Try being less “asshole” and more “forgiving.” It’s absolutely appalling the crap you guys are pulling with Regretsy. Congratulations on successfully screwing families out of some much-needed donations because you’re greedy bastards who care more about red tape than people. I hope the Karma carousel comes full circle and hits each and every one of you with the force of a fully-loaded bus. Merry fucking Christmas to you too. – Jonathan Shupe
Occupy pitchforks! Boycott Paypal! – Ronan Casey
You know what? It’s not a few barely socialized script kiddies at Anonymous or 4chan that are hammering you right now, it’s hundreds and thousands of pissed-off individuals, regular people who recognize bad behavior when they see it. Maybe an intern in your soon-to-be-overworked PR department can figure that out and explain that to the powers-that-be at PayPal, probably needing to use very small words. – Calton Bolick
dear paypal,just wondering – how many people closed their accounts from that stunt you pulled? maybe you should do a poll? i would love to see those results! –Carol Anne LaRose
I’ve seen thousands of comments come in over the last 12 hours and I spent a few hours last night cross referencing people who state that everyone should delete their Paypal account and see that not a single person who stated we should delete our Paypal accounts has actually done so (that I could find). Actually, by writing this I’m in the top 1% of people who actually took action on this beyond one single Facebook post on Paypal’s wall.
Here’s the backstory: http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/05/cats-1-kids-0/
That’s it. That’s the entire story, all 500 words and this single story generated thousands of negative tweets about Paypal. I am not without issues with Paypal and I’ve had my account locked a few times. Each time it affects me, I DM the Paypal support team and get it fixed. I actually understand that half of Paypal’s job is simply fighting the millions of fake accounts and fraudulent activity that goes through Paypal every single year. There is an entire team that picks up the phone every time your Paypal account is compromised and they do it thousands of times a day. Paypal is in use by nearly every single Internet citizen in the world. They have hundreds of millions of accounts and they’d rather protect our cold hard cash from fraud and have a few false-positives than simple throw security out the door and risk losing every customer.
Paypal’s account lockdowns and security measures are a royal pain in the ass. Don’t like them? Stop using Paypal and use your bank instead. That’s been my policy since my account was first locked down following receiving money from my friend who was then hacked and that $800 sat in holding for 60 days. I deal with it because Paypal is convenient and there’s no one forcing me to use their service. There are alternatives. Paypal is a private company who is a victim of the majority of Internet money fraud and criminal activity in the world and therefore open to criticisms from all of us in the way they do business. The situation with Regretsy is just an issue in customer service doing a crappy job paired with convoluted policies that should be updated.
Regretsy and the rest of us are not above the law. Just because we’re not from Nigeria doesn’t entitle us to an exception when it comes to policies that are meant to protect our previous paypal accounts from scammers who throw up a charity page and rake in millions by duping stupid Americans. The same policy actually protects us and I doubt Paypal just writes down policies because they sounds fun and keep us on our toes.
There’s absolutely no reason Paypal shouldn’t constantly work to improve their policies, security and customer interaction skills but there’s also no reason for the entire Internet to call the death of Paypal over a tiny charity where 200 kids get toys for Christmas.
This isn’t my Ebenezer Scrooge moment. This is the moment where I bring us all back to reality.
I won’t be satisfied until all 50,000 of you that posted on social media calling for the death of Paypal actually delete your accounts. If you truly believe Paypal needs to hear you loud and clear, why don’t you affect their bottom line by closing your account. Shit just got real. See, actually taking action against an evil corporation will force you to actually remove a convenience from your life that you enjoy so much. “FUCK OIL COMPANIES…but I still need to get to work” “DOWN WITH THE BANKS…oh?yeah, I’ll pay with my debit card.” “TV is rotting our brains!…oh, but if I don’t put on Elmo in the morning, my kid will be all in my hair and I just can’t deal with that.”
You hate evil corporations in between posting stupid cat photos and commenting on your Mom’s status about how great her manicure looks and then go on with your life. It’s not right. Paypal, ignore this crap. You’re still going to make money hand over first and the mob will move onto something different. You’re temporary like Swine Flu, Japan’s tsunami, Occupy Wall street and Herman Cain’s sex life. Just go with it and continue making your service more secure and maybe look into revising some outdated policies but don’t respond to this mob. They get distracted by cute cat photos too easily and will forget about this the moment they click buy now on an eBay auction for that pair of shoes that would look SO great with that purse.