Paypal Shutting Down ALL E-Cig Accounts!

[Webby]

I just got off the phone with a couple of other suppliers and Paypal has "frozen" over a dozen of their accounts so far. Some of my frineds had their whole nest eggs in there and now have to wait six months for "resolution"

Paypal's response was "We're suspending them because the FDA hasn't said they were safe"

Sound familiar?

8-o

 

[wezzie]

Why is that allowed? Why so long to hold on to someone's money?

 

[DaBrat]

That is freaking ridiculous. I would suggest any suppliers still in there make haste to find anotherpayment method.

 

[zero7starz]

I thought we were already working on this? They've had plenty of notice to get their money out. Shame that they have to, though.

 

[DaMulta]

Totally Wicked called and Paypal told them that everything is A OK.

[quote author=pillbox38 link=topic=2671.msg39710#msg39710 date=1249463695]
I phoned my account manager up at paypal yesterday. He knew nothing about E.Cigs or E.Cig fluid sellers being banned from collecting funds via paypal.

He did say that it might be another infringement by JC.

Paypals AUP or Acceptable Use Policy does not class Electronic Cigarettes as a product that would be disallowed from using paypal as a merchant provider to collect online funds for their sale.

However to take precautions on the USA site we will be adding Bank Of America, on the Uk site we also have nochex.

Currently Nochex takes 60% of my uk payments.

So Its Paypals choice if they want to deny themselves income, i cannot see it unless E.Cigs are made illegal in the States.
[/quote]

Paypal cancelled Johnson Creek account

 

[Hangtime]

paypal has always been a gamble. I dont mind using them to purchase but I would never keep any $$ in a PP account.

 

[DaBrat]

I believe I read a response that another supplier got specifically stating they were denied due to e-cigarette, cigarette verbage then denied again for some off the wall reason. Can't remember where that post was.

 

[xisox]

One online merchant told me they would be adding google checkout to their payment methods. I will not name them because they haven't added it yet and I have since placed an order for eliquid from them and had no problem with paypal. I hate to see people getting their panties in a wad over things that haven't frozen the industry.

I'd like to see people more irritated at the FDA holding up shipments grrrrrrr.

 

[twoshadetod]

Paypal has a long history of doing this to anyone, you could be selling baseball cards and if you sell alot one month you might find your account frozen. It can end your selling career. The worse is when you have a good deal of funds in it and all your reup money is in there, call it poor hustling but bottom line is they screw you.

I hate paypal. As a buyer it's great, as a seller is nothing but a liability but in most cases a necessary evil. That's not even going into chargebacks and the decent chunk they charge.

Why is that allowed? Why so long to hold on to someone's money?

 

[Webby]

Totally Wicked called and Paypal told them that everything is A OK.

[quote author=pillbox38 link=topic=2671.msg39710#msg39710 date=1249463695]
I phoned my account manager up at paypal yesterday. He knew nothing about E.Cigs or E.Cig fluid sellers being banned from collecting funds via paypal.

He did say that it might be another infringement by JC.

Paypals AUP or Acceptable Use Policy does not class Electronic Cigarettes as a product that would be disallowed from using paypal as a merchant provider to collect online funds for their sale.

Nice that the left hand at PP is playing nice with Totally Wicked, but the right hand closed EIGHT accounts today with four other suppliers. This is all TOTALLY unrelated to JC's issues.

Sounds more like an internal edict that some Paypal folks have taken to heart. If your account is high profile (like JC) or has "e-cig" in the title you're easy game.

That's just my $0.02

It's coming...

 

[jimik]

More than likely, PP has outsourced their help desk to a call center that is not updated with the status of e-cigs. I've worked at call centers, and this kind of crap happened from time to time.

I would not be surprised if every e-cig vendor is denied service from PP, including TW. The people suspending the accounts are not at all likely to be working at the outsourced helpdesk.

 

[Bandit]

This specific issue aside.....

I'm surprised so many growing businesses trust PayPal actually.

