Does this mean PayPal discriminates against Chinese people?

[Senzhi]

Now Elina, coming to think of it: I also placed an order through your web site more than a month ago.

I never received one single reply from you regarding payment or order issues. In fact, nothing has happened at all ... except for an automated registration confirmation email.

Your products look indeed good and a lot cheaper than the competition.

But were you really mentioning "excellent service"?

[elina]

Senzhi，

When you answered my post in this thread, I immediately knew I have seen you before, since your signature “Serge Claes” is the same name registered on our site, and I’m sure I myself have written an email to you, titled with “Confirm Your Order”, if you don’t mind, I can upload my email sent to you on 9 Apr 2007 to this thread at once, do you agree?

[elina]

Please also see this explanation:

http://www.lovemandarin.com/help.asp?id=2#subject1

Please note:

We ALWAYS send out our emails within 1 working day after you place the order on our site or we receive customers’ enquiries. If after 3 working days, you still have not received our email, please contact us initiatively, in order to avoid the possibility that your coming-in email or our out-going email may be lost during transferring.

[gato]

The confirmation email might have been mistakenly labeled as spam email. It happens quite often.

[elina]

The confirmation email might have been mistakenly labeled as spam email. It happens quite often.

Yes, and we also say it here:

http://www.lovemandarin.com/help.asp?id=2#subject1

In addition, it’s said by some of our customers that sometimes our letters are put into their junk mail folder without any reasons, so please remember to check your junk mail folder if you cannot receive our email.

[Senzhi]

Elina, Gato,

I wonder how you manage to respond so quickly

Unlike many others, my emails gets double checked manually before it's forwarded to my inbox.

This means that there's actually people checking and filtering ALL emails for viruses and spam. This in Germany and the States (in that order).

Sounds crazy? It is but I'm probably one of the few people on earth that never receives one single spam email or a virus as a gift in his inbox.

False positives are also not possible. In case of doubt, I still make the final decision if an email is genuine or not.

Elina,

Please do not upload any email on this web site, for privacy matters.

I'm still willing to go ahead with that order. However, you need to keep in mind that I can only pay through Paypal or Visa.

As I understand your current problems, if you cannot process the order, that's fine. Just cancel it and let me know.

If you are willing to go ahead, send me a private message through here with your email details, as well as any other info you need. I will reply with a digital signed email.

oh ... and Gato ... with regards to another thread: Bien-sur que je parle le francais, mais je suis un vrais flamant

(and don't blame me for not using proper written french: I'm working on a Malaysian keyboard!)

[elina]

Please do not upload any email on this web site, for privacy matters.

I know that, that’s why I’d like to ask your permission in my above post, we are 训练有素的/ trained well to protect our customers’ privacy.

I’m afraid because our PayPal account’s limited to use, and using another new PayPal account will be highly blocked again, we cannot receive a payment through PayPal at the moment, I’m sorry for that. We have added Moneybookers payment method to our site, through it people also can pay us with a Credit Card like visa:

http://www.moneybookers.com/app/faq.pl?gid=1&qid=106

But if you don’t want to use Moneybookers, never mind, we can cancel your order. Thanks for your consideration.

[Senzhi]

Elina,

I don't like the use of Moneybookers. Their service doesn't justify the cost and the risk involved. The process seems also very time-consuming ... with the money of all registered users generating interest ... for Moneybookers. Smart financial business indeed.

To clarify: I'm talking about Moneybookers, no about your service.

For now, we'll just cancel the order. In the future, should your business be able to provide a secure payment method from abroad, or if the Chinese banking system gets their thing up to international standards, I'll be happy to do business with you.

Thanks for coming back to me swiftly.

[elina]

Senzhi,

Regarding Moneybookers, before we decide to add it onto our site, we have searched a lot of information in the internet, but we have not reserved the relevant messages. Just now, I did some search again, find the following links:

http://cache.baidu.com/c?word=moneybookers&url=http%3A//www%2Elingshengba%2Ecom/ls%5F24314%5Fa1%2Ehtm&p=c36cc706c7904eaf59bd9b78067a98&user=baidu

http://forum.taobao.com/forum-18/show_thread----7873002-.htm

http://blog.cnexp.net/more.asp?name=baiduxia&id=7327

I’m sorry, our English is not very good, so the information is all in Chinese. The feedback from the internet shows:

1. Moneybookers is as secure as PayPal, that’s a must we need to consider, because we will be responsible to the money of our customers as well as ourselves.

2. Moneybookers IS time-consuming for our overseas customers to use than PayPal:

http://www.moneybookers.com/app/faq.pl?gid=8&qid=707

http://www.moneybookers.com/app/faq.pl?gid=8&qid=710

http://www.moneybookers.com/app/faq.pl?gid=8&qid=711

But it’s very convenient than PayPal, for Chinese people to withdraw the money from the online account into our Chinese bank.

