Enforced paypal account.

[frogeye1098]

Hi folks!

Why do paypal suddenly stop a 100% long-term user without any notice whatever from making any more payments?

When enquiries are made, after about an hour or so, or more, I am informed that I have to open an ebay account before I can make any further purchases or bids!

But I am a buyer only - I do not sell.

There was NO advance warning of this - and what if you have just made a 'buy it now' from a long standing and friendly seller? Even worse, from a 'first purchased from'?

Paxo all round! 

I have a 100% record and with only two-and-one-half 'grumps' against sellers over many hundreds of purchases and years!

I can pay via card on any other retailler's site but now, suddenly, not on ebay! Only 'not on ebay ' - other retaillers quite O/K!

WHY?

And it gets worse:-

Once, against the strong warnings of a family IT Security Professional, I tried to open an ebay paypal account.

Fortunately I heeded one of her A4 list of warnings and opened a dedicated and quarantined account within my bank and did not permit access to my other (and main) accounts.

Thank heavens I did!

On opening the account: chaos, incompetance, muddle, more chaos, incompetance, muddle. . . My bank's security alert triggered - account 'black-holed'  - card shredded;  you could make a movie out of it! Thank goodness I was a long-standing customer and they were ace!

Needless to say  this little fuss  closed the ebay account - permenantly - to the 'I told you so's'  from  family members and guffaws from chums who also had tried to  warn me off.

I can (and do) spend a fortune on books from Abe and Amazon and small booksellers each year, which dwarfs the ( considerable) sum I spend on stuff sold on ebay.

Not once has anyone else demanded that simply because I have an extensive 100% track record I must therefore open an OPEN-ENDED account!

To give anyone, any third party, any company unfettered access to a personal bank account is, to my mind, insane - also the view of a chum who is a banker!

I know far  too many family members, too many friends, too many business and technical associates who have had their fingers burnt!

But there we are: I can buy a book from a small shop via www and pay by card on paypal.

But paypal would not me do likewise on ebay!

'Tis a mad world, my masters!'

I will NOT be bullied or coerced into an acccount - if this means 'no ebaying' then so be it. They have genuinely lost nearly a hundred quid just today alone - O/K I probaby paid about 8% more - but so what?

I have already found that I can buy direct from a considerable number of sellers quite legitamately  anyhow - slightly less convenient for me - but again, so what?

Yes I am incenced, not just due to this issue but also because it chiles with yet more Big Company 'weight' and 'bullying' being thrown about (even in the States) by TTP / TTIP.

I grew up in a Quaker-run village near a Quaker-run city. Oh for the decency, honesty,  fairness and trust (remember those) that even ran to the likes of small builders and car salesmen (honestly!) and even to (admittedly just a few) politicians!

Any comments welcomed - some that I have received (privately) in support from sellers would not be safe to repeat in the public domain . . .

One last grump: I use a professional ISP / email service. They block at server all of ebay's emails - trash them - and then send me a long list defining in ghastly detail why they have done so!

No problem, oddly, with paypal which sails through.

I long for the march into the 'golden sunlit uplands' come the day when Amazon gobble up ebay! Oh please . . .  !