DomainLore PayPal Issues

[Ben Thomas]

Looks like conglomerate business strikes again. DomainLore have had 40k put on hold while PayPal dip into their bank accounts to provide customer refunds.

Hi Ben,

As you might have noticed we have processed your pre-bid(s) refund several days ago.

To our shock, we started to receive numerous messages from Paypal this night, informing that our refunds can not be processed and were cancelled.

But you probably do not know, that Paypal has placed a holding freeze on over £40,000 on our account last week, when they saw 'suspicious' spike in sales.

Only after we provided all answers and extra documents to their enquiries, they explained to us, that this holding deposit is for the 'security' of customers and to ensure no chargebacks/reversals/etc will be taking place and *for any possible refunds*.

(We are not going to mention that we received only ~25k GBP in deposits, but they've put on hold all our money and balances in other currencies).

OK, what we can do about it, we started to refund all unsuccessful bids and sent about 18k back to all of you.

All refunds were processed via Paypal's option to issue a refund on the *original*
transaction. So that not only we are sending you your money back, but Paypal does a correct reversal and is also reversing fees (2-3%) which they charged us to receive all those deposits.

Now, the next is almost surreal - instead of issuing refunds from the money we received from you, actual money Paypal already received and put a freeze on them, supposedly *for your security* (but apparently for their needs), THEY HAVE TRIED TO TAKE REFUNDS FROM OUR BANK ACCOUNT. From our own funds not realted to Paypal, while still holding all your money and all our cleared money which were on our Paypal balance before.

Not just surreal, but also insane.

Some customers have already started to open disputes!

To say this is damaging our business would be an understatement.

Please bear with us while we are trying to resolve this mess Paypal has put us into. Please do not start any disputes, your money will be returned to you!

We all heard horror stories about Paypal but you never expect you'll
become a next victim. Apparently, they will make everyone a victim sooner or later.

We should all stop using Paypal. It is unbelievable in 2019 a company who profits from us can be so unfriendly and malicious to small businesses.

--
Regards,
DomainLore Auctions

 

[stevelook2]

I ditched PayPal for my business very early on as seeing in the t&c’s that they can even randomly withhold a customers payment over £200 for up to 30 days (or longer)

I use a Barclaycard terminal for customer not present over the phone payments or email a bacs invoice or even accept cheques as they only take a day to clear now.

 

[keys]

There are several reasons to avoid using Paypal. This is one example, not hard to find others and of greater magnitude. No surprise to me, but obviously a great inconvenience for those involved.

 

[ian]

I tend to request payment via bank transfer for domains, but for my other businesses, I use Stripe. Nice and simple, can use their UI directly, or integrate in to any website. I've encouraged Denys to do the same.

(or skip all that and just use crypto, anyone with me........anyone?!?! )

 

[Domaintial]

I tend to request payment via bank transfer for domains, but for my other businesses, I use Stripe. Nice and simple, can use their UI directly, or integrate in to any website. I've encouraged Denys to do the same.

(or skip all that and just use crypto, anyone with me........anyone?!?! )

We do the same, Stripe, or bank transfer for domains and other cos. Used to take crypto payments too, but its a faff and no ones really interested in paying with BTC anymore (value storing, bought high etc).

Recently done a few more escrow.com transactions on the domain front. Seeing as they finally support GBP natively, and provide easy integration methods for make offer and buy it now. Flipped our system generated landing pages to direct "Make Offer" and "BIN" straight into Escrow ecosystem, keeps it simple and safe for everyone

PayPal sucks. I still don't understand why people use it...

 

[ian]

Flipped our system generated landing pages to direct "Make Offer" and "BIN" straight into Escrow ecosystem, keeps it simple and safe for everyone

Got an example domain you can share?

 

[Domaintial]

Got an example domain you can share?

So this is irritating timing... just noticed we are getting: {"messages":{"currency":["Not a valid choice."]}} from escrow API... this was all working yesterday... either somethings happened to GBP support with escrow temporarily, or they are pulling native GBP support?



