announcement PayPal restriction - the reason why

[MotoDave]

1 hour ago, Donaly said:

Therefore I asked my bank to set up for me a prepaid credit card..... I deposited a certain amount of cash which represents for me a very limited risk.

 

This is what I've done (in the USA) to regulate on-line purchases for the past few years.  Have no idea how difficult it may be in other countries.

[FireRx]

While some customers are willing to "jump through hoops",John. I and many others are not one of them. Call it old fashion but I believe in the old saying " the customer is always Right!"   If PayPal disregards your situation. " Which I highly doubt'  then of course you have no other alternative. If they mess with an honest company like orbx, then I to will have to find an alternative method for all my internet shopping and close my Paypal account.  The less credit card exposure the better.  

[be77solo]

Man, was hoping to come back after this was first announced and find it to be resolved by now and PayPal turned back on. 

 

Was really wanting to pick up some stuff but without PayPal not a viable option unfortunately. 

 

Best of luck sorting this.

[racketyjack]

Too bad paypal is being a pain. I've done a lot of business thru them. But a few days ago I used a prepaid card to make a couple purchases with orbx and all went well. And honestly, most Credit cards and debit cards are pretty safe. Check with your bank what the policy they have is if someone hacks you. I use Bank of America and they are pretty good about not holding you responsible for fraud purchases. Even our local bank here in Montana keeps a close eye on all our transactions. Paypal not being used anymore if it comes to that isn't going to stop my purchases with Orbx.

[Matt Swinden]

John,

 

I'm doing some scenery shopping during the "sale" but can only pay by PayPal (my wife controls the CC's), can the scenery be placed in "layaway" while PP get's sorted out so that I and others don't miss the 35%?

 

Thanks,

Matt

[JRBarrett]

 

 

Yeah... that's not an email from paypal, that's a phishing attack... educate yourself (I mean that in a helpful way...) 

A genuine email from PayPal will address you by your name - whatever your name is in your PP account. i.e. "Dear Joe Smith".

The phishing emails typically address you as "Dear PayPal customer"

[Ron Attwood]

What on earth did we do before PayPal?

[dogtrack]

Can't really remember Ron, I started using it in 1998.  Not sure I was buying anything online before that.

[bvdboomen]

1 hour ago, Ron Attwood said:

What on earth did we do before PayPal?

Not buying online I guess. 

My FSX is a DVD and so is my first add-on; de Aerosoft F16. Then I discovered the ease of Pay Pal and bought downloads since then.

[Ron Attwood]

PayPal was founded in December 1998.

[Sniper31]

2 hours ago, Ron Attwood said:

What on earth did we do before PayPal?

I have NEVER used PayPal and have always shopped online for as long as I can remember using my CC. Will continue to do so.

[Jet Adme]

Unfortunately I have to use PayPal it is more secure for me than any other option. 

[banjoman1960]

6 hours ago, Ron Attwood said:

What on earth did we do before PayPal?

 for me,buy nothing online..............i do no onlinebanking,and have no card.......and i want no card........in reallive only cash.........

were a store near my home were i can buy this stuff on dvd,i were the first,and pay cash..........

[John Venema]

Stop living in 1989, please ...

[jpreou]

On 15/12/2016 at 2:35 AM, John Lovell said:

I know many businesses this has happened to and frankly, I think this is so lame of paypal to continue like this.

 

I once had an issue where I sold a very expensive item. Paypal flagged it up as suspicious and froze my account whilst asking me to provide every documentation I could imagine. Took weeks of speaking to various people from some faraway call centre reading from a script with no resolution. They froze my funds for 180 days.

 

But to have this happen to a legitimate business and on many occasions, destroy peoples lives is beyond sad.

 

 

 

 

Still, a 'nice' way for PP to make a little extra income from the interest in your held funds...

 

 

[Matt Swinden]

On ‎12‎/‎24‎/‎2016 at 8:54 AM, Ron Attwood said:

What on earth did we do before PayPal?

Barter....two pigs and a cow.....

[Paul_Blythe]

Love or hate PP, it is a convenient secure payment method.

 

Now to the meat ... Used Stripe yesterday to purchase EU Wales, the purchase went through fine. Today, I needed to pay my Council Tax and the Visa Debit card I used has now been blocked. Lucky I have a second account/card, so this is life or death, just inconvenient.

