I don't know what's happening, but PayPal is acting strange these days, and it appears that they actually care about users' accounts. Don't be so ecstatic, it could be just a marketing reinvention of PayPal, which recently said they are changing a little (design and other things). Hmm, now it's not that surprising. Back to our main story, almost every user that had a business and used PayPal in the past had a problem or so. Some even ended up with their accounts being frozen by PayPal and no money was ever returned to them. It was frustrating, because everyone thought the days when PayPal had problems (with strange transactions made by hackers) were over. It's frustrating to have a business and not being able to use one of the most used payment processor worldwide — PayPal. And it's more frustrating when you are using their service and somehow they decide you should have your account frozen because you have some suspicious transactions/activity. I've never had any problem with PayPal, and I wish/hope no one else did either.
Another PayPal Frozen Account
Andy McMillan, the guy responsible somehow for this PayPal "Change" story, had a similar problem. He organises the Build Conference, and he is the one that made possible The Manual concept: "a new, beautifully crafted journal that takes a fresh look, in print, at design on the Web." Once again I don't know if this is part of a marketing campaign run by PayPal, but Andy at least appeared to have big problems with the company. Having more than £40,000 frozen would be the end of the world for some, and I'm sure that Andy felt the same way. Unfortunately, after contacting all the PayPal staff that he could, he got the final response:
Sorry, Mr McMillan, but we will not be releasing any funds to you, and consider the matter closed. He was told that his situation was reviewed by the highest authority from PayPal and that they had concluded no money would be released until the end of November at the earliest. Releasing the money in November was also not guaranteed. And so, after doing almost whatever he could do, Andy McMillan had to just wait for PayPal. The miracle came just one day later, when the president of PayPal itself, Mr. David Marcus emailed him, out of nowhere,
saying:
Andy — the team will reach out between now and Monday, and they will lift all holds/limitations, and release all of your funds. If anything, please know that I'm now going to use your story to radically change how we deal with holds, and communicate with our customers. I'm driving a lot of changes at PayPal (I took over 5 months ago), and I hope that over time we will earn your trust again. Not with words, but with delightful products, and amazing service. If you believe in this, I'd like to enroll you to help me out. I'd like you to keep accepting PayPal for payments, and now that you have a direct channel with me, give me feedback so I can get it directly from the outside. If you accept to do this (I would completely understand if by now you wouldn't want to deal with PayPal ever again), you have my commitment that I'll look after your account personally, and ensure this will never happen to you again. Again — would completely understand if you didn't want to do this. I'm just trying to leverage the issues you went through to radically change our approach, and fix this for all of our customers for good. Please confirm when you have access to your funds again so I know you're good on that front. And again, don't hesitate to contact me anytime. You now have my mobile number. Have a great weekend. David Sent from my iPad
Who is David Marcus
In 2000, David Marcus founded the company Echovox to help large media companies make money through mobile services. Later, in 2008 he made Zong, a mobile payment processor that was acquired by PayPal in August 2011. From August 2011 till April 2012, he was Vice President / GM for the Mobile Division of PayPal, and after April 2012, he was named President of PayPal. I remember surfing on PayPal's blog few months ago, reading something about a redesign, and I saw an article about how PayPal works. But I wasn't that interested. It seems that David Marcus had plans to simplify the way PayPal works and try to build a better experience. And this was on June 25. After reading about his personal accomplishments, I have to say I'm a bit impressed. I think this is what happens if you hire someone who knows how to run things. David Marcus has a 12-year company experience behind him (with Echovox and Zong), and so maybe he is the right person to lead PayPal right now. What happened this month is just a small step towards fixing the bad side of PayPal. There are a lot of things to do at PayPal, but for now it's nice that someone is thinking about how to improve relationships with customers and try to avoid stupid situations like frozen accounts without sustainable reasons. In the end, I'd advise David Marcus to follow forums and blogs that often relate the awful experience users have with PayPal service and their customer support.
Related Links
I don't know what's happening, but PayPal is acting strange these days, and it appears that they actually care about users' accounts. Don't be so ecstatic, it could be just a marketing reinvention of PayPal, which recently said they are changing a little (design and other things). Hmm, now it's not that surprising. Back to our main story, almost every user that had a business and used PayPal in the past had a problem or so. Some even ended up with their accounts being frozen by PayPal and no money was ever returned to them. It was frustrating, because everyone thought the days when PayPal had problems (with strange transactions made by hackers) were over. It's frustrating to have a business and not being able to use one of the most used payment processor worldwide — PayPal. And it's more frustrating when you are using their service and somehow they decide you should have your account frozen because you have some suspicious transactions/activity. I've never had any problem with PayPal, and I wish/hope no one else did either.
