PayPal is Making me Mad
PayPal has me mad enough this morning that I’m thinking about cancelling my account with them. I have a PayPal account so that people who want to pay with a credit card can - because otherwise I pay $30.00/month at my local bank for the ability to run the transactions through them. I don’t have enough volume to justify that cost - so PayPal is more “cost effective”. But now, not only is PayPal taking 3% of my transaction as a fee, but now they are holding up to 20% of my transaction for 60 days. Their reasoning - to protect themselves in the case of a dispute between my customer and I.
So I called them this morning - and got someone in Customer Service in the Phillipines. I’m sick of all of OUR jobs going over seas to save these corporations a few bucks - so I asked nicely to be transferred to a CS representative in the United States. I got a “we don’t have any CS representatives in the US”. So I got aggrevated and told the guy I wanted to talk to someone in the US. He gave me apparently the only number he had, which was for Legal in the US. Of course they will only talk to Law Enforcement…. so I had to call back to the Phillipines.
The second call I made, I was really pissed - not only did I want to complain about the revolving hold policy, but now I wanted to complain that I am pissed about CS only being outside the US, and that I got the runaround when trying to talk to someone in the US. Which I’m sure in the long run will make no difference at all to PayPal…. but it has made me think. Do I want to do business with PayPal? Can I afford to have some of my money tied up for 60 days?
I take credit cards for the convenience of my customers who feel safer doing that. I’ve been using PayPal because it WAS the most cost effective way to take them. So now, what do I do - put down my foot and stop taking credit cards through PayPal? Is my piddly little amount of money enough incentive for them to move the jobs back into the US, or to stop doing the rolling hold?
I feel better for having complained, but just wish that my voice would make a difference.
Maybe I’ll appeal to any of my readers - next time you get customer service outside the US, complain! Maybe eventually the companies will care about what their customers say…. And beware of PayPal holding your money! And for small business owners, save us a little money by writing checks instead of using credit cards - because we’re usually forced to pass the cost onto our customers.