 

Have sent my bank an e-mail trying to find out what's happened, plus outlining yesterdays purchase. Hoping this is just my bank/visa being overly cautions with a first time payment.

 

Sorry to have made my first post a bit of a grumble ... 

[alehead]

After having experienced credit card fraud directly twice and indirectly a few more times, it is with a little reserve that I went ahead and used the Stripe payment gateway. I certainly will not allow Stripe to store my data for one-click (or even two-click) purchasing capabilities. I do not know enough of the gateway and they are not widespread enough here in Europe to my knowledge.

 

We cannot live in a bubble and enjoy all the aspects of life that current technology offers. As Sniper31 put it in another thread, vigilance is the way forward. However, spreading personal payment-related data over an ever-increasing number of payment gateways is just increasing the target for the cyber criminal, making it easier to piece together the puzzle and sting us more effectively. It is more than a mere inconvenience to deal with credit card fraud. It can take quite some time for the card company to investigate the affair and deal with it accordingly. Not all card issuers will reimburse the victim of fraud up front. Some wait until the investigation has been completed, which can take anything up to a number of months. I was lucky in both cases that my arguments and evidence were plausible. The card issuer reimbursed my account before the balance on the credit card was transferred from my current account, so I was never out of pocket thankfully.

 

A

[John Venema]

8 hours ago, Paul_Blythe said:

Love or hate PP, it is a convenient secure payment method.

 

Now to the meat ... Used Stripe yesterday to purchase EU Wales, the purchase went through fine. Today, I needed to pay my Council Tax and the Visa Debit card I used has now been blocked. Lucky I have a second account/card, so this is life or death, just inconvenient.

 

Have sent my bank an e-mail trying to find out what's happened, plus outlining yesterdays purchase. Hoping this is just my bank/visa being overly cautions with a first time payment.

 

Sorry to have made my first post a bit of a grumble ... 

 

This is quite common with debit cards Paul, it happens to mine each time I use a different payment gateway or store my card details with another vendor. Usually a phone call is all it takes to take the hold off the card. I don't mind it at all, it makes me feel protected.

[Ridgenj]

In the US many banks will send you a message to your phone and ask for transaction approval. Takes seconds and you are always protected.
Nice service when you are traveling in Asia while other cards will shut you down and send you a replacement card back home.




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[Paul_Blythe]

2 hours ago, John Venema said:

 

This is quite common with debit cards Paul, it happens to mine each time I use a different payment gateway or store my card details with another vendor. Usually a phone call is all it takes to take the hold off the card. I don't mind it at all, it makes me feel protected.

 

It is good to feel protected, though a touch inconvenient when your unintentional caught in the system. Luckily, it's not my main debit card and shouldn't take long to get it activated again. 

 

Looking forward to Project A [a recent find for me], and the future of Project P

[hwh86]

Is this really the end of PayPal at Orbx? If so then It is the end of my purchases because I use PayPal for all my on-line purchases with a number of other vendors and I am not going to set up something quite different just for Orbx. I hope that PP releases the funds for Orbx soon at which point JV makes PP available again.

[Deleted_today]

On 25.12.2016 at 2:31 AM, John Venema said:

Stop living in 1989, please ...

 

Yes ;-) agreed ;-) Please make PayPal available again

Cheers Uwe

[John Venema]

PayPal have refused to release a large portion of our funds despite me contacting their Chief Information Officer personally to escalate our case. So then, that is all we can do. From our side we have behaved in a reasonable manner, produced all the documentation they asked for and provided a logic business case to justify the release of our money.

 

I refuse to do business with a company that annexes our money for no justified reason. 

 

Therefore PayPal will not return as a payment option.

 

If this leaves you unable to puchase Orbx products then there is little we can do to help you, and we can only apologise.

[hwh86]

1 hour ago, John Venema said:

PayPal have refused to release a large portion of our funds despite me contacting their Chief Information Officer personally to escalate our case. So then, that is all we can do. From our side we have behaved in a reasonable manner, produced all the documentation they asked for and provided a logic business case to justify the release of our money.

 

I refuse to do business with a company that annexes our money for no justified reason. 

 

Therefore PayPal will not return as a payment option.

 

If this leaves you unable to puchase Orbx products then there is little we can do to help you, and we can only apologise.

What a great pity.