Edit: Comment out two lines, uncomment two lines, and bosh, no more escrow support on our landing pages... till they fix whatever nonsense is going on...

 

[Ben Thomas]

I moved to Stripe a longgggg time ago. PayPal are gangsters, I didn't ever use them for business because every time I made a transaction or personal sale through eBay it was always such a rip off with the fees etc. and they hold YOUR money for however long they like. Forget about it.

 

[Murray]

Paypal love to freeze and hold money

 

[dropped.uk]

Stripe here too. No issues whatsoever, money in the bank 7 days later. Refunds a breeze as they take it from your accumulated total before the next deposit.

I guess many registrars that opted for some form of payment up front or deposit have a load of admin to sort everything out (and issues to deal with!)

 

[Ben Thomas]

Unless you're Dropcatcher(.co.uk), then you're just winning.

 

[martin-s]

The only negative with Stripe is how expensive they are. Not in comparison to Paypal of course, but in comparison to a regular merchant account. Charging the same for debit cards as credit cards is a complete con!

 

[ian]

The only negative with Stripe is how expensive they are. Not in comparison to Paypal of course, but in comparison to a regular merchant account. Charging the same for debit cards as credit cards is a complete con!

Yeah that is true, though most merchant providers are moving away from a pence based charge for debit cards, and increasing their credit card and business credit card fees way beyond Stripe; I suspect it balances out.

 

[Domaintial]

The only negative with Stripe is how expensive they are. Not in comparison to Paypal of course, but in comparison to a regular merchant account. Charging the same for debit cards as credit cards is a complete con!

Not found an alternative to Stripe that is as simple to implement, fast to setup and deploy, and cost effective vs level of hassle.

If we get a client that wants to take card payments, as long as they are 1. a LTD company, 2. have a proper business bank account, we can have them taking card payments properly within a few hours... if that...

PayPal holds out due to their eBay tie up, secures their user base and use case... and consumers have the perception of better protection from fraud... which I will grudgingly admit might be the case... this is why it sucks from a vendor/merchant side I guess... but thats been the case since 0day or PP.

 

[Technolog1c]

A negative of Stripe is that they pay net, which means it can get difficult to balance books if you sell something for £20, and they pay you £19 7-10 days later.

 

[3gmedia]

Yes, had this from paypal this morning regarding refund from domainlore:

A refund by Autopay.uk was not processed successfully.

Please contact the sender of this refund for more information.

Transaction Details

• Sender's Name: Autopay.uk
• Sender's Email: paypal@xxxxxx
• Transaction Amount: £60.00 GBP
• Transaction Date: 6 July 2019
• Your Transaction ID: xxxxxxxxxxx
• Sender's Transaction ID: xxxxxxxxxx

Yours sincerely,

PayPal

 

[Domaintial]

A negative of Stripe is that they pay net, which means it can get difficult to balance books if you sell something for £20, and they pay you £19 7-10 days later.

Same with GoCardless though... its generally common place for payment processors to pay out the balance deducting their fee from the transaction. Payment processing services aren't subject to VAT in the UK... well thats what I've found from when I was building integration into GoCardless for something and getting really confused as to how to handle accounting for their charges

 

[martin-s]

most merchant providers are moving away from a pence based charge for debit cards, and increasing their credit card and business credit card fees way beyond Stripe; I suspect it balances out.

Not when 80% of transactions are debit card, as ours are. Our merchant account charges 0.425% for debit cards vs 1.4% with Stripe.

 

[ian]

Not when 80% of transactions are debit card, as ours are. Our merchant account charges 0.425% for debit cards vs 1.4% with Stripe.

Understood, but the change from pence to percentage certainly suggests prices will continue to rise. I remember when my fees for a debit card were 11p regardless of transaction value.

 

[Ben Thomas]

I actually don’t mind the 1.whatever % we pay on transactions. Stripe is a really good service and is very well maintained and has tons of integration options, the API is great and it’s generally a pleasure to use. I’ve not found a provider that compares so I’m happy to pay the fees per transaction. Although arguably we could fund a better option from the fees we pay sometimes, which can sometimes be quite large if the transaction is 4+ figures.