3. As I mentioned in the No. 22 post in this thread:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/12909-transfer-money-through-moneybookers&page=3

“from the information we got in the internet, PayPal always protects the benefit of the buyers and PayPal itself, mostly having the trend to be unfair to the sellers”. It seems that PayPal transfers almost all the risk to the sellers. This time, as I said in the No. 7 post in this thread: We use this PayPal account more than 1 year, but “PayPal arbitrarily got the conclusion of “this account is unusual or potentially high risk”, even there’s no a single customer’s complaint towards our account”. When we searched in the internet, there’re a number of similar cases like us concerning PayPal. But Moneybookers seems more reasonable than PayPal in this aspect.

So at present, Moneybookers is our best choice for online payment.

If you could take some time to read this thread:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/12909-transfer-money-through-moneybookers

You would find we’re considering changing a better website server in the near future (before the end of July I think), after that, we will consider:

http://www.beijing.com.cn/payease/b2c/overseacard.jsp, which can receive foreign credit cards, and needs to add some program into our site and needs the cooperation from the server provider.

Now I think of another solution for receiving overseas payment:

If my son can marry a foreigner when he grows up, it will make things more easily to go, by the way, he’s now 6.5 years old.

[cdn_in_bj]

Now I think of another solution for receiving overseas payment:

If my son can marry a foreigner when he grows up, it will make things more easily to go, by the way, he’s now 6.5 years old.

Or have him attend university/college overseas, this route will probably be more expensive for you but on the other hand you won't have to wait as long.

[elina]

I’ll try to persuade a principal in a university/college overseas to accept my son who is now in a kindergarten.

[elina]

We just found some other more information about PayPal:

http://www.shopex.cn/bbs/thread-30297-1-1.html

http://www.shopex.cn/bbs/thread-25111-1-1.html

Some other people who also think it’s unfair to the sellers.

The following 2 links are all in English, we have not much time and have not good enough English level to read them carefully, just put them here in case who’re interested to know:

http://www.paypalsucks.com/

http://www.paypalwarning.com/

[Luobot]

PayPal has been successfully sued in the U.S. for the games that they play. If you read their various agreements, you’ll see that they contradict themselves all over the place. So if you think you’re agreeing to something you’ve read in one place, it may be undermined, negated, or otherwise contradicted elsewhere. Of course, most people don’t read their unnecessarily long, convoluted agreements until after they have a problem. By then, their account and their funds are frozen for some indefinite (but probably painful) period of time.

[Senzhi]

In general, you should not put funds into any intermediary. For me, Paypal is convenient as they accept credit cards. As such, they do not request funds, but actually provide a temporary credit (albeit only after checking if the card is valid, which only takes seconds).

Putting funds into a service, just for the sake of a transfer is always risky over the net. Better just doing a money transfer from bank to bank, as they have consumer protecting regulations.

[Luobot]

To clarify my earlier post, I was writing from the perspective of the seller (e.g., Elina), not the buyer. Even if the seller brings their funds down to zero every day, if the seller’s account should be frozen, no new incoming funds will be accessible. This can put a small, online merchant out of business pretty quickly if they rely solely on PayPal to collect their revenue, while waiting an undefined period of time for a matter to be resolved. The cost to the consumer is the potential loss of good, small merchants, or higher prices, as the surviving merchant has to factor in the increased cost of doing business and pass it along.

To answer Elina’s question in the topic of this post: I don’t think that PayPal discriminates against Chinese people in particular. This is how they operate, and you willingly agree to it or you don’t.

From the perspective of a buyer, what I didn’t like about PayPal when I researched them around 6 months ago, was the following:

1 – You agree to resolve all disputes through PayPal and not through your credit card company (otherwise you’re in violation of your agreement with PayPal). This is a no-go for me.

2 – Within one of their several agreements there is a clause that entitles PayPal to share the information that they collect about you with their merchants (which I take to mean pretty much anyone they can make a buck from). So much for privacy. This is another no-go for me.

I think the safest way to buy online, if it’s available to you, is a direct credit card payment to the merchant using a “Virtual” Credit Card Number, which some U.S. banks offer. When I subscribed to CLO, they only offered PayPal, which I turned down. They then offered 2CO, and I’ve been paying my monthly CLO subscription via 2CO since December using a virtual credit card number, with good results so far. Paying feels no different than paying with your credit card. The fact that I set up a “virtual” credit card specifically for that account gives me another layer of protection.

For Elina, 2CO may be an alternative to PayPal in the long-run.

[flameproof]

http://www.paypalsucks.com/

http://www.paypalwarning.com/

I think it's really irrelevant. Paypal hat 100mio or so members. Some have bad experiences. Sure. In the very very early days I had a look at one of those hate sites. Actually, many people that complain had done violations of the agreed terms. On top, you read only one side of the story.

You simply have to be prepared for the day X. Keep your balance low, and have a "Paln B" ready to start.

Better just doing a money transfer from bank to bank, as they have consumer protecting regulations.

Than can cost US$15-40 per international transaction, depending on the bank. Plus, the receive may have some charges too. Plus, it offers zero-protection to the payee.