[paddler]

JV,

Not totally surprised at the response of PP, but still disappointed in them. Sorry that you have been left with little option but to not risk further financial risk from PP. I have used them, but not exclusively for years but admit that I will not easily be persuaded to continue with them in the future. Your products are worth the small risk of using alternative means to purchase. Good luck in the final struggles with PP.

[Deleted_today]

Hi,
Very sad. PayPal has not solved the matter well. I can understand JV. I can understand that he is angry.
I can not understand that he completely removes PayPal as a payment. 
It is a bitter end for us customers in parts of Europe. 
In many countries of Europe a credit card is not required to pay. 
After my credit card was hacked in Amazon Marketplace, I canceled it. 
A credit card only for purchases in ORBXDirect store, costs me 40 euros extra per year.
I have been shopping on the Internet for years with PayPal. To my opinion a safe and fast thing. 
May be Stripe seems to be a good alternative. 
My job has to do with security aspects on the internet. Perhaps I have become a bit paranoid. 
Who of you knows a good rechargeable credit card in Europe with which I can pay in the ORBXDirect store? 

Cheers Uwe

[bvdboomen]

5 hours ago, John Venema said:

PayPal have refused to release a large portion of our funds despite me contacting their Chief Information Officer personally to escalate our case. So then, that is all we can do.

 

I just don't understand it John. Don't they tell anything at all why they hold the funds?

That's just ridiculous and not professional form Pay Pal side. You should go to court for this.

 

If Pay Pal isn't coming back then maybe you could consider bank transfers? We then can't download instantly but it's better than nothing.

 

Cheers,

Ben.

[John Venema]

There were a lot of reasons we were given, none of which we agree with or accept. I won't go into details because it's a confidential commercial discussion.

 

When you create a PP account there is a clause in the fineprint of their terms of use which allows them to hold your funds for up to 180 days without any recourse. No lawyer in the world will take them on when all PP customers signed or agreed to this clause. You won't have a case.

 

Just Google 'Paypal froze account' for thousands more stories like Orbx. In some cases it involves millions of dollars.

 

We are not going to offer bank transfers, sorry. I have had debit & credit cards for 35 years and it's the way the world does small transactions efficiently and universally.

[JacquesBrel]

I have personally been involved in two occasions where PayPal has frozen accounts without warning due to unexpected large amounts of money going into the account, like the recent Orbx sale. One occasion was a donation drive right after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. The donated money was never put to good use in time because PayPal froze the account involved.

 

I am personally very much against the way PayPal handles such situations. In business you should expect the unexpected, and if you are a business service provider you should be able to deal properly and professionally with client businesses that have large sales, large product launches, or donation drives. But in my experience, PayPal as a business service provider has never been good at handling those very normal aspects of the business world.

[hwh86]

8 hours ago, John Venema said:

I refuse to do business with a company that annexes our money for no justified reason. 

 

Therefore PayPal will not return as a payment option.

 

If this leaves you unable to puchase Orbx products then there is little we can do to help you, and we can only apologise.

The question now is whether the hubris makes it worthwhile Orbx losing loyal and long standing customers. The action taken by PayPal is spelt out in their Terms and Conditions and could have served as a warning. I don't condone it but if it serves to stop some criminal or terrorist organisations to finance their activities then it is a small price to pay.

[Mallard]

I actually went through quite a number of the "frozen paypal" sites - most of them which are several years old. And what I gleaned from the more serious ones is that Orbx obviously did not read the EULA correctly.

 

How ironic...

 

Well - be it as it may, that's the end of my 6 years of loyal custom.

 

5 hours ago, Red1963 said:

Hi,

Who of you knows a good rechargeable credit card in Europe with which I can pay in the ORBXDirect store? 

Cheers Uwe

Hi Uwe - I used to have the prepaid card from the ADAC. If you're a member with them, then you can get it for €29 per year.

 

Cheers

 

Mallard

[hwh86]

37 minutes ago, Mallard said:

Well - be it as it may, that's the end of my 6 years of loyal custom.

I rest my case

[jaseman007]

I have been using my Credit Cards for online purchases for as long as I can remember.  Never had an issue.  

 

I just don't get the flat out reluctance to use a debit or credit card online for ORBX purchases.  And considering the way PayPal treat long term customers it seems all the more reason to not use their services.  In fact, everytime I have an option to use PayPal over Credit Card, I always choose Credit Card.  PayPal can stick it.....

