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When I was leaving from Paypal for an issue like yours (they still have 300$ of my money) I investigated on Google Checkout and read a lot of horror stories lik

When I was leaving from Paypal for an issue like yours (they still have 300$ of my money) I investigated on Google Checkout and read a lot of horror stories like yours. I wish you to solve this and after that I suggest you to switch to Fastspring. They have really excellent customer support, that becomes very valuable when a lot of money are involved.

ryan-allen 16y ago
What were the circumstances of your PayPal problems? The company I work for take a very large volume of payments for 'digital goods' through PayPal, and we haven't had any serious trouble (except for fraud through what we think phished PayPal accounts). So, I'd recommend PayPal, given their services have been helping pay my salary for a number of years.
- dhimes 16y ago
  I recommend paypal also. They answer the phone. They seem to take it seriously. No way I'd go with G on this until they get better customer service. In fact, I'll be looking into advertising options for my next product, because they are too capricious and will not take my issues seriously.
- DeusExMachina 16y ago
  I changed my internet provider because I relocated. For some reason my IP appeared to be from another country (I had a mobile internet key). When I logged into my Paypal account, the system thought I was someone else and blocked my account to prevent stealing. No problem with that for me, it's a security measure I can understand. I had to unlock the account and here is where the pain began. Logging into my account to provide my information (ID, proof of residence, etc) I was always brought to a page asking me to verify the IBAN of my bank account. After entering it, an error was displayed, giving me a useless error code (something like error 1005) and with a short explanation "there was an internal problem, please try later". But trying later never worked, the error was always there, preventing me to unlock my account. I started writing the support. They answered that I had to fill in my information to unlock my account. I told them that I could not do it because there was an internal error. They kept answering that I had to fill in my information to unlock it. This went on for a couple of weeks. What really pissed me off was that every time they answered (the support guy was always different), they always told me the same things, like they were not reading my emails at all. I tried to call the support phone number for my country. There was an automatic voice with some steps to follow, including getting some authentication code for my account from the website. After all that, the automatic voice reminded me that my account was locked, as if I did not know that already. I never managed to speak with someone in person. That was the last drop, since loosing those 300$ would not have ruined my life, I switched to Fastspring never to come back. I've been really happy with them. After I while I realized that I could have tried to call the US phone number. But I already switched, so I didn't care.
  - ryan-allen 16y ago
    Ah that sounds unfortunate. I certainly have given up for similar sums in the past (not on payment gateways, but on things like tickets to cancelled gigs and junk). The honest truth is that we stick with PayPal because we're an Australian company who, as a business decision, take US dollars for our products. Setting up a merchant account in Australia that can take US dollars seems to be unheard of and practically impossible. Though I'm sure you've heard of the Internet Filter and more recently the full recording of internet history at ISP levels for all customers. Australia has some catching up to do in general in regards to the internet and internet business.
  - lsc 16y ago
    I had similar problems when I had someone from Vietnam working for me (she had worked with me here at a larger corp, then went home and worked for me.) I was able to break through to a human on the US phone number, got the account unlocked, and then made sure my Vietnamese employee did everything through a NAT/VPN setup that gave her one of my US IP addresses. The phone support wait was long, but I haven't really had any trouble since. Of course, I don't really let money build up in my paypal account; I'll spend it on hardware or move it to my bank account. it's pretty rare there's more than ten grand in paypal, and usually it's more like one to three grand, so that might make it easier.
- mlapeter 16y ago
  I've also had problems with paypal, due to the fact I needed three accounts for three separate businesses/ partnerships. Even though I formed separate LLCs, Paypal apparently can only link even business accounts to a specific person, so when I had two accounts based off my name it started causing no end of problems. The account would get locked, I'd call and have it fixed, then it would lock up again. They were friendly, but it was definitely a pain.
macournoyer 16y ago
I had a similar issue w/ Paypal, but one phone call w/ a very nice lady later, everthing was fixed.
greml1n 16y ago
Horror stories where people don't read the ToS and then complain loudly on the internet because they aren't abiding by them?

ryan-allen 16y ago

What were the circumstances of your PayPal problems? The company I work for take a very large volume of payments for 'digital goods' through PayPal, and we haven't had any serious trouble (except for fraud through what we think phished PayPal accounts). So, I'd recommend PayPal, given their services have been helping pay my salary for a number of years.

dhimes 16y ago
I recommend paypal also. They answer the phone. They seem to take it seriously. No way I'd go with G on this until they get better customer service. In fact, I'll be looking into advertising options for my next product, because they are too capricious and will not take my issues seriously.
DeusExMachina 16y ago
I changed my internet provider because I relocated. For some reason my IP appeared to be from another country (I had a mobile internet key). When I logged into my Paypal account, the system thought I was someone else and blocked my account to prevent stealing. No problem with that for me, it's a security measure I can understand. I had to unlock the account and here is where the pain began. Logging into my account to provide my information (ID, proof of residence, etc) I was always brought to a page asking me to verify the IBAN of my bank account. After entering it, an error was displayed, giving me a useless error code (something like error 1005) and with a short explanation "there was an internal problem, please try later". But trying later never worked, the error was always there, preventing me to unlock my account. I started writing the support. They answered that I had to fill in my information to unlock my account. I told them that I could not do it because there was an internal error. They kept answering that I had to fill in my information to unlock it. This went on for a couple of weeks. What really pissed me off was that every time they answered (the support guy was always different), they always told me the same things, like they were not reading my emails at all. I tried to call the support phone number for my country. There was an automatic voice with some steps to follow, including getting some authentication code for my account from the website. After all that, the automatic voice reminded me that my account was locked, as if I did not know that already. I never managed to speak with someone in person. That was the last drop, since loosing those 300$ would not have ruined my life, I switched to Fastspring never to come back. I've been really happy with them. After I while I realized that I could have tried to call the US phone number. But I already switched, so I didn't care.
- ryan-allen 16y ago
  Ah that sounds unfortunate. I certainly have given up for similar sums in the past (not on payment gateways, but on things like tickets to cancelled gigs and junk). The honest truth is that we stick with PayPal because we're an Australian company who, as a business decision, take US dollars for our products. Setting up a merchant account in Australia that can take US dollars seems to be unheard of and practically impossible. Though I'm sure you've heard of the Internet Filter and more recently the full recording of internet history at ISP levels for all customers. Australia has some catching up to do in general in regards to the internet and internet business.
- lsc 16y ago
  I had similar problems when I had someone from Vietnam working for me (she had worked with me here at a larger corp, then went home and worked for me.) I was able to break through to a human on the US phone number, got the account unlocked, and then made sure my Vietnamese employee did everything through a NAT/VPN setup that gave her one of my US IP addresses. The phone support wait was long, but I haven't really had any trouble since. Of course, I don't really let money build up in my paypal account; I'll spend it on hardware or move it to my bank account. it's pretty rare there's more than ten grand in paypal, and usually it's more like one to three grand, so that might make it easier.
mlapeter 16y ago
I've also had problems with paypal, due to the fact I needed three accounts for three separate businesses/ partnerships. Even though I formed separate LLCs, Paypal apparently can only link even business accounts to a specific person, so when I had two accounts based off my name it started causing no end of problems. The account would get locked, I'd call and have it fixed, then it would lock up again. They were friendly, but it was definitely a pain.

macournoyer 16y ago

I had a similar issue w/ Paypal, but one phone call w/ a very nice lady later, everthing was fixed.

greml1n 16y ago

Horror stories where people don't read the ToS and then complain loudly on the internet because they aren't abiding by them?