Ads on Forum pages

**grumpyoldlady** · July-02-09, 08:03 PM

I've never had ads or website links to the left and right of the message thread section. Today I've got them.....is this something new, or how can i get rid of them?

ccbatson · July-02-09, 08:40 PM

Looks like a recent tweak to the site... overall it looks nice IMO.

DetroitDad · July-02-09, 08:40 PM

So we can support our favorite sites by clicking the ads, in theory.

I'm all for it, we all have to eat, and I can only imagine the money that has gone in DetroitYES. Lowell, one suggestion. Another site I visit regularly has ads, but you can pay/make a donation to have an ad free version. That might be something to consider.

ccbatson · July-02-09, 08:42 PM

It is not intrusive as is IMO. Much better than lobbing pop up bombs as too many sites are prone to do.

**1KielsonDrive** · July-02-09, 08:48 PM

Yep, I'll definitely take these ads over the pop-ups. Uh, oh, did I just agree with Bats? Oooohhhhhh,noooooooo!!!!!!! I take it all back. Please help me..... I'mmmmmm meltingggggg........

ccbatson · July-02-09, 08:49 PM

You are allowed a handful of rational thoughts before the liberal emotional thinking police come after you Kiels.

**Lowell** · July-03-09, 12:17 AM

Originally Posted by grumpyoldlady

I've never had ads or website links to the left and right of the message thread section. Today I've got them.....is this something new, or how can i get rid of them?

Yeah sorry about that; this costs a lot of money to operate. Got a better idea?

**grumpyoldlady** · July-03-09, 03:15 AM

I much prefer this over pop-ups. My original post was just because I was wondering if somehow some kind of settings had changed for my account making the ads visible. I do like the general layout better, and may find some of the ads to be something I want to check out.

**East Detroit** · July-03-09, 08:37 AM

Originally Posted by Lowell

Yeah sorry about that; this costs a lot of money to operate. Got a better idea?

Maybe not better, maybe additional... but how about allowing Paypal subscriptions?

Not for any additional functionality but just to allow people who wish to donate over time an easy way to do so [[and not forget to do so).

Lorax · July-03-09, 09:11 AM

My experience with Paypal was the worst you can imagine. Suffice to say, they are an unregulated bank, wholly owned by Ebay, and have destroyed thousands of people's bank accounts through egregious errors. They are allowed to operate with all the benefits of a regular bank, without even the standard oversight accorded regular brick & mortar banks.

They require you to link your checking account to them, so they can add, or remove funds, at will, and when errors are made, they routinely settle disputes in favor of the wrong party, leaving you to pay the bill. This happened to me, and when I moved to close the account [[there is no way to do so, they don't provide a link) you must go to your bank and request Paypal be removed as an automatic drawer, which they won't do. You must close your regular bank account, and reopen another, order new checks, all at your expense, of course.

Corporate fascism at it's worst. I would never participate.

**Sstashmoo** · July-03-09, 09:45 AM

Quote: "My experience with Paypal was the worst you can imagine."

I've read the few horror stories about PayPal, then there are the millions who use it and have no trouble whatsoever. The people that get in trouble with PayPal are those who run scams, selling defective merchandise to people, not shipping what they sold, etc. The big lie is, if someone purchases something via PayPal they have 60 days to just request a refund no matter the circumstances. That's a lie. It goes to arbitration and if it is deemed that the buyer was indeed scammed, the buyer get's there money back immediately. If a product was shipped, the seller must receive it back before a refund is issued. Which comes out of the sellers account, if not there, then their checking account, if not there then they legally seize the sellers' checking account [[where all the horror stories come from) and pursue legal action to collect the money they had to refund. They are out that money due to the sellers negligence, and they want it back. Also the buyer really only has 30 days, and 45 days in the most extreme cases.

Lorax, what you're alleging would be grounds for lawsuits up the yang. PayPal would have been gone years ago.

Lorax · July-03-09, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by Sstashmoo

Quote: "My experience with Paypal was the worst you can imagine."

