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Actually, in Europe Paypal operates as Luxembourg-based bank.
by gst 16y ago
Actually, in Europe Paypal operates as Luxembourg-based bank.
- mise 16y agoDoes this mean that the horror stories of frozen assets donn't/won't happen to European accounts?
- jonknee 16y agoConsidering that this story was from Europe, that doesn't appear to be the case.
- cnvogel 16y agoJust recently a story was published in Germany where they evaded their responsibilities as a bank by clever shifting of responsibilties between eBay, PayPal and the credit-card issuer. So in case of a TV shipped to a identity thief chargebacks were no longer possible (I cannot find the article right now). Another story where PayPal doesn't provide chargebacks to the customer after paying a non-shipping company: http://www.heise.de/ct-tv/artikel/Video-Vorsicht-Kunde-801335.html http://www.heise.de/ct-tv/artikel/Video-Vorsicht-Kunde-80133... (Update: I had the description and the video mixed up...)
- NiekvdMaas 16y agoI can assure you (from my own experience) that these horror stories also apply to EU accounts. In fact, the article was written about a Dutch PayPal account.
- AlexMuir 16y agoI can confirm that they are sitting on 2000 GBP of mine and not responding to anything.
- mironathetin 16y agoI also confirm. My account is frozen for no good reason since 1 year. No reply to any mails. Germany. I once used my Bank to get back my money from Paypal. Paypal took an amount from my credit card. So I called the bank and told them, Paypal did it without authorization. I had to fill a form and got my money back within a few days. I gave Paypal only access to my credit card, not to my bank account. Although they claim in their terms and conditions that this is correct (account OR credit card), I assume this is the main reason why my account is frozen. I can't even close it or delete data.
- all 16y agoTechnically, this is true. Being based in Luxembourg, however, effectively abrogates the effect of the regulatory aspect of things. I am not au fait with the ins and outs of Luxembourg's banking laws, but I do know it is a grey area of banking in the wider scene. Countries that tax worldwide income (e.g., US, Germany) routinely decry Luxembourg as a tax haven. I suspect, therefore, that Luxembourg does not regulate or apply its laws to commerce that occurs outside its borders. As I noted in the last round of "Paypal-was-architected-by-robber-barrons", Amazon in Europe is also incorporated in Luxembourg. Aside from its proximity to Brussels and being at the centre of western Europe, this is almost certainly for tax reasons. That is, they don't ship (or ship pitifully little) to Luxembourg itself and so pay considerably less in taxes than they otherwise might. Similar, though considerably less convenient, havens also include Jersey, Gibraltar, and Cyprus, all semi-autonomous regions belonging to the UK that attract businesses by taxing only commerce that occurs between two parties within their borders. FWIW, I wouldn't touch PayPal with a barge pole. We use RBS WorldPay because 1. we get favourable terms as we have an account with RBS, 2. we get 1% transaction costs with no monthly fees,and 3. we get fraud protection by RBS WorldPay for free. The tech folk at RBSWP are not the sharpest tools in the shed, but RBSWP itself has proven to be good for us financially. Another one that is quite popular but whose breadth of availability I do not know is SagePay.
- StavrosK 16y agoHow do you get no monthly fees? We have an account with NatWest (RBS group), but the site says 20 euros/mo.
- all 16y agoTalk to your WorldPay account manager. We started off at 20 pounds/mo + a set transaction fee and then switched to 1%. It doesn't hurt so much when you are first starting out and it gives a helpful percentage to use in projections.
- StavrosK 16y agoThank you, I've send them a contact enquiry. How can it be so cheap, though? PayPal does 3.4% + $0.35, and WorldPay does just 1%? Is there a catch?