7 ms·

Regretsy Issue Resolution

114 points by kmfrk 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
niravshah 15y ago
Great, it was resolved once it was picked up by some media and someone high up at PayPal realized it was an issue. Nothing about the bad customer service, nothing admitting to any kind of wrong-doing - just "we are truly sorry that it happened" Being sorry it happened and working towards preventing it from happening in the future are two very separate things, and PayPal is only saying the first. Can someone take these guys out already (Stripe?)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - niravshah 15y ago
    No, I agree - re-read my comment, I don't think they admitted to any wrong-doing at all.
    - citricsquid 15y ago
      I misread your comment, apologies heh.
    - dominik 15y ago
      "In this instance, we recognized our error and moved as swiftly as possible to fix it." It's not clear what "error" they're admitting to, but it seems as if they're admitting some error, however ill-defined.
- morrow 15y ago
  I've used stripe and it's definitely a breath of fresh air, but as I understand it, most people won't bother switching away from paypal to something without international support. Stripe's working on that: https://stripe.com/global https://stripe.com/global but otherwise there isn't a good international alternative to paypal at the moment.
- kmfrk 15y ago
  I get the impression that Customer Service is something subsumed under PR in the corporate chart of PayPal. Did PayPal respond to this as customer support, or was it just damage control?
angelbob 15y ago
This is a really amazingly tone-deaf response. We may only hope that somebody like the Daily Show takes them properly to task for this.
- jacoblyles 15y ago
  > We may only hope that somebody like the Daily Show takes them properly to task for this. I'm probably too old to understand this. How does that solve anything?
  - angelbob 15y ago
    They've already released Regretsy's money (says the tone-deaf, possibly inaccurate response). So solving matters is just to convince them that they will have more trouble getting away with this in the future. I believe Jon Stewart can help with that.
- nroach 15y ago
  It really isn't that bad, under the circumstances. They did some things right: 1) Acknowledge a problem in a timely manner (assuming the really did only get escalation one day ago) 2) Provide specific information on what is being done to fix the problem (working w/account holder, making a donation as a mea culpa) 3) Explain limitations on resolution (legitimate constraints on public comment for privacy-protected matter) What wasn't done well was: a) letting it get this far to begin with b) failing to explain how future problems will be prevented by policy changes
  - westbywest 15y ago
    I'm really only seeing damage control as Paypal's motivation behind this statement on their blog. I wonder how many other folks have had the same problems with Paypal's inconsistent application of their policy (when not just outright obstruction), who don't have the same resources to make noise as the woman running Regresty. And whether they will get similar resolution.
y3di 15y ago
At the very least, regretsy gets a donation to help their cause. Which, despite all the problems paypal caused, is one good thing to come out of all this.
redthrowaway 15y ago
When will Paypal and other companies that take this "under no circumstances say anything with substance" tack to PR learn that it's utterly counter-productive? Anyone who would be motivated to read the blog post had first read regretsy's side of the story, wherein Paypal comes across looking petty, immature, and unprofessional. None of that is addressed by this blog post, so the only takeaway for readers is that your only recourse if Paypal seizes your money is to raise a giant stink about it and cause them another PR headache? All they had to say was, "Our representative was enforcing our policy, but unfortunately did so in a way that we didn't intend, and without the respect and courtesy we expect. It can be easy for someone who spends their day dealing with scammers to see wrongdoing where there is none, and we're sorry that happened here. Regardless, scammer or not, we expect all of our representatives to deal with customers courteously and professionally, and will redouble our efforts to ensure that happens in the future. We sincerely apologize to regretsy and offer our commitment to improve. We would like to assure both regretsy and the community at large that customers remain our priority, and we will do everything in our power to earn your patronage." That's it. An honest, humble, apology, and you wouldn't have people running around the Internet saying Paypal are a bunch of childish crooks.
- amirmc 15y ago
  > An honest, humble, apology... Agree with your sentiment but if they had said what you suggested, it probably wouldn't have been honest.
- baddox 15y ago
  It seems to me that your proposed statement isn't yet out of the question. I interpreted this statement as basically saying "Don't worry, we've got real people on this, but we've not resolved anything yet." To me, that's better than them waiting for days or weeks with no acknowledgement, then issuing a complete statement like you recommended.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    You bring up an important point, which is the speed with which they've addressed the issue. That deserves commendation, and is a very smart move on their part. It nips the story in the bud, which is important. That said, this does not read as a preliminary post. It's titled, "Regretsy Issue Resolution". It makes no promises of further updates, and just says that they're dealing with the issue privately. That's their right, but I think it's a PR mistake. There are two issues in this case: 1) regretsy being treated as a scammer, and 2) the behavior and tone of the paypal representative. This post addressed 1 but not 2, and it doesn't look like there will be a second. This is a missed opportunity on paypal's part to turn the incident into a PR win.
kvirani 15y ago
Moral of the story is: when wronged, make noise, and make it well.
andrewvc 15y ago