I've read the few horror stories about PayPal, then there are the millions who use it and have no trouble whatsoever. The people that get in trouble with PayPal are those who run scams, selling defective merchandise to people, not shipping what they sold, etc. The big lie is, if someone purchases something via PayPal they have 60 days to just request a refund no matter the circumstances. That's a lie. It goes to arbitration and if it is deemed that the buyer was indeed scammed, the buyer get's there money back immediately. If a product was shipped, the seller must receive it back before a refund is issued. Which comes out of the sellers account, if not there, then their checking account, if not there then they legally seize the sellers' checking account [[where all the horror stories come from) and pursue legal action to collect the money they had to refund. They are out that money due to the sellers negligence, and they want it back. Also the buyer really only has 30 days, and 45 days in the most extreme cases.

Lorax, what you're alleging would be grounds for lawsuits up the yang. PayPal would have been gone years ago.

You are really so wrong on so many levels.

I knew you would try and twist this into blaming the victim, and holding up the corporate fascists as all-knowing and benevolent, as Rethuglicans are prone to do.

In my case, I bought an 1100.00 Venetian glass lamp from a California seller, which was sold to me as perfect, without chips, cracks, etc. It was professionally packed at a pack and mail store, bomb proof packing. The package arrived without any damage to the box, and upon inspecting the lamp, it had a large fracture in the glass body of the lamp.

The damage had always been there, and was not a result of shipping. No debris in the box, etc. The seller was "surprised" at the very obvious fracture, I sent photos. I requested a refund, went through the proper channels, returned the lamp to the pack and mail store in California as requested, and was awarded a refund.

Two weeks go by, and I get an email from Paypal asking that I please fund my account to the amount of 1100.00, since they had re-opened the investigation, and decided to reverse the charges to the seller.

This was out of the clear blue, no warning, no ability to ask a question. When I did finally get to speak with someone [[via fax) they said the seller harangued them every day for the two weeks with letters, emails, calls, [[the seller was able to get a person, apparently) and told Ebay that I had returned a different lamp than the one sent to me- a boldface lie!

The pack and mail store was required by Ebay to verify the returned merchandise as the same as sent, since it was over 250.00 [[Ebay's rule) and did so, which prompted the refund to me in the first place. Now they wanted me to fund my paypal account, since there wasn't 1100.00 bucks in it at the time, because THEY HAD ALREADY REFUNDED THE SELLER!

If the funds had been there, they would have taken it, but rules at the time forbid them from taking the available balance, which now they can do, thanks to lax regulations pushed through congress by Ebay's fascist CEO, Meg Whitman working with Tush's Banking Committee. Today, if this happened, which it has to thousands of others, they would have treated it as an overdraft, and then demanded the unpaid balance.

This is when I closed my account. I wasn't going to allow the fucked up people at Paypal to take my money, and still be without the lamp! They mistakenly refunded her, not knowing whether or not I would fund the account and clean up their mess.

What really freaked me out, is that Paypal admitted that the seller had filed an internet fraud report with her local police department, saying I had returned a different lamp, but refused to produce that lamp. I had photos of the lamp from the pack and mail store when I returned it there, so I had the proof I needed, but Ebay said since she filed a police report, that was all they needed to refund her, and asked me to pay for it. It didn't matter that I was in the right, and had proof.

This went on for a month, and I have a file to this day, two inches thick of paperwork relating to it.

Read any blog on Paypal's crimes, and you will see tens of thousands just like mine.

Anyone who blindly trusts these fascist corprate masters is really deluded.

**Sstashmoo** · July-03-09, 02:04 PM

Temperature changes and sound waves can break glass. They thought you broke it and wanted your money back. Was it not insured? Seems that would have rectified the situation.

**1KielsonDrive** · July-03-09, 02:16 PM

Thanks Bats, you're a real swell ....[[guy)! Or is it a real swell girl?

**Meddle** · July-03-09, 02:36 PM

Paypal is even worse than has been discussed here so far. I would not recommend anyone use it.

Lorax · July-03-09, 05:14 PM

Originally Posted by Sstashmoo

Temperature changes and sound waves can break glass. They thought you broke it and wanted your money back. Was it not insured? Seems that would have rectified the situation.

