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Getting Your Money Back From PayPal: Take ‘Em To Court!

This guest-post by Drew is a followup to our “How to get your money back from PayPal“.  Drew is currently fighting to have his funds released by PayPal.  You can read Drew’s first entry here: Getting my money back from PayPal

After I sent PayPal the formal letter asking for them to release my funds, etc., Paypal called me this morning, and said So What, give us documents between my vendors and their wholesalers. I said it’s not legal, so on and so on, and informed the person I will go ahead and start the legal process, first by filing all the complaints.

These are the basic steps I took to file my lawsuit against PayPal:

  • Write up a brief, 2-3 pages in length, outlining the case being filed, points of interests, legal issues, damages, rectification being sought. Once all completed, make 4-5 copies of it all.
  • Go to county courthouse, or federal courthouse. Go to Clerk of Court’s office
  • File lawsuit brief in small claims, or other appropriate offices.
  • Have clerk of court notarize some of the copies, to deliver a copy to the defendant or their legal representation. In Paypal’s case, 1 copy to legal dept in California, 1 copy to legal representative of the state residing in (in my case, Overland Park Kansas, even though I am in Iowa)
  • For Iowa, the filing fee is $35.  Federal court, filing fee is $85.
    Filing fee’s for each jurisdiction are different.
  • Although not required, make Lawsuit Public – Paypal will hate that tremendously.  Plus it will cost them much financial resources, just for the initial presence in court.

I am quite sure that Paypal got my email this morning after i finished all the complaints with the FTC, SEC, federal reserve, California attorney general’s office, and the California justice dept.  A lot of stuff, but i am ready to play the hard ball game, that will cost them a lot more than it is worth.   I am seeking 72 hours for their representatives from 1 state away to appear in court or face default judgment.

My legal points are as follows:

  • Paypal voided their TOS & agreement when they asked me to conduct criminal activities to get what they want.
  • Paypal is operating as a financial institution with power of seizure, without legal authority to do so.
  • Paypal is committing felony fraud (possible laundering activities going on as as well, since it seems to be widespread and ongoing), but just my own money is $2,253.36
  • Paypal is refusing to release funds, not belonging to themselves, which is called grand theft.

If they would not have ask me to commit a crime, then their contracts are legal. but once they asked me to commit a crime, their contracts became null and void. That is law.

*note, by asking for me to commit a crime, I can also ask for punitive damages. When they did that, it opened them up to being liable

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1 February 2010 at 08:46 - Comments
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Los Angeles Printing Service (1 comments)
Wow, you're actually going out of your way to sue paypal, but I'm sure them taking money has happened plenty ...
3 February 10 at 18:55
PowerPoint Templates (4 comments)
Your post has just encouraged me to move my funds from my paypal account to an area where I have ...
9 February 10 at 06:02

Get Your Money Back From Paypal : Drew’s Story

This guest-post by Drew is a followup to my “How to get your money back from PayPal” post.  Drew is currently fighting to have his funds released by PayPal.

I’ve been using paypal as my transactions processor for 3 years or so, and have been pretty active the entire time, since I sell a lot of stuff on multiple sites.  Anyways, During January 2010, i sold 150 items for under $20 on ebay… not one single issue and apx 130 of the 150 had already left positive feedback. not a single negative feedback, chargeback, or problem whatsoever. Everyone’s happy. … Except me.

I wake up Friday morning (January 29, 2010), planning to transfer the funds to my bank account, since all sales for the month had been completed… Low and behold, my Paypal account is frozen.  Paypal is asked for inventory descriptions, vendor invoices, and receipts.  I sent Paypal my vendor invoice (sales agreement), inventory listed of all the details.

Nope…. After providing what PayPal wanted, now PayPal wants more, and stuff there is no way I can provide, like written rights for being a reseller of the products by the manufacturer and even copies of my vendors contracts and sale agreements with their supplier (illegal as sin).  What? I don’t need rights to resell what i purchased wholesale from a distributor and Paypal sure does NOT have the right to require me to get a copy of my vendors contracts with their supplier.

Needless to say, it’s now a paypal horror story on the tune of $2,455.63. It took them 1 whole day to say they will hold my money for 180 days.. Great way to start off 2010….If you are a merchant and use paypal, this WILL be you soon. AVOID. Paypal is a scam, and is operating a criminal organization.

Me, most likely my online business is going to be annihilated, unless i can get back up to par fast. The entire amount in my paypal is what pays for my vendor balances. If I can’t get that paid, i am through. No job, no money, etc. I have signed up for moneybookers as a merchant, but am still awaiting a response for a few days now.