Why, on the blog, does the Director of Communications at paypal use a headshot that looks like he's trying to stare you down before killing you? Oh wait.
- JshWright 15y ago
  For more than a couple seconds, I was confused as to why they had a picture of an angry Mr. Bean attached to the post.
  - Technopia 15y ago
    I had the same confusion too initially lol
- ianstormtaylor 15y ago
  Absolutely the first thing I noticed when reading that article. It fits with the tone though at least...
- danbmil99 15y ago
  He looks like the guy on the Sopranos who said "satisfaction guaranteed, or double your garbage back!"
rhizome 15y ago
I wish there was a way to assassinate a corporation.
- tfb 15y ago
  <easierSaidThanDone>Build a better product and market your ass off!</easierSaidThanDone>
brndnhy 15y ago
He looks like a really nice guy.
conductr 15y ago
Paypal would have been better off without this message. I read the Regretsy story yesterday, didn't think much of it - typical Paypal customer service, I've read those stories 1000 times. Now that I know it got someone's attention at Paypal that is "important" and could have done "right" in one way or another but they blew it. At very least they could have refunded them their transactions fees! Paypal now looks worse in my mind than if they would have said nothing.
navyrain 15y ago
So Regretsy gets a (potentially) reasonable human to look at their case only after making a media fuss? This is pretty troubling, as for every Regretsy out there, there are many more smaller fish who will continue to get quietly screwed, simply because they cannot attract the attention of the media in the same manner.
- rohit89 15y ago
  1 - Write blog post 2 - Go viral 3 - ??? 4 - Profit Jokes apart, this seems to be the only to get attention from a company. I wonder if there is a startup opportunity here.
  - lsb 15y ago
    There is, called a PR firm, if you don't want to write up your own blog post and submit it everywhere. Perhaps a consumerized PR firm that takes contract copy editors, submission bots, and some sentiment analysis to gauge the response of a NYT writer to a potential story (two lawyers suing each other far less emotional appeal than kids' xmas gifts getting shut down), and voila. Insta-noise-machine.
  - mchanson 15y ago
    This is sorta consumerist.com's model.
- Tangurena 15y ago
  This has always been the case with PayPal. They deliberately make it as hard as possible to actually contact a real human, and then act all surprised if the victim manages to get enough publicity to get past the barriers. http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/06/9252348-paypal-says-our-bad-on-regretsy-charity-scandal http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/06/9252... PayPal's business model seems to be based off of Kafka's novel The Trial.
  - waqf 15y ago
    It's not just PayPal. It's whole industries. Airlines. Banks. Google. Seems like it's any industry which (i) has high startup costs so is dominated by big players and (ii) can cost you enough money in a single incident that you'd get seriously upset.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
I am somewhat mystified by the level of paypal hate going on here. The major issue here was bad customer service (something that google, and even say Mojang, for example, seem to get away with quite easily). A big problem here is people acting with good intentions and believing that somehow that should be a shield to the world. Unfortunately, even the best intentions can't shield you from having to comply with business, taxation, and financial regulations. Make no mistake, regretsy was in the wrong here. Paypal was in the wrong here too, but mostly because they were rude and unhelpful in enforcing a legitimate policy enacting legal and regulatory requirements.
- nhangen 15y ago
  No, the major issue was not customer service, but the way they locked them out of the funds.
- pseudonym 15y ago
  The backlash here is comparable to EA's banning of users from their single-player games, I would say. Shitty customer service is crappy, but the backlash is greater in proportion to the criticality of the asset in question. In Paypal's case, the asset is cash, which naturally flips the "fuck you guys" toggle in people in general a bit faster than, say, not being able to log into the Minecraft forums.
  - citricsquid 15y ago
    > not being able to log into the Minecraft forums Ha, some of the anger I've seen from our users would make you think we're stealing millions of $ from them when they have an issue.
  - InclinedPlane 15y ago
    Certainly. But any business will have issues with cash and institutions. With banks, with customers, with the government, everyone. If you want there to be no friction ever for monetary transactions then be prepared to live in that world and make sure to express that opinion at the polls, there's not a ton banks and/or paypal can do on their own to make that world a reality without simply going rogue and abandoning all pretense of legality. Also, re: minecraft it hasn't gotten much press but some people have had problems actually getting the game after they've paid, and in most examples the customer service they've gotten has been atrocious to non-existent. This doesn't just prevent people from logging into forums, it prevents anyone from playing on any public server and makes it a lot harder to even install the game or get updates (basically forcing people to pirate the game). Not that I'm saying Mojang should be raked over the coals for that, but it's not such a dissimilar situation.
Terretta 15y ago
> "In this instance, we recognized our error and moved as swiftly as possible to fix it." — eBay I wonder what those defending eBay in the earlier thread will think of this.
eykanal 15y ago
Unfortunately for them, I closed my PayPal account last night. One too many stories like this for me, thankyouverymuch. If I ever need them again to buy something I'll purchase without logging in, anonymously, like most people do, manually entering my credit card info. I'll pay that price.
- elemeno 15y ago
