# Paypal.com to receive payments online. Good idea? Any views or advice?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-com-to-receive-payments-online-good-idea-any-views-or-advice/56758>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 4, 2001, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-com-to-receive-payments-online-good-idea-any-views-or-advice/56758 "2001-03-04T23:12:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2001, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-com-to-receive-payments-online-good-idea-any-views-or-advice/56758/21 "2001-03-07T03:40:14Z")

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This was just posted to a newsgroup I frequent. I do not know the author, and can’t swear to the accuracy, but it does raise some concerns over PayPal’s service.

> [@](#):
>
> * * *
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Some of you may remember my wife and my payPal woes early January with  
> them restricting out accounts? Well, that opened a can of worms, it took  
> 2 months and my wife (A redhead!) doing some major digging to finally get  
> action out of PayPal. As they just ignore your emails it seems.
> 
> As of yesterday our accounts have been de-restricted. We immediately  
> moved the funds out and when they pop up in our bank accounts we’ll close  
> our PayPal accounts.
> 
> During our research we ran into quite a few horror stories similar to  
> ours. With people having amounts tied up with balance of 1000’s of US$.  
> Who even followed the ‘fax us your drivers license and statement copies’  
> request. Only to be told it got lost or sent to the wrong guy and please  
> submit again. Very professional and trustworthy for a financial  
> institution. Does ‘identity theft’ ring a bell?
> 
> It wasn’t after my wife got legal advice, contacted the FBI, the Cal AG,  
> BBB and some other organisations. And posted this in AuctionWatch that  
> within 24 hours a PayPal employee named ‘Damon’ unlocked the accounts.  
> Apparently he’s of good will but swamped by all the people with problems.
> 
> All in all we can’t recommend PayPal to anybody after our experiences.  
> There is even a class action lawsuit against them in the works over just  
> exactly the issue of restricting accounts.
> 
> ‘We are PayPal of Borg. Resistance is futile, your funds will be  
> assimilated!’
> 
> For more info on this issue, check [http://www.auctionwatch.com](http://www.auctionwatch.com), [http://www.epinions.com](http://www.epinions.com)  
> and the paypalperil group on egroups, sorry, yahoogroups. 🙂 It sure was  
> an eye opener.
> 
> * * *

I haven’t checked out the links he supplied. Perhaps you’ll find more information on those sites.

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**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2001, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paypal-com-to-receive-payments-online-good-idea-any-views-or-advice/56758/22 "2001-03-07T16:40:45Z")

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“Who even followed the ‘fax us your drivers license and statement copies’  
request.”  
My friend also got that notice once. So I know its true.

On the other hand, why not just visit your local bank & get a credit card machine & a business account??? So easy to do & pretty safe too. Costs a little more though.

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