PayPal hit by payment problems

Dear oh dear...

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Financial News, 21st September 2005 12:57 GMT

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PayPal has been hit by two separate technical problems that are causing transactions to appear more than once on some customers' accounts. Although the money is not actually being removed from accounts this can have the effect of freezing the account if spending limits appear to be breached.

Messageboards on PayPal's parent eBay are plastered with posts from irate customers.

We spoke to one Register reader and PayPal user who asked to remain anonymous: "This is legalised theft - the money is definitely coming out. PayPal need to admit what is going on and apologise - there's been no public statement. Bill Cobb(eBay's US president) should have a plan for people who can't supply their customers, it's alright for me but many people depend for their entire livelihoods on this site."

Power sellers on eBay live in fear of getting negative feedback from unhappy buyers. Transaction problems could mean sellers can't dispatch goods and get negative feedback - which in turn could hit future orders.

One posting on the forum apologises and explains that PayPal is currently working to fix two separate problems. Firstly some debit card users have seen transactions appear on their accounts more than once, although the money is not actually debited. This problem emerged last week and was originally believed to have been fixed - it now appears some PIN transactions are still being affected.

This message board has PayPal's explanation, and apology, for what went wrong.

The second problem hit users on Sunday 18 September when they were debited again for transactions made on the 8 or 9 September which cleared on the 15th. According to "amanda@paypal.com", posting on this messageboard, this issue has now been fixed. The post blamed a third-party processor for the problems.

A spokeswoman for PayPal UK said: "This is only a problem for users of the US site, not UK or Europe."

More details, in a non-forum format, from auctionbytes.com here.

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