The cads who carted off my card – an update

A few days ago I mentioned that one of my debit cards had been compromised by parties unknown who had apparently gotten into Forbidden Planet International’s customer database. This was a frustrating and somewhat frightening experience; since that debit card was tied to my Paypal account, any money that came in for DVDs or eBay auctions would just evaporate as the thieves tried to spend whatever they could on the card. The good news is that there just wasn’t a lot of money there; they managed to rack up four fraudulent charges, and only two out of the four were major – and even then, they were amounts that a lot of people wouldn’t describe as major. But hey, when that’s your source of income…it’s kinda major.

I also have to admit that I’d heard enough Paypal horror stories that I wasn’t looking forward to having to fight to get everything resolved. Conventional wisdom seems to lean toward Paypal not doing a thing to help when its customers have a problem. Fortunately, I can report that, at least in this case, conventional wisdom is way off the mark. I called rather than trying to discuss things by e-mail, and got an extremely helpful fellow named Joel on the phone.

The funny thing is, when something similar happened some time back with my other debit card – which draws from my (now nearly dormant) credit union account – I had a hell of a time getting assistance from, or even pounding a basic understanding of the situation into the thick collective skulls of, my local credit union. Paypal, being a company was born and lives on the internet, got it – there was no problem in explaining it to them.

Less than a week later I have every cent back that I was missing. The debit card’s been cancelled and its replacement is due just any day, and I bet that, unlike my credit union, Paypal won’t issue a replacement card that has exactly the same number as the old one (true story!). In something like a grand total of four days, the entire situation was completely resolved to my satisfaction.

I’m still aware that Paypal’s not a bank, etc. etc., but this is one case where the outcome was pretty dandy. I have a feeling that a fair few Paypal horror stories are actually Clueless Or Scummy eBay Seller horror stories. Since I sit at home, produce DVDs and ship them out as my primary source of income, I really have to be able to trust the outfit I’m using to process payments, and in just over a year of using Paypal for that, this is the biggest speedbump I’ve hit – and I consider it successfully navigated.

OK, end of cheerleading session. Promise.