PayPal: Most Difficult Unsubscribe. Ever.
I don’t use Paypal. I don’t care about Paypal. Yes, I know you Ebay whores are baffled, but it’s true, there is someone who doesn’t care enough about retired Precious Moments figurines to expose their checking account to Internet fraud. Go figure.
Apparently, even more startling to Paypal there is someone who doesn’t care about their newsletters. Shocking, I know. Take a second to gather yourself before continuing. So, if you don’t care about Paypal, which if you haven’t caught on, I don’t, what do you have to do, to get off their email lists?
You have to fax a photo ID to Paypal.
No, I’m not shitting you. Yes, they really have created things this way.
How, you ask? Follow my path of woe, dear reader.
I start getting spam by Paypal. Apparently, they decided to start a newsletter. Good for them. I’m sure that’s what they need to thwart off the impending cock-punching from Google’s GBuy or whatever. Go newsletter.
So I get newsletter. Mistakenly, I think it’s a semi-reputiable company, and read through an entire page of fine print (pdf here) to find the unsubscribe link. Click. “To unsubscribe, log in to your account.” Damn it, I got the link from your email, you should be able to unsubscribe me automatically!
Fine, whatever. Click on Login.
“Enter name & password.” I don’t know. I don’t care abot Paypal. I just want off their damn newsletter. I try various passwords. None work. Fuck.
“Click here if you forgot your password.” Fine, click.
“Answer your security question.” What? I don’t know. I don’t care! Guess answers fail. I don’t care about Paypal, I don’t care about this account, I just want off their damn email lists
“Click here to email Customer Service.” Fine, click. Short explanation. I don’t care about the account, I don’t use Paypal, I don’t need my password, just please remove me from your email lists.
In a nutshell, their response:
1. Fax the cover page and following documents to 1-402-537-5734.
· Valid photo ID
· Bank statement, credit card statement, proof of address (phone or
utility bill) listing your CURRENT address
2. Click "Continue to Fax Cover Sheet".
3. Fill out the form and click "Print Page".
To unsubscribe. From a motherfucking newletter.
I hope Google fucking destroys them.
Update: Digg this. Hopefully if it gets on Digg, someone at Paypal will pull their collective head out their asses.
June 29th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm
“It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a “menu” of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.”
[…]
“Penalties
Each violation of the above provisions is subject to fines of up to $11,000. ”
… I say stick them with the CAN-SPAM violation and earn yourself 11,000 presidential flashcards in the process.
June 29th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Thanks Derek! I’m definitely going to give that a whirl. Now that I know they’re in violation of CAN-SPAM, I’ll see if the good folks at Slashdot, Digg, etc. are interested. =) If so, maybe that will help convince Paypal to let me unsubscribe.
June 29th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
I have gotten like 5 emails from paypal today. My account needs to be validated. My account needs blah this or that.
So I logged in and looked for any charges or transfers and saw that there was a transfer for 2 dollars in October from me to Paypal. And then it said that the transfer was in dispute.
What the hell though. All of sudden, 5 emails from paypal? What are they doing?
I removed as much info as I could from my account without actually killing the account.
June 29th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Um Bill…you might want to look closely at those “Account needs to be validated” emails - likely they didn’t come from Paypal and are probably “phishing” emails - hoping to catch a sucker.
June 29th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
100% positive it’s Paypal (unless it’s a Phisher with customer service :-)
Good point though — I typed in the URL myself to make sure I was hitting the right site.
June 29th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
I first thought this is to funny to be true. It does not matter if the email was from a phisher as long as the customer services response was from paypal. How can they think someone would do this to unsubscribe to a newsletter ?
June 29th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Unreal. Well, I dugg it. Well, I don’t dig what they’re doing - I think it sucks. But I digg it. Eh, you know what I mean.
June 29th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
this IS a scam - there are now scammers who have 800 number accounts and automated IVR Voip systems - they are after your ID and better yet your bank account info - DO NOT FAX THEM ANYTHING!!!!!
June 29th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
It is *not* a scam.
Not unless they’ve also hijacked the paypal.com domain.
June 29th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
All those passwords you typed in while trying to log in? CHANGE THEM!!!! NOW!!!
I hope it’s not too late. This is one scary phishing scam - I would have fallen for it myself.
June 29th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Nope, not a phishing scam. Paypal customer service really is that unbelievably bad.
June 29th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Bill. Paypal itself is a phishing scam. Watch out!
June 30th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Gosh, being old and not all that computer savvy doesn’t sound so bad after reading this. :)
July 10th, 2006 at 11:00 am
still think it isn’t a scam?
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2160004/cyber-criminals-talk-voip
July 10th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Yes, because I called the paypal support #, finally relented and was unsubscribed.
It’s not a scam.
July 27th, 2006 at 4:57 am
I’ve validated my account, done EVERY step to “Unlimit” my account. It says “we will review your account in 3 working days” ITS BEEN FUCKING 2 MONTHS.
I’ve sent them, 54627 emails asking them what the fuck is wrong, and they keep telling me to go to the NON-EXISTANT “Fax Information” link.
So I give them screenshots, walkthoughs and everything, and they reply with the same fucking email.
Talk about bullshit.
July 27th, 2006 at 11:36 am
As Derek said, report them under the CAN-SPAM act.
October 11th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
I JUST WANT TO VENT ABOUT PAYPAL ! Piece of shit motherfuckers!
FUCK WWW.PAYPAL.COM - fuck paypal FAQ - fuck paypal sutomer service - fuck the retards in their horrible call center - fuck the 3 hour wait times - fuck everything about the bastards. GO GOOGLE BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THEM! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Litteraly, lets see Google staff head over to paypal head office and take a huge dump on the front steps! Then go inside with a baseball bat and break some fucking heads!) Assholes - I AM SO FUCKING FED UP OF THE PAYPAL BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 31st, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Got a problem with paypal?Tell them about it.
Complaint-response@paypal.com
Ive sent them atleast 30 emails and at this address they answer every one.Usually with a prewritten response but atleast they actually have to read you telling them to go fuck themselves.Want to send it anonomously?Then get torpark and set up a hotmail account.
http://www.torrify.com/download.php
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
They obviously need a wake up call. Very rude to customers etc. We will be starting up our own business to replace Paypal, a better place for customers in this growing society of online buying. Yes, better customer relations and a more reliable service. Let it be known.
-See you soon