My wife got an account-suspension message from PayPal today. She dabbles in the buying and selling of Persian rugs, so she thought it might be that: perhaps it was some new US crackdown on anything with any sort of connection to Iran. But she checked the transaction number and that was not it. The problem was that she had used PayPal to buy a copy of Lonely Planet: Vietnam, a travel guidebook. This, apparently, was thought of by PayPal as regulated or prohibited by the US government. It's all because of National Security. She has replied, with a bunch of helpful suggestions. She bought the book from US company Amazon, so sanctions should be imposed on them. Lonely Planet publications are owned by the BBC, so sanctions should be imposed on them. She bought the book to see where we should visit while we're in Vietnam in April. We'll be staying in hotels booked through US company Expedia, so sanctions should be imposed on them. We'll be travelling to Vietnam on a Boeing 787, made by US company Boeing and sold to Vietnamese company Vietnam Airlines. We do not know whether Vietnam Airlines paid for the planes by PayPal, but they might have done. Sanctions should be imposed on Boeing. On the day she violated strict PayPal rules designed to protect the US from evil foreign enemies such as Vietnam, the American President was ... erm ... in Vietnam. Sanctions should be imposed on him. I am enormously impressed by how well PayPal is protecting you. You can all sleep safely tonight knowing that people won't be buying Vietnam travel guides. We can only dream of being so well protected in Australia.
i ordered a tv from vizier, and the cc transaction wouldn't complete, 'contact your cc company'. turns out stolen cards are most used to buy electronics, and you have to clear it with them first. who knew?
A few years ago, someone skimmed my dad's credit card and used the details to make an online purchase. He bought a TV, and had it delivered to his house. Surprisingly, when he opened the door to the TV delivery guy he was expecting, it turned out to be a policeman. Muppet.
Musk sold PayPal just as a class action suite was being inacted for locking accounts, but PayPal looking after your well being, anything you say comrade
Thanks! I had ordered some noise canceling ear buds that never arrived. I contacted the seller and they were going to send a refund. But your post reminded me to check. After 15 days, the refund had yet to show up in my PayPal account. So I opened a case with Ebay. Hopefully we'll see the problem resolved by the end of the month. Bob Wilson
FYI, I still needed some noise cancelling earbuds and found this: http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/11871cf05c62c838/index.html For $39 and free shipping, these look like the other pair I keep in our Prius Prime and adds a microphone for cell phone calls. Bob Wilson
You might want to check with the seller directly too: it could be that they've sent you a refund and you just haven't received it. My wife has had a few incidents recently where people have paid her through PayPal, and the money has come out of their accounts but didn't appear in her account until she called PayPal. She knew that these people had sent the money, but there was no sign of it in her PayPal account; it should have appeared instantly, but didn't appear even after several days. In a couple of cases, it wasn't until she phoned PayPal and threatened to call the Banking Ombudsman (the Australian consumer banking regulator) that PayPal suddenly remembered that they did have the money and needed to give it to her.
i wonder if they're floating cash for the interest, like the wall street was doing until congress set a limit.
Yes - hence the ombusdman thing. The Vietnam incident I started this thread with certainly points toward a degree of incompetence. I mean, I know that, as Paul Hardcastle said in his classic song, "Eight to ten years after coming home / Almost eight-hundred-thousand men / Are still fighting the Vietnam War".... However, as PayPal ought to be aware, the war did end more than 40 years ago. And yet, someone at PayPal is, it seems, still fighting the Vietnam War.
It isn't for the Prius and would be illegal in many states as you're supposed to hear emergency vehicles. The noise canceling effect is for visiting bars to mute out: Music that was new when I was a teenager 50 years ago. "And then <someone> did <something> and I was shocked." . . . the usual bar banter that makes one glad not to be single . . . FYI, the seller and I already communicated once and the money didn't show up. Ebay has a resolution system that works but has to be 'turned on.' Part of the seller's payment goes to support this Ebay service, it happens. Bob Wilson