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31 January 2010 at 11:42 - Comments

More On Proxies & Idiots

Alex posted this question on my post about how to block proxies:

Wow…Your information has really helped me out! I host a site on Livejournal, so I don’t know if this will work, but even a hope is better than what’s going on now!

By the way, I tried out the whois tool, and I had several questions. Sorry to bother you with them, but if you have any idea about these things (and can enlighten a little ol’ site owner like myself), I would be so appreciative!

The person  harassing my site and trying to sneak in is known to use proxies to do so. I’m just having a hard time distinguishing which IPs are proxies. If I receive a message like the one below for 202.70.58.xxx (it says under their information “Proxy-registered route object”, among other things), does that mean I am dealing with a proxy user?
http://whois.domaintools.com/202.70.58.xxx

Also, if the person’s IP says the Netype was Reassigned, rather than Direct Allocation, does that mean anything significant?  I have so many questions, but I don’t want to trouble you, especially since I can understand how awful the trolling must be for you, considering you wrote this entry. Thanks so much for your time though! This has really helped me out alot, and I feel like this situation is no longer hopeless!

Actually Alex, trolling at our site isn’t all that bad – especially since I’ve successfully blocked a large percentage of web-proxies.  We still get the occasional clown that thinks he’s (or often, she’s) a genius by finding a new proxy, but it’s rare these days.  Besides, it’s actually entertaining to watch an adult act like a fool and make himself look like a retarded 14-year old.  I wonder if they would do this kind of childish shit if they knew their own children would find out about it?  Probably not – this is why the weak-minded hide behind the cowardly shield of a proxy.

Anyway, on to your questions:

These days I don’t even bother looking at things like Proxy-registered route object or Direct Allocation.  All I look at in the WHOIS is who the owner is.  If the IP is registered to a company like “FDC Servers” or “Ultimate Web Hosting”, then it is probably a server, and almost certainly a proxy.  Sometimes the registered name isn’t clear, so I do a Google search to see what I can find.  If it’s a server-hosting company it should be pretty obvious.  If it is an Elite proxy or TOR exit-node, that should also be pretty plain to see.

The IP you say is harassing your site is registered as “Mobile Network Provider” in India.  So it looks like some sort cellphone provider or maybe a mobile/wireless ISP.  This doesn’t tell me much, so the next step is to do a Google search on that particular IP address.  Most “normal” IP address will return only a few Google hits, usually less than four or five.  Your suspect IP returns 37 hits on Google, which makes it a bit fishy, but none of the results show anything that would make me think it is a proxy.  My cunning & proxy-hunting skills tell me that this IP might be a proxy, and at a minimum is some sort of shared computer, like at a internet cafe.

Here are some examples of IP’s that are proxies that you can run through WHOIS and Google to see what they look like:

  • 74.63.75.229
  • 94.102.153.2
  • 41.207.194.160

Compare the WHOIS and Google results for the IP’s above with your own IP and you should see a pattern.

Good luck in your asshole troll hunting!

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30 January 2010 at 19:50 - Comments

phpFreeChat and Drupal

Michael from www.melanoma.org contacted me and asked the following question about phpFreeChat and Drupal after reading my post from last year about chat options for Drupal:

Randy,
Saw your piece on chat options for Drupal, where you recommended phpFreeChat. Are you still supporting this as the best solution? We’re trying to do something for melanoma sufferers, and could use a robust solution that integrates well with the Drupal login.

Answer:

I actually gave up on using a chat-room at GrownUpGeek.com several months ago due to issues/problems and lack of interest from members.  But after finally making the upgrade from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6, I decided to look at all the chat modules for Drupal 6 in hopes that there was something better available.

Turns out that nearly all chat modules available for Drupal 6 are also available for Drupal 5, and I had already tried them all.  But after re-evaluating all of the Drupal 6 choices I again decided to use the Drupal phpFreeChat module.  The Drupal 6 version of phpFreeChat seems to work better than the D5 version as i’ve experienced less problems and issues with it than I did when using the Drupal 5 version.  We’ve had the (phpFreeChat) chatroom back online for a little over a month now and we have had virtually zero issues.  It integrates perfectly with the Drupal logins and permissions scheme which allows you to limit who can access the chat room and also allows you to create a “chat moderator” group for keeping an eye on your chatters.  Chatroom moderators can temporarily ‘kick’ members out of the chat or permanently ban members from chatting without affecting any of their other Drupal permissions/access.  One other note:  Members with the ‘moderate chat’ permission can also access the IP address of members in the chatroom, so if privacy is an issue with your members you may want to post a warning/notice and/or update your privacy policy.

So in short, YES, phpFreeChat is still my preferred choice as a Drupal chat option.

1 person likes this post.
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17 January 2010 at 11:26 - Comments