I think the safest way to buy online, if it’s available to you, is a direct credit card payment to the merchant

Safe for whom? Buyer or seller? All these nonsense talk about credit card safety for consumers is complete BS. Because, as a buyer you can always do a chargeback via your bank. The merchant will always lose.

If you think about opening a merchant account as a seller (I have one), then there is not much difference to Paypal. Transaction fees are similar, plus you have annual fees and sometimes monthly fees. And you have the same chargeback risks as with Paypal.

The only added risk you have with Paypal is the "Buyers Complaint".

Having a merchant account is not really worth the extra cost and hassle IMHO.

[Senzhi]

Luobot, Flameproof,

I was indeed talking about the consumer point of view. And I fully agree with you: nowadays, all regulations and policies tend to be to protect the consumer. Far less protecting the merchant.

Ideally, it should protect all parties in full. But I guess this is kind of an utopia ... you just have to look at all kinds of EU directives to understand where the world is going to.

Also, we all want to protect our money and know where it is or what it does at anytime. This is just normal, for as well consumer as merchant.

However, transactions on the net that are not real time (e.g. through intermediaries), do have a gray 'twilight' zone somewhere somehow. That's why I try to avoid them if possible, incl. Paypal.

Maybe we should go back to the old times of trade: I'll give you 2 sheeps for that cow of yours?

[elina]

Moneybookers also accept credit cards:

http://www.moneybookers.com/app/faq.pl?gid=8&qid=710

http://www.moneybookers.com/app/faq.pl?gid=8&qid=711

But I do admit that PayPal is more convenient than Moneybookers for our overseas customers to use (not convenient for us Chinese people to withdraw the money from the online account to our Chinese bank though), and it’s more famous than Moneybookers, so surely there’re more buyers prefer to use PayPal than Moneybookers. Now the question is: if we don’t know when/where/why we break PayPal’s regulation, so as to PayPal got the conclusion of “this account is unusual or potentially high risk”, even if none of our customers complaints towards our account, and PayPal refuses to give an explanation. Then how can we avoid there’s no the next time “freeze account”, or the next next time, even though we do our business sincerely and normally as before. Personally I think this kind of PayPal action is 霸道的/ arbitrary. Of course there may be “the other side of the story” that we even don’t know, such as I mentioned in the No. 19 post in this thread:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/12909-transfer-money-through-moneybookers&page=2

we have searched in the internet, and found there’re many reasons for PayPal to “freeze” a seller’s account, which is very complicated, such as if a person used a stolen account to pay you the money, then your account can be locked later, etc. etc.

http://bbs.e-gold.org.cn/archiver/tid-78.html

http://cache.baidu.com/c?word=moneybookers%3B%B6%B3%BD%E1&url=http%3A//hi%2Ebaidu%2Ecom/nju918/blog/item/85e4d213ea1ab6025baf53fd%2Ehtml&p=987d8e0786cc43b30be2977a5953&user=baidu

http://cache.baidu.com/c?word=paypal%2Ctos&url=http%3A//www%2E0sars%2Ecom/biz/acc%2Dorg%2Dbulletin%2Dpage%2Ephp%3Flid%3D040402&p=93769a45d58811a058bcd7354851&user=baidu

I think the two parties (buyers and sellers) are both right for protecting their own benefit. And as a merchant, we should find a balance for the buyers as well as for the seller (ourselves), for example, accept credit cards payment method, including Moneybookers (this is an intermediary like PayPal) and PayEase (this’s a direct one, maybe?), so that if our customers have some problem with us, they can also resolve the dispute through the credit card company.

This can put a small, online merchant out of business pretty quickly if they rely solely on PayPal to collect their revenue

have a "Paln B" ready to start.

I agree, so we list various payment methods on our site, instead of just One Way.

For Elina, 2CO may be an alternative to PayPal in the long-run

I think it does not support users in China, but thank you all the same.

[Luobot]

Elina, I think you’re absolutely correct that “this kind of PayPal action is 霸道的.” Sorry if you found that 2CO doesn’t support China (as I’m satisfied with them as of this writing), but it’s good that you have alternative payment methods. A direct credit card payment option would be best from my perspective, as I can setup a virtual credit card to handle purchases just from your site.

Flameproof, the full sentence of mine that you partially quoted above is: “I think the safest way to buy online, if it’s available to you, is a direct credit card payment to the merchant using a 'Virtual' Credit Card Number, which some U.S. banks offer.” I think this answers your question: “Safe for whom? Buyer or seller?” Using a “Virtual” Credit Card Number adds another layer of protection for the buyer. A pinch of prevention is worth a pound of form filing then waiting with your fingers crossed for things to get resolved. From the merchants side, the process is identical with any credit card purchase.

For anyone not familiar with this option, it's worth looking into.

[mrtoga]

I am very dismayed with Paypal, as I cannot get verifiied. It has been an outstanding issue for a year and a half now, and I have spent countless hours on the phone to them. I just get put on hold. Few things manage to provoke my ire, but Paypal are getting there:evil:

Apparently the Pope recently stated that limbo officially does not exist.

After dealing with Paypal these last few years I would beg to differ.