article about An open letter to Paypal

Thank you for taking my money.

During the years you've been so kind to me. Every time you allow someone to send me some funds, you are good enough to take 3.4%+ from it before the money actually reaches my account. But I know that's not fair. I guess that's why you need to take some more. Like the 2.5% (or more like 5%, it often seems) charge for any currency conversion, and a 1% international transaction fee to receive payments from another country. Which, of course, makes sense. With all the border crossings in the internet, it costs money to deliver the money to my door.

Sorry, I just remembered you never did deliver the money to my door. As it happens, I'm not a US customer, and I can only withdraw money via bank or credit card, which takes at least a day or two. But at least sometimes you're trying to leave an impression that my money is safe by putting a 24 hours hold on my withdrawal before actually sending it over. Thank you for that. You say that "At PayPal, our primary concern is making sure that your money is secure. We do this by routinely reviewing some transactions. We've placed your withdrawal under review and this will last for up to 1 business day. If it passes our review, we'll release it and the regular withdrawal timeframe will then take effect. If we can't release it for any reason, we'll contact you. We appreciate your patience while we review your withdrawal."

Have you noticed that you do that around 50% of the time? Have you also noticed that the "up to 1 business day" means EXACTLY 1 business day by the minute? I'm sure you check something during that time. And I'm well aware my withdrawals need to be put under review. After all, I have only used the same laptop to withdraw the money from Paypal for 3 years. If only it was four already, then you could probably finally see that it's really me.

And btw, thank you for notifying me about any problems your system may have, like a week ago when your programmers fucked something up and I haven't been able to withdraw any money to my bank account since. Sorry, I just remembered you probably also had a temporary email problem, as I don't really remember receiving any such email from you.

But at least thanks for replying to my support request with just 10-minute delay.

My bad, actually the first email you sent me was fortunately automatic, and assumed I hadn't searched the entire internet yet, or you know, your website, for the answer. And thanks for giving me links to the simplest questions and asked me to send you another email if I really-really feel I have a problem.

But at least you answered to my second email personally, only 24 hours later. And you gave me a temporary website address where I could make withdrawals to my bank account or my credit card. You forgot though, that I'm not in the United States, and I don't have US bank account, but something more local. And that I don't have a VISA credit card, only like a dozen on Mastercards, and you don't like the latter for withdrawals.

Thank you for replying to my email with these concerns personally, by giving me exactly the same information you gave me in the second email, again. I'm sure my email was too complicated to actually read, so I that's okay. At least you gave me a detailed time frame by when the bigger problem will be solved.

Sorry, my bad, actually you didn't have a clue. But you're "working hard to resolve this as soon as possible" which is always very helpful to know, and the issue has been there only for a week now, so there's no hurry.

And I'm really happy that you care about the quality of your support, and thank you for sending out a request for feedback about your customer support after those 3 extremely personal emails. And it's good to see that giving this feedback to you "should take less than 5 minutes to complete". Which is way longer than the time you spent working on my request. But that's okay. Thank you for that.

All in one, at least I am happy for you. While I have had problems with making the withdrawal,you have gotten your 5-10% share already, so at least that's good. I am so happy for you.

Sincerely,
Your happy client