Re: OT: Completely OT: PAYPAL does it suck?

On 11/22/06, Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Philip Newton" <philip.newton@...>
> >
> >> Recently, though, I purchased a book from them, the book arrived from
> >> England, and it charged me seventeen pounds.
> >
> > I'm confused what "them" and "it" refer to in your sentence.
> >
> >> Didn't PayPal pay the publishers????
> >
> > If you ordered directly from the publisher and paid by PayPal, then
> > presumably, yes, PayPal paid the publishers -- and charged you first
> > so that they had the money. I'm not sure why you'd consider that a
> > problem (they're not going to pay money out of their own pocket, are
> > they?), so presumably I'm missing some piece of the picture here.
>
> Both you and Gary seem not to understand me.
Indeed. Hence my "presumably I'm missing some piece of the picture
here" -- I was unable to identify the antecedents for your pronouns,
and therefore misunderstood you. Apologies.

> I paid for the book through
> Paypal.  Why then would the book arrive with a bill from England asking for
> the amount due?  Seventeen pounds.  THAT'S what I meant.
Ah, thanks for the clarification.

That would, indeed, be unusual.

Was that the same amount you had paid through PayPal? In which case it
might well be a... do you call them "pro forma invoices"? Something
which says how much the book costs, but more for your records than a
request to be paid, since they should already have been paid.

If, indeed, it was a real bill, then I'd wonder whether the
publisher's accounting department had messed up, and I'd try
contacting them (if possible, quoting the PayPal transaction ID which
you should be able to find out through your PayPal history). Oh, and
the amount and the date on which you paid, of course.

> I don't want to be in arrears for this. Nor do I want to pay twice.
Quite understandable.

> I need
> to check my Paypal account and see that they got my money, and I need to
> write to the publishers and tell them that the book should be paid for,
> shipping included.
Sounds like a good idea.



On 11/22/06, Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
> Oh God, I think I already did.  I clicked on one of those pages, because the
> book I got from England had an account due form.
>
> It asked me for my email and for my password; I had forgotten my password so
> I logged out.
On 11/22/06, Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
> Now I'm worried that I responded, after all my experience, to a fake Paypal
> warning, thinking that my account hadn't gone through properly.  I gave the
> effers my scaves account, asked for a new password, and then left it in a
> panic.
>
> OTHER PEOPLE: What damage have I done to myself?
I'll venture to say: little. You provided them with an account name
(which, if they're scammers, should be of little value without the
corresponding password), an email address (which might net you more
spam[1] in the future), but no password.

[1] "SPAM" in capital letters is a trademark of Hormel, referring to
canned meat. "spam" in lower-case letters is a colloquial term for
unsolicited email. See also http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm .

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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