  Which will do nothing. Unless you're someone who's using PayPal to collect money, there's remarkably little reason for them to care if you're logging into an account to pay by credit card, or paying 'anonymously' by credit card without logging in. If you want any change from PayPal then you need to persuade people to stop accepting money through it, since that's the only way you impact their ability to collect fees.
  - mark_up 15y ago
    Lobby Stripe to go international. https://stripe.com/ https://stripe.com/
exit 15y ago
how could a serious pr department attach that photo to any statement?
vaksel 15y ago
if they want to make real impact, they should be changing their policies...not just releasing the funds in this one single case. if the only way to get good customer service is to get millions of people to support you, then you aren't doing it right
Bobby_Tables 15y ago
I'll believe it when I hear it from Regretsy...according to their blog (http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/06/breaking-news/ http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/06/breaking-news/), they know as much about the resolution as we do...
- JadeNB 15y ago
  This is almost as disturbing to me as the original announcement—make a prominent post saying that you're working on the problem, let it get lots of attention, and then (apparently) ignore the issue. Well, it didn't work very well for AirBnB (http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare...), and hopefully it won't work for Paypal, either.
VonLipwig 15y ago
I really like this from PayPal. They have nipped the issue in the bud. They are making a donation to boot. It seems to me that both Regretsy and PayPal are at fault. Regretsy for using a button with implications they didn't realise. Paypal for not making these issues clear and what looks like some shocking customer support. I hope PayPal look into the customer support issue but that aside the issue is resolved. PayPal have publically admitted fault and are taking steps to correct it. Good on them. PayPal gets a lot of bad press. I do feel though if you look at the quantity of transactions they deal with and the amount of rules and regulations they have to work with they are doing an alright job. The could improve in areas but lets face it.. what big company couldn't.
- longlistener 15y ago
  How long have you worked for PayPal?
  - VonLipwig 15y ago
    Oh someone posts an unbiased comment against PayPal.. must be working for them! It is the 'in thing' to bash PayPal at the moment. Just because you take a sensible view doesn't make you an employee.
- kevinalexbrown 15y ago
  Regretsy for using a button with implications they didn't realise. I think that's a little bit of a stretch, along the lines of "Facebook users complaining of privacy violations are at fault for using a service whose implications they didn't realize" - I mean it's true, in both cases, but assigning equal levels of fault is a little bit much.
- nknight 15y ago
  If they're going to make a fuss about it, PayPal shouldn't even make the "donate" button available without getting explicit agreement from the customer to clear, unambiguous rules. And no, sticking it in their giant ToS doesn't cut it.
blahedo 15y ago
> "For background, we have clear guidelines for any business that uses PayPal to accept donations." That doesn't appear to be true. This post lays out the actual content of the relative PayPal policies: http://thegreengeeks.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/why-paypal-is-wrong-regarding-regretsy-according-to-their-own-policies/ http://thegreengeeks.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/why-paypal-is-... and assuming the screenshots are not doctored, those policies do not seem to be particularly clear, nor do they say that documentation is required other than for officially registered non-profits.
longlistener 15y ago
Apparently now they're refusing comments on their blog because theres so much negative backlash.
ck2 15y ago
Last night we became aware of an issue lol, so which big media company contacted y'all for an interview? I guess this is going to be the future of getting PayPal to do the right thing - you have to make it to the top of a social network somehow to embarrass them. PayPal has promoted tipjars for over a decade now, this was just stupid.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  You know, that is exactly the point here, isn't it? Why wasn't PayPal already aware of it? Clearly, the answer is simple: why should they be? Until somebody important gets in touch with somebody important, nothing has happened.
  - longlistener 15y ago
    Paypal was aware of it, as they claim its written into their policy. They should stop worrying about the 'important people' and just simply 'do the right thing'. Start with retraining the customer service people to not be belligerent jerks. Next if you're going to stand behind some regulation to monitor accounts, staff it appropriately so innocent people don't get randomly locked out of access to their own money for 6 months.
    - Vivtek 15y ago
      No, no, I mean this guy claims that PayPal was not aware that Regretsy was having troubles with PayPal. Think about that. Think about the utter failure of management and customer service that that concept implies.
- prawn 15y ago
  The story is currently front page on The Age (major newspaper) website in Australia.
netmau5 15y ago
Here's a suggestion to their Director of Communications: communicate with a smiling face. Perma-frowns only work on people purchasing stock trading bots or MiGs.
leeoniya 15y ago
let us all acknowledge that HN front page is the new, uncorrupted BBB - it gets shit done.
ed209 15y ago
wow, unbelievable. I posted a comment to thepaypalblog.com and I've had two total strangers tell me that my email address is appearing in the comment input fields when they go to comment! They've both said that other people's details are also appearing.
davidu 15y ago
The Director of Communications needs a new headshot. I'm sure he's a swell dude, but his photo makes him look like he's about to pounce on you.
- einhverfr 15y ago
  Don't worry about him. He's just directing communications.
suhastech 15y ago
Great! You need to get on the first page of HN to get an "Issue Resolution". Everybody else, die in hell.
Cieplak 15y ago
Moral of the story: get your issue frontpaged on HN or Reddit and someone will fix it

