PayPal has chosen to reverse all personal payments to and from Indian paypal accounts. The following is the standard email notification that the receiving parties are getting:
Hello <user>,
Your payment of <xxx> has been sent back to the sender of the payment.
We reversed this payment because we have stopped allowing personal payments to be sent to or from India.
If this was a payment for a purchase of goods or services, and not a personal payment, then you may contact the buyer and have him or her resend the payment as follows: (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select "Goods," and (c) provide a shipping address.
If this payment was a personal payment such as a gift, then we have requested that the sender find another payment method until we restore personal payments to and from India.
We are trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we're sorry for any inconvenience.
Thank you,
PayPal
The known date for the earliest transaction reversed is 1st Feb 2010. DigitalPoint thread “India: Paypal Returning payments?” and several others are actively discussing this topic. We tried to reach the Singapore PayPal customer service and inquired if there was any policy change, documentation, notification published or sent to the user. However they referred us to the US customer support which currently is offline till the regular business hours resume. Several paypal users who received these payments report their account balance going into negative.
Update 1 —
Dear <user>, Thank you for contacting PayPal. I understand that you want to know why the payment you received for $<xx.xx> USD from <user> is reversed. This payment was sent as Personal. We have stopped allowing Personal Payments to be sent to and from India. We are aware of this issue and I sincerely regret the inconvenience it has caused you. We are trying to resolve this as soon as possible. Below are the details: Personal Payment - Send Money for India Accounts · India customers are no longer able to see the option to send a Personal payment on the Send Money page · They can continue to use other payment options, such as eBay checkout. If this was a payment for a purchase of goods or services, and not a personal payment, then you may contact the buyer and have him or her resend the payment as follows: (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select ‘Goods’, and (c) provide a shipping address. If this payment was a personal payment, such as a gift to a friend or family member, then we request that you find another payment method until we restore personal payments to and from India. Although India customers are unable to send Personal payments, they are still receiving Personal payments from Non India customers. · In order to stop ALL Personal payments TO and FROM India accounts, we have started reversing Personal payments sent by Non India customers starting today. (the only exception will be in cases where the buyer has included a shipping address – we don’t want to delay any shipment of goods) · Emails will be sent to both sender and recipient to let them know why the money was returned and what options they have to proceed forward. (see attached for examples) · We are also in the process of implementing a change on the website to automatically stop the payment from processing, rather than waiting to reverse the payment. We will send you additional updates as soon as we have more details. The Personal payment option on the International Send Money page has been updated and India has been removed from the ‘select a country’ drop down list. · If the payment was for a purchase of goods or services, and not a personal payment, then the buyer may resend the payment to the seller by following these steps on the PayPal website: (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select ‘Goods’, and (c) provide a shipping address. I'll be glad to hear from you if you need clarification, please email us again and we will try our best to give you immediate answers. Thank you for choosing PayPal for your online payment needs. We appreciate your business. Sincerely, Dayna PayPal, an eBay Company Copyright© 2010 PayPal Inc. All rights reserved. Consumer advisory: PayPal Pte Ltd, the Holder of the PayPal™ payment service stored value facility, does not require the approval of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Consumers (users) are advised to read the terms and conditions carefully. Got more questions? You'll find answers at our improved help center. Click "Help" on the top right corner of any PayPal page to get started or you can visit www.PayPal.com/101. Original Message Follows: ------------------------ Form Message customer subject: Clarification on personal payments being reversed. customer message: Transaction ID: 'xxxxxxxxx' Additional Information: 'The payments we receive are being reversed. Can you please clarify your stand on "personal payments" to and from India? What is a personal payment? We accept donations for our free software. What is the solution/workaround for this issue?'
We’ll keep this post updated with the latest so keep watching this post for more information. You may want to digg this story and spread the news. Also read PayPal Debacle: 15 Lessons Learnt.
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{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
I got similar emails, first they delayed the withdrawls and then reversed transactions. Though their email says they are reversing personal payments, they have clearly reversed several of my ’services’ payments too.
Will be watching updates on your blog and have subscribed to comment notification. Another hour to go before we can call paypal US.
Hi,
I too encountered similar problem. It is practically very difficult to use wire transfer as they deduce $ 20 for all transactions below $ 1000. It is going to be really big issue.
