York, 4:46 PM
Sat Nov 21
16 posts in the last 24 hours
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