114 points by kmfrk 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Great, it was resolved once it was picked up by some media and someone high up at PayPal realized it was an issue. Nothing about the bad customer service, nothing admitting to any kind of wrong-doing - just "we are truly sorry that it happened" Being sorry it happened and working towards preventing it from happening in the future are two very separate things, and PayPal is only saying the first. Can someone take these guys out already (Stripe?)

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- niravshah 15y ago
  No, I agree - re-read my comment, I don't think they admitted to any wrong-doing at all.
  - citricsquid 15y ago
    I misread your comment, apologies heh.
  - dominik 15y ago
    "In this instance, we recognized our error and moved as swiftly as possible to fix it." It's not clear what "error" they're admitting to, but it seems as if they're admitting some error, however ill-defined.
morrow 15y ago
I've used stripe and it's definitely a breath of fresh air, but as I understand it, most people won't bother switching away from paypal to something without international support. Stripe's working on that: https://stripe.com/global https://stripe.com/global but otherwise there isn't a good international alternative to paypal at the moment.
kmfrk 15y ago
I get the impression that Customer Service is something subsumed under PR in the corporate chart of PayPal. Did PayPal respond to this as customer support, or was it just damage control?

angelbob 15y ago

This is a really amazingly tone-deaf response. We may only hope that somebody like the Daily Show takes them properly to task for this.

jacoblyles 15y ago
> We may only hope that somebody like the Daily Show takes them properly to task for this. I'm probably too old to understand this. How does that solve anything?
- angelbob 15y ago
  They've already released Regretsy's money (says the tone-deaf, possibly inaccurate response). So solving matters is just to convince them that they will have more trouble getting away with this in the future. I believe Jon Stewart can help with that.
nroach 15y ago
It really isn't that bad, under the circumstances. They did some things right: 1) Acknowledge a problem in a timely manner (assuming the really did only get escalation one day ago) 2) Provide specific information on what is being done to fix the problem (working w/account holder, making a donation as a mea culpa) 3) Explain limitations on resolution (legitimate constraints on public comment for privacy-protected matter) What wasn't done well was: a) letting it get this far to begin with b) failing to explain how future problems will be prevented by policy changes
- westbywest 15y ago
  I'm really only seeing damage control as Paypal's motivation behind this statement on their blog. I wonder how many other folks have had the same problems with Paypal's inconsistent application of their policy (when not just outright obstruction), who don't have the same resources to make noise as the woman running Regresty. And whether they will get similar resolution.

