Jon had an unhappy experience buying an old magazine on eBay (see here). It apparently got even better, once PayPal entered the picture:
Remember the magazine I told you about? The one with the $12 shipping?
It gets better.
I have a PC Financial chequing account associated with my PayPal account so that I can get money out of PayPal and into my bank. I do not keep any money in this account as I don’t want PayPal sneaking off with anything. Turns out that not keeping money in there was a bad idea.
When I paid for the magazine, PayPal first tried to use the BANK ACCOUNT, rather than my Visa, to pay for the purchase. The transaction was declined by PC Financial and I was charged a $40 NSF fee.
Forty. F**king. Dollars.
I just paid forty dollars to have Galen Weston f**k my ass.
PayPal then went ahead and billed my Visa for the transaction, which I what I expected them to do in the first place.
When the f**k did PayPal change how they fund transactions? They have ALWAYS billed my Visa for purchases — they have NEVER tried to pull the amount from my bank account before. I this something they have changed recently, or what?
Total cost for the magazine so far: $54.19
Expensive magazine! I asked if it was okay to post the follow-on to the original story and he wrote:
Be sure to highlight the bit about Galen Weston and my ass.
I know it’s not really his bank — it’s CIBC — but it’s his brand. Which somehow makes it even more of a rip-off.
Humph.
[. . .]
About funding the account: it turns out that what I experienced is their new default when you have a bank account associated with your PayPal account. I don’t recall being notified of that, so it’s my own damn fault for not reading the fine print, but still — that sort of change in behavior should not happen automatically.
[. . .]
Total cost for the magazine: $56.28.
Oh — on shipping: I looked up the shipping cost for the USPS Flat Rate Envelope the guy used. His surcharge was only $2.00 — the actual postage was, indeed, over ten bucks. Does not really make me feel all that much better, but I guess the guy was not really being a total jerk about it.