Insurance would have covered it had it been broken in transit. It was not. The fracture was an old one, since it even had dust/dirt in it. She was trying to pass off damaged goods, and got paid for it, and got the lamp back.

Paypal is corporate fascism at it 's worst.

**Detwa** · July-03-09, 05:25 PM

Hmm, I'm sorry you guys have had such bad experiences with Pp. I've used them since they launched, I think 2002? Maybe even earlier, I know I used them even before eBay purchased them, probably as far back as 2000. Never had a problem. I had issues twice with eBay sellers who didn't deliver and Paypal refunded my money and closed the seller's accounts, but both instances the sellers had received numerous negatives from others during the same period, so it wasn't an isolated situation.

There's a link to close your account right in Profile. I've closed and reopened mine a couple of times over the years. Just go there and click and follow through, that's what I've done. And as far as the 'recurring payment agreements' where you authorize Paypal to pay a certain entity over and over, such as GoDaddy or other, you can delete and cancel those in your Profile also, under Recurring Payments. I've had to do that often when I terminate my service with the company, I just go in there and remove their payment agreement. Never had a problem with Paypal continuing to take money or continuing to give money. I use them for my businesses both as a buyer and seller.

I guess its like everything else, your mileage may vary [[YMMV). Or maybe I'm never dealing with that much money to make a difference, maybe they don't notice me, lol.

Lorax · July-03-09, 05:37 PM

When I tried to close my Paypal account [[this was about three years ago) there was absolutely no link to close it anywhere. You had to call, which doesn't work either, since no one ever picks up the phone.

Since it was linked to my regular checking account, BofA, my bank at the time, said the only way I can deny Paypal access to my account is to close it, and open another, which I did.

**vetalalumni** · July-03-09, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by Detwa

There's a link to close your account right in Profile. I've closed and reopened mine a couple of times over the years. Just go there and click and follow through, that's what I've done.

... your mileage may vary [[YMMV). Or maybe I'm never dealing with that much money to make a difference, maybe they don't notice me, lol.

Same here - no problems with PP after several years of usage [[under 10 transactions/year). Also relatively small dollar amounts though. And against small value pre-paid debit cards.

DetroitDad · July-03-09, 06:48 PM

Paypal is trash. You might be indifferent with them until you have a problem, until then you are just very lucky.

A good gripe site made by just a few of the thousands of screwed over customers; http://www.paypalsucks.com/

Save yourself the grief in advance and avoid Paypal like the plague!

**Sstashmoo** · July-03-09, 07:07 PM

Paypal sucks is a website to sell this:

http://www.merchantinc.com/

DetroitDad · July-03-09, 07:11 PM

Originally Posted by Detwa

Hmm, I'm sorry you guys have had such bad experiences with Pp. I've used them since they launched, I think 2002? Maybe even earlier, I know I used them even before eBay purchased them, probably as far back as 2000. Never had a problem. I had issues twice with eBay sellers who didn't deliver and Paypal refunded my money and closed the seller's accounts, but both instances the sellers had received numerous negatives from others during the same period, so it wasn't an isolated situation.

There's a link to close your account right in Profile. I've closed and reopened mine a couple of times over the years. Just go there and click and follow through, that's what I've done. And as far as the 'recurring payment agreements' where you authorize Paypal to pay a certain entity over and over, such as GoDaddy or other, you can delete and cancel those in your Profile also, under Recurring Payments. I've had to do that often when I terminate my service with the company, I just go in there and remove their payment agreement. Never had a problem with Paypal continuing to take money or continuing to give money. I use them for my businesses both as a buyer and seller.

I guess its like everything else, your mileage may vary [[YMMV). Or maybe I'm never dealing with that much money to make a difference, maybe they don't notice me, lol.

For one, Paypal has bragged about it's lack of customer service. In the past they purposely made it very hard to find a contact phone number, since that brought them bad publicity, they often just don't man the phones.