y3di 15y ago

At the very least, regretsy gets a donation to help their cause. Which, despite all the problems paypal caused, is one good thing to come out of all this.

redthrowaway 15y ago

When will Paypal and other companies that take this "under no circumstances say anything with substance" tack to PR learn that it's utterly counter-productive? Anyone who would be motivated to read the blog post had first read regretsy's side of the story, wherein Paypal comes across looking petty, immature, and unprofessional. None of that is addressed by this blog post, so the only takeaway for readers is that your only recourse if Paypal seizes your money is to raise a giant stink about it and cause them another PR headache? All they had to say was, "Our representative was enforcing our policy, but unfortunately did so in a way that we didn't intend, and without the respect and courtesy we expect. It can be easy for someone who spends their day dealing with scammers to see wrongdoing where there is none, and we're sorry that happened here. Regardless, scammer or not, we expect all of our representatives to deal with customers courteously and professionally, and will redouble our efforts to ensure that happens in the future. We sincerely apologize to regretsy and offer our commitment to improve. We would like to assure both regretsy and the community at large that customers remain our priority, and we will do everything in our power to earn your patronage." That's it. An honest, humble, apology, and you wouldn't have people running around the Internet saying Paypal are a bunch of childish crooks.

amirmc 15y ago
> An honest, humble, apology... Agree with your sentiment but if they had said what you suggested, it probably wouldn't have been honest.
baddox 15y ago
It seems to me that your proposed statement isn't yet out of the question. I interpreted this statement as basically saying "Don't worry, we've got real people on this, but we've not resolved anything yet." To me, that's better than them waiting for days or weeks with no acknowledgement, then issuing a complete statement like you recommended.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  You bring up an important point, which is the speed with which they've addressed the issue. That deserves commendation, and is a very smart move on their part. It nips the story in the bud, which is important. That said, this does not read as a preliminary post. It's titled, "Regretsy Issue Resolution". It makes no promises of further updates, and just says that they're dealing with the issue privately. That's their right, but I think it's a PR mistake. There are two issues in this case: 1) regretsy being treated as a scammer, and 2) the behavior and tone of the paypal representative. This post addressed 1 but not 2, and it doesn't look like there will be a second. This is a missed opportunity on paypal's part to turn the incident into a PR win.

kvirani 15y ago

Moral of the story is: when wronged, make noise, and make it well.

andrewvc 15y ago

Why, on the blog, does the Director of Communications at paypal use a headshot that looks like he's trying to stare you down before killing you? Oh wait.

JshWright 15y ago
For more than a couple seconds, I was confused as to why they had a picture of an angry Mr. Bean attached to the post.
- Technopia 15y ago
  I had the same confusion too initially lol
ianstormtaylor 15y ago
Absolutely the first thing I noticed when reading that article. It fits with the tone though at least...
danbmil99 15y ago
He looks like the guy on the Sopranos who said "satisfaction guaranteed, or double your garbage back!"

rhizome 15y ago

I wish there was a way to assassinate a corporation.

tfb 15y ago
<easierSaidThanDone>Build a better product and market your ass off!</easierSaidThanDone>

brndnhy 15y ago

He looks like a really nice guy.

conductr 15y ago

Paypal would have been better off without this message. I read the Regretsy story yesterday, didn't think much of it - typical Paypal customer service, I've read those stories 1000 times. Now that I know it got someone's attention at Paypal that is "important" and could have done "right" in one way or another but they blew it. At very least they could have refunded them their transactions fees! Paypal now looks worse in my mind than if they would have said nothing.

navyrain 15y ago

So Regretsy gets a (potentially) reasonable human to look at their case only after making a media fuss? This is pretty troubling, as for every Regretsy out there, there are many more smaller fish who will continue to get quietly screwed, simply because they cannot attract the attention of the media in the same manner.

