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- Jun 14, 2013
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So, I've been on a bit of a rant about payment processors lately, and I wanted to make one general thread about all the ones I've dealt with to see if there's a trend with other sellers and try to make sense of their policies.
I've been selling online for over 15 years with only a few problems in that whole time, yet lately I've been running into problem after problem with these crappy payment processors screwing over small business owners. The main issue I have with all of them is the lack of resolving anything....support just seems to exist to make you go away and stop bugging them.
Paypal is easy to setup, but it's like talking to the wind when you need help. They closed my business account and never gave me an actual reason. Nothing. And support on the phone was just there to listen to me rant and then tell me there's nothing they can do...no appeal, no recourse. So, I have no idea what went wrong after years of doing business and was given no way to fix it.
As far as I can tell it might have been a competitor move. I sell traffic on Seoclerks and many sellers there have lost their Paypal accounts (its all over their forum) without being given a reason, yet those SAME sellers, including myself, are still selling on Fiverr, where they not only still use Paypal, but even advertise in Google the traffic selling services they offer through sellers that you can purchase using your Paypal account. Say what??? Seems fishy to me.
Why does Paypal need 6 months to release a hold? What do they do with it during that time? Do they really think all your customers are going to request refunds??? LOL
Shopify put my payout on hold while I waited DAYS even to hear from anyone. I was told to contact support, which I did via email and chat and both were 100% useless in even answering basic questions. I swear the chat guy was Googling my questions to come up with answers, as even simple things he would say I'll be back in a few minutes. Took a half hour for 2 questions!! lol
Then I looked into it myself and found 100's of complaints from merchants, including on their own support forum, and Reddit, etc, where payouts were also put on hold, sometimes for MONTHS, which effectively killed their stores, as there was no cash flow to keep going. It makes no sense to continue processing orders you aren't getting paid for, yet Shopify said "rest assured" we can continue to receive orders. WHY??? Why on Earth would you want to spend out your own money to process and ship orders you aren't getting paid for?
Plus, on top of THAT problem Shopify was continuing to charge the sellers the monthly fee!!! So, they were making money from the fee, AND from taking a processing fee from the orders that came in while the merchant got ZERO.
Don't get me started on Stripe. I already have a thread for that here.
Skrill....yuck. Probably the dumbest one I've used, as it seems to serve no purpose.
Why are so many payment processors so difficult to deal with? I've also run adult sites for over 15 years with not ONE refund or chargeback...NONE in all that time, yet non-adult businesses get treated like they are selling something illegal. It's stupid!
What's even worse is that this is YOUR money these idiots are handling. They shouldn't have that much control over anyone's finances! I've seen complaints from sellers who lost a whole month of income from this crappy treatment....money they needed and depended on to feed their family, pay bills, etc. It's criminal behavior! They should at least be more transparent, but in most cases you don't even get a say in what happens to your own money. Sometimes they even use your money for their own purposes!
Something should be done about this!
Post your own thoughts, experiences, etc, below....
I've been selling online for over 15 years with only a few problems in that whole time, yet lately I've been running into problem after problem with these crappy payment processors screwing over small business owners. The main issue I have with all of them is the lack of resolving anything....support just seems to exist to make you go away and stop bugging them.
Paypal is easy to setup, but it's like talking to the wind when you need help. They closed my business account and never gave me an actual reason. Nothing. And support on the phone was just there to listen to me rant and then tell me there's nothing they can do...no appeal, no recourse. So, I have no idea what went wrong after years of doing business and was given no way to fix it.
As far as I can tell it might have been a competitor move. I sell traffic on Seoclerks and many sellers there have lost their Paypal accounts (its all over their forum) without being given a reason, yet those SAME sellers, including myself, are still selling on Fiverr, where they not only still use Paypal, but even advertise in Google the traffic selling services they offer through sellers that you can purchase using your Paypal account. Say what??? Seems fishy to me.
Why does Paypal need 6 months to release a hold? What do they do with it during that time? Do they really think all your customers are going to request refunds??? LOL
Shopify put my payout on hold while I waited DAYS even to hear from anyone. I was told to contact support, which I did via email and chat and both were 100% useless in even answering basic questions. I swear the chat guy was Googling my questions to come up with answers, as even simple things he would say I'll be back in a few minutes. Took a half hour for 2 questions!! lol
Then I looked into it myself and found 100's of complaints from merchants, including on their own support forum, and Reddit, etc, where payouts were also put on hold, sometimes for MONTHS, which effectively killed their stores, as there was no cash flow to keep going. It makes no sense to continue processing orders you aren't getting paid for, yet Shopify said "rest assured" we can continue to receive orders. WHY??? Why on Earth would you want to spend out your own money to process and ship orders you aren't getting paid for?
Plus, on top of THAT problem Shopify was continuing to charge the sellers the monthly fee!!! So, they were making money from the fee, AND from taking a processing fee from the orders that came in while the merchant got ZERO.
Don't get me started on Stripe. I already have a thread for that here.
Skrill....yuck. Probably the dumbest one I've used, as it seems to serve no purpose.
Why are so many payment processors so difficult to deal with? I've also run adult sites for over 15 years with not ONE refund or chargeback...NONE in all that time, yet non-adult businesses get treated like they are selling something illegal. It's stupid!
What's even worse is that this is YOUR money these idiots are handling. They shouldn't have that much control over anyone's finances! I've seen complaints from sellers who lost a whole month of income from this crappy treatment....money they needed and depended on to feed their family, pay bills, etc. It's criminal behavior! They should at least be more transparent, but in most cases you don't even get a say in what happens to your own money. Sometimes they even use your money for their own purposes!
Something should be done about this!
Post your own thoughts, experiences, etc, below....