It’s time someone gave PayPal a competition. Monopoly is not good for the market. Secondly this will cost PayPal its reputation — no one is going to trust them again. PayPal still hasn’t come up with an official statement and the customer service is just repeating the instructions in the emails. Feel free to share any PayPal alternatives if you know.
A call to their customer care and an email got the same response. They haven’t even updated the policy on the website. I have already put 2co on my site.
What are the best alternates available for receiving payments online?
Their transaction fee is too high. They do business with the money we keep with them.Instead of giving interest for our money, they charge a hefty transaction fee.
8$ for 200$, and another 3.5% in converting the $ to rupees.
Seriously, it’s time to explore other options for receiving payments.
Personal payments to and from India have been suspended while we address some questions from our business partners. You can still make commercial payments. We’re trying to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
We’re working on an article about PayPal alternatives. As you all know already, we don’t recommend something unless we use it, see it for ourselves and review it. So expect quite a few articles in the coming days. There are not many alternatives though.
I think they have loose their money in paypal wishlist promotions and now they are going to recover that lost by removing personal payments.
To Paypal Team, this is not the way to recover your loss.
You have lost our trust, from now today I am going to use other alternatives.
Hi, I am looking alternative source for receiving online payments.
i think moneybookers is a good alternative. and they dont charge as much as paypal..
Does moneybookers allow fund withdrawal to India banks?
Another good alternative is Xoom.com. Its very easy to use, has low fees and best exchange rate I have ever seen.
http://www.xoom.com
Here are the email replies I received from paypal help rearding these issues:
Mail 1:
———
Mail 2:
———-
Thanks for the update Vivek. It is surprising how can a company like PayPal get away with such vague responses to customer concerns.
Just wanted to let everyone know that we’ve posted an update to the PayPal situation in India on our blog with additional details: https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2010/02/update-on-paypal-situation-in-india/
I heard that paypal has stopped doing transactions in India tough the reasons are not clear.And Alertpay are taking full advantage of this sending emails to all their Indian customers.
Recent issues with PayPal withdrawals to Indian Banks & more over payments just randomly being reversed back to the senders will have a deep impact on PayPal’s reputation. It raises so many questions like (THIS MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS):
A) Should we trust PayPal in future?
ANS: ABSOLUTELY NO
B) Are they really concerned about our Money?
ANS: ABSOLUTELY NO, After a long period of two weeks we receive an apology letter stating that “We are sorry we goofed up opps!”? and stuff like “Your money just got sacked since this is nothing serious to us we are just doing a drill of playing a game with your hard earned money”?
C) Is RBI responsible for this?
ANS: UNQUESTIONABLY MAYBE, So, Question is why this is happening in India and nowhere else? Question is why we are being kept behind curtains and dark? Question is why Moneybookers and other Payment systems are working but PayPal is not? you just want to exclude the RBI out of this since they are least concerned with us. Everyone failed here! RBI off course you cant expect them to give you a comforting truth so a comforting lie should suffice you! And PayPal Ow man no shit a multinational company failing to inform and notify of an issue of this magnitude. That was an AWESOME combination of purely frustrating, destroying & spreading chaos.
D) So what does PayPal tell us now?
ANS: “We are sorry, but your valuable to us so please give us another opportunity to goof up and play some more engaging games with your money” and “We just love to make more profits by giving you a pathetic exchange rate”
D) What now?
ANS: DTA (Don’t Trust Anyone) Get your sleeves up against them and find your own ways to get paid over any other medium that serves better, communicates better and keep them in plenty. If one fails other should work out.
Ive let all my clients know about this issue and advised them (in advance unlike PayPal) to switch over to some other Payment system which is reliable, responsible and does the main thing “ACTION” at PAR. The truth will probably be dead and berried RIP about what happened because the shame and disgust they bring upon themselves is apocalyptic now.
Trying to think of an alternative, looks like at the moment no one except PayPal works under RBI’s guidelines now. Xoom already has blocked funds transfer because of fears of similar enquiries by RBI. And now officially RBI has come forward to allow PayPal to do business in India. So unless you have a real merchant account, PayPal is pretty much the only option.
Hello there,
Anyone there with experiences with Xoom.com?
And Moneybookers?
Any reviews on those two services?
Anil: None of the other services have authorisation from RBI and the same may happen to them any day they are noticed by RBI. Xoom, because of this has even disabled transfer of funds between paypal and xoom accounts.