 

You will find that internet security for online purchasing has really stepped up over the last 5 years or so.  But hey, if you want to miss out on quality scenery from ORBX then so be it.

 

Jas

[Luke Stirling]

1 hour ago, hwh85 said:

The question now is whether the hubris makes it worthwhile Orbx losing loyal and long standing customers. The action taken by PayPal is spelt out in their Terms and Conditions and could have served as a warning. I don't condone it but if it serves to stop some criminal or terrorist organisations to finance their activities then it is a small price to pay.

I think that's very much going to depend on what that price is. If the price is having your primary income withheld for the next six months that might be something many people would factor into their decision.

 

For people for whom credit cards aren't an option, then I can see how this decision can leave one feeling slighted. I think John is well aware that taking away options is always going to be a problem for some segment of the customer base, and no business wants to lose or even merely inconvenience customers. But PayPal is the de jour payment mechanism for so many people that leaving it available while all funds going through there are frozen for the foreseeable future  is asking quite a few people to forego getting paid for their hard work. I can certainly see why getting backed into that kind of corner now could make anyone reluctant to invite it again in the future, even if doing so causes a measurable reduction in paying customers. I wouldn't be willing to call that kind of decision hubris.

[thokle]

To be honest, the question is not just to get some money back. The question is if you Orbx want to loose your customers, reputation and money! I read so many things about Orbx in the past and they were not good at all. It always gave me some serious head shaking.
I really (still) love the quality of all your sceneries! But everything around the sceneries disappoints me more and more!
I don't get it, why you just don't put PayPal back as payment option and solve all the issues with them at the backdoor. Nearly every online shop offers PayPal as payment option and they have no problems with it. 
I know that my comment here may annoys you, but I just wanted to write you from the heart of a customer that really got disappointed with the time.
Please think about this!
 

[Chunk]

That's awfully easy to say when it's not your money being held up. They have costs that don't stop just because PayPal is withholding their money from them.

Look, I like PayPal, but I'll use whatever vendor a company uses to buy products I like and want.

Walk in JV's shoes for a second here...


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[JimmiG]

My Paypal account got hacked once, so I wouldn't call it secure. Called them and they promised to cancel all transactions as this was clearly their fault. However they failed to cancel one transfer of about €60, but didn't notify me, so I got a bill for those €60 about *6 months* later. Didn't bother arguing and just paid up, but I refuse to use Paypal again.

 

The security situation may well have been improved since then (this was many years ago), but their customer "service" still seems as terrible and draconian as back then. They've got so many customers that they just don't care.

[bvdboomen]

John, thank you for the update and your thoughts and answers.

On the contrary of what I said before, I just ordered a CC at my bank, hoping that it all turns out well.

I've never heard of Stripe outside this forum so I trust ORBX more than that service and will buy directly with my CC which will arrive in a few days. LOWI would be the first to purchase I hope. 

[Ripcord]

15 hours ago, Chunk said:

That's awfully easy to say when it's not your money being held up. They have costs that don't stop just because PayPal is withholding their money from them.

Look, I like PayPal, but I'll use whatever vendor a company uses to buy products I like and want.

Walk in JV's shoes for a second here...

 

Exactly.

 

You know it's funny.  The customer is always right, and there are so many other choices for those that are purchasing scenery. We can go buy whatever we want on about a half dozen reliable, established, well-known sites, and use PP to get them.  So we can take our business elsewhere and purchase something else, if we choose.  But we won't get ORBX, so we aren't getting the exact same product/service that we were getting form ORBX.  This was my message all through-out.

 

Then I realized that Mr. V is in a similar situation here, and that is the irony.  He's also a customer, one that is getting seriously abused by his service provider.  No reasonable soul here can blame the guy for taking his business elsewhere, particularly when so much depends on it for ORBX.  But unfortunately, having gone elsewhere, he isn't getting the exact same product/service as he was getting from PP.

 

It begs the question -- how can we shake our fists and scream about our rights as customers, and then deny John the same rights as a customer?

 

Is it inconvenient for us to figure out some new way to pay?  It is, and frankly I've not figured it out yet, though I will eventually.  But I would suggest that the level of inconvenience that ORBX has had to endure far exceeds the level of inconvenience that we are being asked to endure.