We have had a PayPal business account since 2005, some seventeen years and until recently have been very happy with it.
We trade from High Street shop, and have a Sellerdeck site which supplements our turn over to the tune of £55K ish per year – 95% of transactions through PayPal platform.
In April this year I had a heart failure and spent 42 days in hospital, 31 of these in intensive care, needless to say during this period running a business is impossible.
My wife who works in the shop and Hannah who has been with us since work experience week some 23 years ago were suddenly left alone to in effect do my job with out any real knowledge of what is involved (my fault entirely) – Between them they managed to contact bank, suppliers etc to explain what had happened. Jonathan @ Graphicz managed to suspend ordering via the website, but there were five uncompleted orders – couple of customers called the shop when their order didn’t arrive and it was sorted, others simply applied to PayPal for a refund, and a belated apology from me when I got home.
Shortly after I was discharged, I got an email from PP saying that “due to a decrease in turnover” our account was now restricted to a with drawable limit of £2,200 per month.
So I called PP to explain all of the above and to be fair the person I spoke to seemed very helpful and naively I thought they understood and would show some compassion – how wrong I was.
I have since received an email every week either increasing the limit “due to good practice and an upturn in turnover” followed by another seven days later decreasing it – I of course contacted PP and was told this was a system error, and these emails should only be once 28 days.
July 10th , I had an email increasing the monthly withdrawal to £4,400 – but on 15th July our balance reached £2,600 available and we got an email saying everything to end of the month would be marked as pending,( another system error according to PP customer services) then once proof of delivery was confirmed their system would automatically release the funds – needless to say, that failed to work, so this morning I called them again, after a few minutes on hold they said “it’s all sorted now and funds released for transfer, but it will take 15 minutes to show on your account” and indeed after a short delay my available balance was updated, so I decided to transfer to bank account.
Upon completion, yet another message saying something along the lines of “due to security issues we are with holding your funds until investigation is completed, this can take up to 12 hours”
Generally we allow our PP balance to build for a month or so, using it as a reserve account for rent, VAT etc, and in 17 years of transferring much larger amounts have never any issues or restrictions at all – our bank account is PP verified.
I have now had enough of PayPal and will be seeking an alternative, I am just fed up being told “it’s the system” “it’s and an automated email” “we’ll arrange a call back” (which never happens) and being told on the telephone that they completely understand, only for a email to arrive saying different. I have sent them a number of messages using their message system, but only ever had automated, cut and pasted replies – we sent a letter to the PP HQ in Richmond which has neither been acknowledged or replied to.
Jonathan recently spent a good deal of time installing Pay in 3 from PayPal to our website, and I am reluctant to bin this, but PayPal don’t deserve our custom, and most certainly don’t appreciate it no matter how you communicate with them, they fail to even consider the consequences of me being in hospital for our business and being unable to trade efficiently during that time.
I’m on the mend now, day by day, and the help and support from the NHS, suppliers, Graphicz, Santander bank, friends, family and customer has very humbling.
PayPal on the other hand couldn’t be more awkward. It’s very frustrating as I like what they offer and it’s worked well for 17 years, but their customer services is in my opinion very poor. They reward loyalty with zero understanding of personal circumstances.
We trade from High Street shop, and have a Sellerdeck site which supplements our turn over to the tune of £55K ish per year – 95% of transactions through PayPal platform.
In April this year I had a heart failure and spent 42 days in hospital, 31 of these in intensive care, needless to say during this period running a business is impossible.
My wife who works in the shop and Hannah who has been with us since work experience week some 23 years ago were suddenly left alone to in effect do my job with out any real knowledge of what is involved (my fault entirely) – Between them they managed to contact bank, suppliers etc to explain what had happened. Jonathan @ Graphicz managed to suspend ordering via the website, but there were five uncompleted orders – couple of customers called the shop when their order didn’t arrive and it was sorted, others simply applied to PayPal for a refund, and a belated apology from me when I got home.
Shortly after I was discharged, I got an email from PP saying that “due to a decrease in turnover” our account was now restricted to a with drawable limit of £2,200 per month.
So I called PP to explain all of the above and to be fair the person I spoke to seemed very helpful and naively I thought they understood and would show some compassion – how wrong I was.
I have since received an email every week either increasing the limit “due to good practice and an upturn in turnover” followed by another seven days later decreasing it – I of course contacted PP and was told this was a system error, and these emails should only be once 28 days.
July 10th , I had an email increasing the monthly withdrawal to £4,400 – but on 15th July our balance reached £2,600 available and we got an email saying everything to end of the month would be marked as pending,( another system error according to PP customer services) then once proof of delivery was confirmed their system would automatically release the funds – needless to say, that failed to work, so this morning I called them again, after a few minutes on hold they said “it’s all sorted now and funds released for transfer, but it will take 15 minutes to show on your account” and indeed after a short delay my available balance was updated, so I decided to transfer to bank account.
Upon completion, yet another message saying something along the lines of “due to security issues we are with holding your funds until investigation is completed, this can take up to 12 hours”
Generally we allow our PP balance to build for a month or so, using it as a reserve account for rent, VAT etc, and in 17 years of transferring much larger amounts have never any issues or restrictions at all – our bank account is PP verified.
I have now had enough of PayPal and will be seeking an alternative, I am just fed up being told “it’s the system” “it’s and an automated email” “we’ll arrange a call back” (which never happens) and being told on the telephone that they completely understand, only for a email to arrive saying different. I have sent them a number of messages using their message system, but only ever had automated, cut and pasted replies – we sent a letter to the PP HQ in Richmond which has neither been acknowledged or replied to.
Jonathan recently spent a good deal of time installing Pay in 3 from PayPal to our website, and I am reluctant to bin this, but PayPal don’t deserve our custom, and most certainly don’t appreciate it no matter how you communicate with them, they fail to even consider the consequences of me being in hospital for our business and being unable to trade efficiently during that time.
I’m on the mend now, day by day, and the help and support from the NHS, suppliers, Graphicz, Santander bank, friends, family and customer has very humbling.
PayPal on the other hand couldn’t be more awkward. It’s very frustrating as I like what they offer and it’s worked well for 17 years, but their customer services is in my opinion very poor. They reward loyalty with zero understanding of personal circumstances.
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