[shadowfax]

So tried to buy a small upgrade for my gear amounting to 24 Quid, had to click on a Paypal icon to complete the transaction so I became a Paypal guest..they promptly put the payment on hold to check for illegal transactions of money (apparently this is their duty according to a Brussels ruling) of course the money is gone from my debit card and held in their presumably interest bearing account, this went on for a week after which the vendor cancelled the transaction (at my request) I then asked Paypal to return the money, they said what money? I sent them all the details of the transaction and their response was that they can see no such transaction in my Paypal account,
I explained that I paid with my debit card and was forced to be a Paypal guest and said they should just return my money to the debit card..easy enough, happens all the time,
to cut a long story short this is still continuing and they are using all sorts of technobabble to keep holding my money, they are presumably doing this to millions of people all over the World..holding peoples money illegally and earning lots of interest on it, but getting away with it in this world of internet fraud...
I'm busy now trying to figure out who/what/where you report this kinda thing.
the moral of this story is..do NOT pay as a Paypal guest, they'll just put your money on hold forever...

[CaliaMoko]

Basically, PayPal works fine as long as everything goes smoothly. AND, if you don't pay as a guest (although, sometimes that goes smoothly, too). But if there's a snafu, good luck EVER getting it straightened out. I couldn't get a bank account verified sufficiently to pay anyone out of the country for any reason. I went back and forth with them for months. I finally closed that bank account and opened a new one. Very annoying. They need some serious competition. Although, anyone big enough to compete with them is going to have similar problems, I'm sure.