rohit89 15y ago
1 - Write blog post 2 - Go viral 3 - ??? 4 - Profit Jokes apart, this seems to be the only to get attention from a company. I wonder if there is a startup opportunity here.
- lsb 15y ago
  There is, called a PR firm, if you don't want to write up your own blog post and submit it everywhere. Perhaps a consumerized PR firm that takes contract copy editors, submission bots, and some sentiment analysis to gauge the response of a NYT writer to a potential story (two lawyers suing each other far less emotional appeal than kids' xmas gifts getting shut down), and voila. Insta-noise-machine.
- mchanson 15y ago
  This is sorta consumerist.com's model.
Tangurena 15y ago
This has always been the case with PayPal. They deliberately make it as hard as possible to actually contact a real human, and then act all surprised if the victim manages to get enough publicity to get past the barriers. http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/06/9252348-paypal-says-our-bad-on-regretsy-charity-scandal http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/06/9252... PayPal's business model seems to be based off of Kafka's novel The Trial.
- waqf 15y ago
  It's not just PayPal. It's whole industries. Airlines. Banks. Google. Seems like it's any industry which (i) has high startup costs so is dominated by big players and (ii) can cost you enough money in a single incident that you'd get seriously upset.

InclinedPlane 15y ago

I am somewhat mystified by the level of paypal hate going on here. The major issue here was bad customer service (something that google, and even say Mojang, for example, seem to get away with quite easily). A big problem here is people acting with good intentions and believing that somehow that should be a shield to the world. Unfortunately, even the best intentions can't shield you from having to comply with business, taxation, and financial regulations. Make no mistake, regretsy was in the wrong here. Paypal was in the wrong here too, but mostly because they were rude and unhelpful in enforcing a legitimate policy enacting legal and regulatory requirements.

nhangen 15y ago
No, the major issue was not customer service, but the way they locked them out of the funds.
pseudonym 15y ago
The backlash here is comparable to EA's banning of users from their single-player games, I would say. Shitty customer service is crappy, but the backlash is greater in proportion to the criticality of the asset in question. In Paypal's case, the asset is cash, which naturally flips the "fuck you guys" toggle in people in general a bit faster than, say, not being able to log into the Minecraft forums.
- citricsquid 15y ago
  > not being able to log into the Minecraft forums Ha, some of the anger I've seen from our users would make you think we're stealing millions of $ from them when they have an issue.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  Certainly. But any business will have issues with cash and institutions. With banks, with customers, with the government, everyone. If you want there to be no friction ever for monetary transactions then be prepared to live in that world and make sure to express that opinion at the polls, there's not a ton banks and/or paypal can do on their own to make that world a reality without simply going rogue and abandoning all pretense of legality. Also, re: minecraft it hasn't gotten much press but some people have had problems actually getting the game after they've paid, and in most examples the customer service they've gotten has been atrocious to non-existent. This doesn't just prevent people from logging into forums, it prevents anyone from playing on any public server and makes it a lot harder to even install the game or get updates (basically forcing people to pirate the game). Not that I'm saying Mojang should be raked over the coals for that, but it's not such a dissimilar situation.

Terretta 15y ago

> "In this instance, we recognized our error and moved as swiftly as possible to fix it." — eBay I wonder what those defending eBay in the earlier thread will think of this.

eykanal 15y ago

Unfortunately for them, I closed my PayPal account last night. One too many stories like this for me, thankyouverymuch. If I ever need them again to buy something I'll purchase without logging in, anonymously, like most people do, manually entering my credit card info. I'll pay that price.

elemeno 15y ago
Which will do nothing. Unless you're someone who's using PayPal to collect money, there's remarkably little reason for them to care if you're logging into an account to pay by credit card, or paying 'anonymously' by credit card without logging in. If you want any change from PayPal then you need to persuade people to stop accepting money through it, since that's the only way you impact their ability to collect fees.
- mark_up 15y ago
  Lobby Stripe to go international. https://stripe.com/ https://stripe.com/

exit 15y ago

how could a serious pr department attach that photo to any statement?

vaksel 15y ago

if they want to make real impact, they should be changing their policies...not just releasing the funds in this one single case. if the only way to get good customer service is to get millions of people to support you, then you aren't doing it right

Bobby_Tables 15y ago

I'll believe it when I hear it from Regretsy...according to their blog (http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/06/breaking-news/ http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/06/breaking-news/), they know as much about the resolution as we do...