Paypal also is one of those companies that has very shady terms of service you must fill out in order to use their services. Basically, you waive all protection that the credit card laws give you, and allow them total access to all your accounts at their discretion. So, say someone says you didn't send them said product, Paypal has been known to just charge your credit card or bank account to refund the buyer, without proof, and you can't do anything about this since you waived your right to make a dispute with your credit card company.

There have been several class action lawsuits that resulted in settlements for doing just this sort of thing. For Paypal, these lawsuits are viewed as a price of doing business.

Then you have the problem I had. You see, Paypal will freeze accounts for any suspicious activity, but they don't tell you that. So, when my new business had it's first larger than normal purchase [[$2,690... it was a pinball machine), I was told my account would be frozen until they could review the purchase. Fine, except that it took them over six months for them to get to me. My calls to Paypal would often go unanswered, and the E-mails returned would basically say tough cookies. Meanwhile, I was expected to ship this product without any income from the business, while my customers went elsewhere, unable to make payments.

Paypal destroyed that business, as my reputation was ruined. My customer's thought that I had surely done something wrong in order for a big company like Paypal to feel the need to freeze my account. Unfortunately, random account freezing is a regular practice of theirs.

DetroitDad · July-03-09, 07:16 PM

Originally Posted by Sstashmoo

Paypal sucks is a website to sell this:

http://www.merchantinc.com/

Well then here are some other site's for you. The sheer amount of them speak for themselves, including ones posted by consumer reports and another by PC World;

http://www.pcworld.com/article/10152..._problems.html

http://www.paypalwarning.com/ [[Includes info on various lawsuits and a great collection of user submited horror stories).

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/paypal7.htm

http://www.aboutpaypal.com/

http://www.screw-paypal.com/horror_s...r_stories.html

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news...co-summary.php

**Sstashmoo** · July-03-09, 07:43 PM

Well sure, there a lot of cases where the relationship went south, you're dealing with people and money, recipe for disaster. PayPalsucks has been around a long time, they used to be much more blatant about redirecting their visitors to some other website with another product in competition with PayPal. Now it just looks like a banner. It's a good scam, no shortage of pissed off folks to chime in and help out. Think about it, one could do that with anything. DTE, the phone companies, etc. Matter of fact there are consumer complaint websites all over. They would come across much more credible if they weren't trying to sell an alternative.

This bit about signing away credit card protection, I'm no lawyer, but that sounds like total nonsense, you can't sign away rights, they are protected by laws. That's like saying you can do whatever you want to someone, regardless of the law as long as they agree to it.

Also, claims of not being able to call them is not true. They have a phone number and they do answer.

Lorax · July-03-09, 07:49 PM

Bravo to all of you who have stepped up and spoken of the fascism practiced by the unregulated bank known as Paypal.

Meg Whitman, the right wing wacko who drove Ebay to the brink, and was asked to leave with a 60 million dollar gift bag, is contemplating running for president in 2012. Another fascist who drove her company into the ground, much as Carly Fiorina did at Hewlett Packard, and try to reinvent themselves as "political strategists" or "right wing commentators."

Watch her next move, some say it's president, perhaps governor of California. Since she's had such great experience at running failing organizations, the state of California would be well suited to her "talents."

Ebay, for those who use it regularly, must have seen how the quality of what's offered has slid precipitously in recent years, and many sellers will only accept Paypal, as per the "rules" of Ebay. Many will take other forms of payment, though are chastized for it by Ebay, and there is no ability to enter another form of payment other than Paypal when posting items.

What selling forum on the internet forbids paying for items in cash, check, money order, wire transfer? Ebay requires Paypal only, so they can get access to your bank account. Period.

You really have to jump through hoops to pay with another tender, and it really has destroyed Ebay- that and the endless fees for selling which have been a ripoff for years.

It really worked well for so long, problem is, when the corporatists get ahold of a company, the big screwing begins.

Whitman wasn't content with Ebay being an American only firm, with a finite growth potential- it had to become a bank, sing and dance, and nickel and dime it's patrons to death in order to "maximize" profits. The greedy freaks just love to destroy a good thing in the name of profit.