Paypal suffers (cough) "intermittent outages" today

[durablend]

PayPal es KAPUT today...no payments, rejected cards, and a ton of pissed people (me included)! So much for Crashcart's "ebay revenue" theory.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6228586/

[hatrack]

1. A little monkey wrench in VP Troll's economic miracle!

"Schadenfreude" - look it up!! ;-)

[Moderator]

2. Please use the article's actual title in posting in LBN

"PayPal suffers intermittent outages"

[durablend]

3. It gets even better...

At least one person on Ebay's message boards reports that they were arrested for trying to pay with a declined debit card, and another was thrown out of the post office where he took his packages. There's some other news articles which mention even more businesses that took a loss when they couldn't accept payments. I definitely smell lawsuits a brewin'

We need JE now more than ever!!!!!!!!

[grasswire]

4. ack!!

I adore my Paypal debit card. I can get cash moments after an auction ends on eBay. It's so smooth and fast!

[chum]

5. PayPal Sucks

Check out http://www.paypalsucks.com

Lots of people getting ripped off

[Bruce McAuley]

6. I wondered what was up today...

I sent out 4 BIG packages today and used PayPal this morning, and it worked fine, but I went to check my account's balance this afternoon and couldn't get to the log-in site, and trying to get to paypal.com doesn't work either.
Hope they fix it soon! I love their debit card also, electronic money is REALLY nice!
Thanks for the update.

Bruce

[Eloriel]

7. Hmmm, interesting

I just recently registered with ebay again after a couple of years boycotting them completely. I also belonged to PayPal for a while -- loved it (soooo easy), but then I started hearing horror stories about it. People (perfectly honest people) getting their funds SEIZED with no explanation and absolutely no way to be in contact with anyone at PayPal who knew what the hell was going on or would tell them anything. After reading about a few of these, I quit PayPal and absolutely, positively refuse to use them ever again. Further, their regular business practices left a lot to be desired as well. I guess I quit about a year before ebay bought them.

Having just re-registered at ebay, in my excitement minutes before the close of one of those "must have" items, I bid on and won something for which the seller wanted PayPal ONLY in payment. She finally relented and let me send a money order, but she wasn't very happy about it -- and I can understand that, it WAS my mistake. But I was also her only bidder. Anyway, I'm tempted to send her these links.

[Nexus7]

8. Paypal is EBay

EBay owns Paypal. It was too much of a synergy for EBay to pass up so they bought 'em. I'd guess any EBay-branded payments go through the same engines that Paypal's do.

The thing I like most about Paypal is the ability to do ACH transfers from your bank account. Just like a debit card (although I don't know if they're identical in terms of the mechanicals), and no waiting for checks to clear.

[uncle ray]

11. i use ebay and avoid paypal

for no good reason other than there are plenty of alternative to paypal, and few alternatives to ebay, when it comes to what it is good for. paypal gives up all of your privacy, they have stated that they will give your personal financial information to the government, for the asking, no warrant needed, they will just give your info out. no thanks. and as far as auctions go, it gives ebay more power over YOU if there is a dispute between you and the other party involved. the first i heard about the evils of paypal, was nonprofit organisations who survived off of donations, having their paypal accounts frozen. they learned the hard way to not let your paypal balance grow, get that money out!

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

9. I've never had a problem with them

in more than 2 years and mucho transactions.

But I also don't maintain any outstanding balances online. I transfer them to my bank within days. If they were to fold, how would people get their money back?

[arikara]

10. I've used it a few times

I had one problem with them that took a couple of weeks of persistant emailing and finally a threat to sort out.

I bought an item for $125. The seller was new and didn't know how to collect her money from paypal so the transaction failed. Fair enough... so I re-submitted it. Paypal refunded my card for the first transaction minus their fee which was something like $11. I requested the entire refund as it was an error and they were getting their fee in the second transaction. They sent several form letters which didn't address the issue at all. I then requested to speak with a supervisor who didn't do anything either. I didn't get my refund until I threatened to talk about what they did on every newsgroup that I could find and post the story of how they cheat people on my website. They then refunded my account with no notification or apology whatsoever.

I suspect that they made lots of money on that sort of thing. If it had been a small purchase, maybe I wouldn't have even noticed it especially as there is currency conversions involved. However, $11 US is something like $16 Canadian.

I do still use it but I watch the transaction like a hawk.

[6th Borough]

12. Well, the productivity numbers will certainly drop...

if you buy into Cheney's logic.