JadeNB 15y ago
This is almost as disturbing to me as the original announcement—make a prominent post saying that you're working on the problem, let it get lots of attention, and then (apparently) ignore the issue. Well, it didn't work very well for AirBnB (http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare...), and hopefully it won't work for Paypal, either.

VonLipwig 15y ago

I really like this from PayPal. They have nipped the issue in the bud. They are making a donation to boot. It seems to me that both Regretsy and PayPal are at fault. Regretsy for using a button with implications they didn't realise. Paypal for not making these issues clear and what looks like some shocking customer support. I hope PayPal look into the customer support issue but that aside the issue is resolved. PayPal have publically admitted fault and are taking steps to correct it. Good on them. PayPal gets a lot of bad press. I do feel though if you look at the quantity of transactions they deal with and the amount of rules and regulations they have to work with they are doing an alright job. The could improve in areas but lets face it.. what big company couldn't.

longlistener 15y ago
How long have you worked for PayPal?
- VonLipwig 15y ago
  Oh someone posts an unbiased comment against PayPal.. must be working for them! It is the 'in thing' to bash PayPal at the moment. Just because you take a sensible view doesn't make you an employee.
kevinalexbrown 15y ago
Regretsy for using a button with implications they didn't realise. I think that's a little bit of a stretch, along the lines of "Facebook users complaining of privacy violations are at fault for using a service whose implications they didn't realize" - I mean it's true, in both cases, but assigning equal levels of fault is a little bit much.
nknight 15y ago
If they're going to make a fuss about it, PayPal shouldn't even make the "donate" button available without getting explicit agreement from the customer to clear, unambiguous rules. And no, sticking it in their giant ToS doesn't cut it.

blahedo 15y ago

> "For background, we have clear guidelines for any business that uses PayPal to accept donations." That doesn't appear to be true. This post lays out the actual content of the relative PayPal policies: http://thegreengeeks.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/why-paypal-is-wrong-regarding-regretsy-according-to-their-own-policies/ http://thegreengeeks.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/why-paypal-is-... and assuming the screenshots are not doctored, those policies do not seem to be particularly clear, nor do they say that documentation is required other than for officially registered non-profits.

longlistener 15y ago

Apparently now they're refusing comments on their blog because theres so much negative backlash.

ck2 15y ago

Last night we became aware of an issue lol, so which big media company contacted y'all for an interview? I guess this is going to be the future of getting PayPal to do the right thing - you have to make it to the top of a social network somehow to embarrass them. PayPal has promoted tipjars for over a decade now, this was just stupid.

Vivtek 15y ago
You know, that is exactly the point here, isn't it? Why wasn't PayPal already aware of it? Clearly, the answer is simple: why should they be? Until somebody important gets in touch with somebody important, nothing has happened.
- longlistener 15y ago
  Paypal was aware of it, as they claim its written into their policy. They should stop worrying about the 'important people' and just simply 'do the right thing'. Start with retraining the customer service people to not be belligerent jerks. Next if you're going to stand behind some regulation to monitor accounts, staff it appropriately so innocent people don't get randomly locked out of access to their own money for 6 months.
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    No, no, I mean this guy claims that PayPal was not aware that Regretsy was having troubles with PayPal. Think about that. Think about the utter failure of management and customer service that that concept implies.
prawn 15y ago
The story is currently front page on The Age (major newspaper) website in Australia.

netmau5 15y ago

Here's a suggestion to their Director of Communications: communicate with a smiling face. Perma-frowns only work on people purchasing stock trading bots or MiGs.

leeoniya 15y ago

let us all acknowledge that HN front page is the new, uncorrupted BBB - it gets shit done.

ed209 15y ago

wow, unbelievable. I posted a comment to thepaypalblog.com and I've had two total strangers tell me that my email address is appearing in the comment input fields when they go to comment! They've both said that other people's details are also appearing.

davidu 15y ago

The Director of Communications needs a new headshot. I'm sure he's a swell dude, but his photo makes him look like he's about to pounce on you.

einhverfr 15y ago
Don't worry about him. He's just directing communications.

suhastech 15y ago

Great! You need to get on the first page of HN to get an "Issue Resolution". Everybody else, die in hell.

Cieplak 15y ago

Moral of the story: get your issue frontpaged on HN or Reddit and someone will fix it