Paypal/Stormpay are scamming people - Help

[KT2006]

I'm sure a lot of people know of this, where Paypal/Stormpay and other such payment processors like to find excuses to freeze people's accounts, and "hold" ALL of their money for 6 months "to protect against chargebacks" (but in actuality, technically it's THEIR money for that period of time and they are probably getting interest off of it).

Basically all it takes is one disgruntled customer who red flags you, and if you have enough money for them to "hold" to make it worth it to them, they will have no problem freezing the account, and you say bye-bye to all of your money for 6 months.

I had a site with video downloads of a "reality" type of TV show, basically people playing innocent pranks, messing with people at drive thru windows (sort of like stuff seen sometimes on David Letterman), all totally G rated.

I have one of those anonymous "disgruntled" persons who keeps tracking me and trying to cause problems, who apparently told Paypal something against me, and that's all it really takes. They froze my account (coincidentally right after someone paid me for a large unrelated Ebay purchase, hich I also used the account for), and they do NOT "investigate" anything, since it seems freezing accounts is more benefit to them than having you as an active customer.

This has happened to hundreds of people (see www.nopaypal.com) , but this is not where this story is going.
After 6 months I managed to get my money back from Paypal.

After this happened, however, I started to use Stormpay.
Little did I know, they were even worse, AND have also been connected to fraud in the past, and had legal actions taken against them because of some fraud they were connected to in Tennesee. (Some people think it's actually only one guy running the whole operation). I didn't know this at the time.

ANyway, again, they got "information" (from the anonymous disgruntled person, I can assume), that, get this, my videos were PORN. Uh, they were G RATED comedy videos with NO sexual content at all!

I can absolutely prove what the videos were, but, in actuality, it doesn't matter to them, since they keep stating their "User Agreement" leaves it totally up to their discretion.
So I don't even kno if I could "prove" anything. The videos are still there on my server, but they could claim they are different, or whatever they wished to claim. They don't bother to "investigate" anything, they WANT to freeze accounts with money in them, because that money is effecively theirs during the freeze time, since you CAN'T take one penny of it.

Now, Stormpaty has $300 of mine. 180 days have passed, and I contacted them for them to release my money to me.

This time, instead of sending me my money like Paypal did, they ignored every email (and no phone call will ever get to an actual person), for over a month. When I finally got on their nerves enough, they sent me one email, stating that they will, in fact, not send me my money, because now they claim that the videos were not only porn but CHILD porn, and since, child porn has a "higher risk of chargebacks" they are entitled to hold my money for 2 years....(?!) If I had CHILD PORN UP they should be contacting the FBI and I should be in JAIL! How ridiculous is this going to get?!
How are they allowed to do this?

Remember that these videos were G-RATED!
PORN? Now CHILD PORN?! Are they just making up whatever they wish (and by the way they never even had access to the actual videos to review them, and never requested access). If it wasn't them making it up, did it come from this anonymous disgruntled person? If so, how come the story changed from me supposedly having "a report" that I had porn as an excuse for freezing the account, to now, CHILD porn, as an excuse for not releasing my money after 180 days?

Even if I proved it somehow to their specifications, or legally, it wouldn't even matter, they are not interested in investigating anthing or any "proof" I can giuve, since I have offered it numerous times, since everything appears to be totally up to their discretion.

And in their User Agreement, unlike Paypal, they state that not only can they hold your money for 180 days ("in case of chargebacks"), but they add two words.... "a minimum" of 180 days.... Meaning that, technically, they NEVER have to send me my money?!

Their User Agreement is here:

http://www.stormpay.com/stormpay/user/about_us.php?v=u

I don't have the time or resources to hire a lawyer or anything, (and I suspect they know this), so what do I do here?

Please help!

 

[awasner]

Paypal

Paypal lost a case in 2004 related to this, it was US District Court, San Jose Division vs. paypal. There is a settlement web site. Part of the settlement, buried in all that paperwork, is a directive by the judge to quit freezing people's account unjustly and in violation of certain laws. Also, they must tell you in writing exactely why.

Getting ahold of a human being at Paypal who can help you is similar in difficulty to reaching a Middle Eastern Peach Accord. But it can be done. You call and ask for "resolutions". When you get the young person who answers be aware that they get screamed at all day long. Don't scream at them. Be calm. Explain that you really would like to talk to a supervisor, they will post a ticket for this, and a supervisor will be right with you.

Now the supervisors vary greatly in knowledge and authority. Often you have to call back, go through the entire process again, and get a different supervisor who is not a jerk. But they can INSTANTLY restore your paypal account even if you have not completed all the tasks they've assigned you to restore your account.

In my case I sold something for 4999$ and it flagged my account. So they put it on hold. Now they do this because so many people have charged back large purchases and Paypal has been left with nothing to show for it. You can thank the criminals for the way Paypal acts. But that doesn't mean they should treat good customers like that, and they still do so. The people that answer the phones have told me that they've tried to explain this all to management mainly so they don't get screamed at all day, but management still insists on treating it's customers like they are criminals until you can prove otherwise.

But they also do this for another new reason, and that is the US Patriot act. Under certain circumstances they are obligated by that new law to be sure you are exactely who you say you are, and not some terroist or drug smuggler. If they would mention some of these things in their letter explaining why your account was frozen it could save some very upset people.

But after reviewing Paypal's business practices and the fact that they are IGNORING the 2004 settlement agaisnt them, to me Paypal is nothing more than a very poorly run criminal enterprise. Dealing with Paypal is a nightmare, for you, in the making. It's better not to go there if you can help it.