Do you know that as a seller, if ANY buyer files a claim against you, PP automatically deducts the funds of the transfer from your account (even if you have 0 funds in there), pays the buyer, THEN notifies you of the claim and investigation? It can take up to a month to argue the action, and prove your end of the dispute. And in some cases, regardless of your proof, you can lose the money?

I know, it happened to me. I shipped to the buyer, didn't hear anything for a month. All of a sudden the account was deducted, THEN I was contacted. Buyer said they never received the item. Instead of the buyer (or PP) emailing me to ask for verification (I had the tracking number), they believed the buyer, and stole the money. You'd think the buyer after a week, 2 weeks, hell... 3 weeks would have emailed and asked about the tracking, but nope!

UPS had lost the package, and it took me 6 weeks to get my money back through UPS. PP refused to do anything for me.

I dropped paypal immediately, then about a month or two later the big class-action lawsuit against them came about. I did not participate (not worth it), but it was a huge suit that they lost. For EXACTLY the same thing that I went through. Turns out many others went through that too. This was about 2003'ish.

To this day I refuse to use them. If an e-tailer uses them, and I can just pay with a regular credit card without signing up & attaching my cards to it, I'll do it... but that's all I am willing to do.

 

[enico]

I've heard google checkout on several threads, but they also have a no tobacco or related products ban in their TOS and of course everyone knows adwords is cracking down so I don't know if that would be a safe option.

I've heard good things about Credit card processing and ach check processing from Netbilling. Accept credit cards, obtain merchant accounts, utilize our 24/7/365 inbound and outbound call center services, shopping cart and online store, fraud scrubbing and risk management servic and their fees are low (compared to PayPal). They are used a lot in the porn industry.

 

[jexmex]

There is also
http://www.alertpay.com

They are a paypal clone, have been in business for a little while, but I have never used them, but have heard good things from other people. I do no use them because they still dont have debit cards(last time I checked, they were suppose to get them by the end of last year, and still did not have them).

 

[500KV]

I used PP about an hour ago to order some juice from here: Home Page.
Seems to have worked O.K.
Don't know what the deal is.

 

[DigDreams]

I posted a warning about that a few weeks ago. PayPal IS NOT A BANK and you should NEVER leave money in your PayPal account. Take a look at "PayPalSucks" for a long list of horror stories.

Welcome to PayPalSucks.com, PayPal Lawsuit, PayPal Alternative, PayPal Complaints, Fraud & Evil behind the PayPal system!

They have put more than a few people out of business by taking/freezing their funds.

 

[jexmex]

I am sorry but for the most part the users of that site were doing illegal things with their accounts. That is the most biased site I have ever seen, and full of underage kids, doing illegal activities.

Granted Paypal is no where near perfect, and I never recommend you keep much money in your account, hence why I use my Paypal debit card to withdraw most of the money I receive into it.

 

[Mac]

Why is that allowed? Why so long to hold on to someone's money?

2 reasons:
1 paypal is not a bank and thusly are not required to follow banking laws
2 paypal will not do business with you unless you agree to their Terms of service which is legally binding.

 

[Webby]

...They are used a lot in the porn industry.

Good enough for me. I've always told my web clients, "if you want to make money on the internet, keep an eye on what the porn industry does"

They were the first to make money off the web, the first to stream video, the first to watermark and keep content from being downloaded....

 

[DigDreams]

I am sorry but for the most part the users of that site were doing illegal things with their accounts. That is the most biased site I have ever seen, and full of underage kids, doing illegal activities.

Granted Paypal is no where near perfect, and I never recommend you keep much money in your account, hence why I use my Paypal debit card to withdraw most of the money I receive into it.

How about what happened to me? They seized my finds and locked my account after 2 years of using them because they said that my site had a chat room on it, and a chat room constituted "Adult Content" since it was not censored.

A client of mine had their account seized for paying comissions on referrals. They said it constituted "Pyramid Marketing" (which it did not, I won't work with pyrmaid scheme sites).

Sure, some people actually did things to violate their terms of service - but what gives them the right to keep their money? They held my funds for a full year before letting me withdraw them.

Sorry, I think they are crooks.