You are looking at posts that were written on June 5th, 2007.
Posted on June 5th, 2007 by arnljot.
Categories: other.
This is a post I made at PayPalSucks.com
Fist, let me say that the amount PayPal scammed me. $2.63 or NOK 63.74 is really small amounts for me (about the price of a beer). But it’s when you start thinking scale that these amounts, and the number of transactions PayPal have, that it starts to scare me and make me judge them as a company with immoral business practices.
For thouse out there familiar with dollar-2-kroner convertion rates, you’ll know that $2.63 isn’t NOK 63.74, is’t more like NOKÂ 15 But that’s what’s so brilliant about the “PayPal way”.Â
This small post I’ve copy-pasted in here retells my story, and illustrates how their “apparantly” random practice is really fixed/skewed so that “the house always win”.
Short story:
March 22nd: Bought two DVDs from KIASMOMMY21 at eBay, amount charged: $146.12
April 17th: No delivery, contacted seller through eBay.
April 18th: Vague response from seller, replied. No response
April 20th: Contacted seller through ebay again, no reponse
April 27th: Opened dispute with PayPal
May 3rd: Escalated to claim the
May 25th: Dispute closed in my favour by PayPal 25th of May, received e-mail stating “You’ll be receiving a partial refund”
May 27th: Contacted PayPal via help form online. No response, not even automated. My account online says “refunding” as status
May 31st: Called PayPal, they assured me I’d receive a full refund to my card
June 1st: My balance was 0, they refunded me $146.12 and my account total shows $143.49
June 5th: The refund is completed. They refunded my PayPal account, not my card.So, I called them today June 5th. Seems that after much back and forward. They are still working on the refund and will transfer it back to my card.
I tried to have her explain how adding $146.12 to my $0 balance added up to $143.49 but all she could say was “currency convertion rates fluxates”.
This is the currency conversion history of my case, remember. Both my account and my card are in NOK (Norwegian Kroner).
March 22nd: Purchase of $146.12. PayPal debits NOK 923.09. This is a rate of $1 = NOK 6.3173. The official rate that day was 6.1126
June 1st: PayPal refunds $146.12. PayPal credits NOK 859.35. This is a rate of $1 = NOK 5.88118. The official rate that day was 6.0352See how clever you can be? You can even make money when refunding users! Using the iternational magic 8 ball exchange rate agency they are guaranteed to make money no matter what they do…
I seriously considering closing my account when this is all over, and rather by stocks in PayPal.
Update/Edit: By the way. An important point I missed out on initially is, what if this had been a bigger purchase? Say $2000 of computer eq or something? $1500 on that collectable Jabba The Hut peabag chair?
I got away lucky. But I’m sure these conversion stories have worse side effects, just imagine how it can be for defrauded merchants who use PayPal…