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It is very true that PayPal sucks! They are so disgusting that sometimes they will even block verified customers from sending money online! You have added your credit card verified it. You have added your bank account and verified it. You might have even faxed in your utility bill and ID card for verification! And yet they can still LIMIT your account one day without giving you a good reason!

The first time it happened, I was trying to make 2 PayPal payments. Both were subscription payments (recurring basis). You know, when the other party has completed their job for you according to the terms and it is time for you to pay, BAM, PayPal doesn't let you through!!!

After clicking on my vendor subscription link and logged in using my verified account, it shows

You have exceeded your per transaction limit. To lift this limit, click View Limits on you Account Overview page.

Every PayPal user knows it. The last thing you want from PayPal is called "LIMIT"! Knowing your PayPal account is limited is like knowing you car is being stolen! I jumped into my "Account Overview" page to look for the limit. But there is no such thing as limit in my account! There is nothing unordinary showing in my account!

So I ignored the error and clicked on the "Pay" button, hoping that the transaction will go through. But unfortunately, it didn't.

Your account information has changed. Either you clicked "Pay" more than once but the original transfer was already made, or you just received money. To check, please view your account History and make sure you want to perform this transaction.

The error message is way too wrong. I didn't click "Pay" more than once. A check on my transaction history also indicated that there was no transfer made. And hey, I really wished I have received money! But I didn't.

This is not fun. I have promised someone the payment. Imagine if you have won a bid in eBay and you want to pay but you can't? That will piss the seller off and guarantee you a negative feedback.

I tried to explain to my seller and at the same time, emailed support and "wish" for some help.

The first reply came in.

Hello, my name is Kelly, I am very sorry to hear about the situation, and understand your frustration and concern over this issue. I will be happy to assist you with your questions.

I understand you want to know why you could not use your credit card to make a payment at this moment.

Upon checking your account, we found that you tried to make payments out several times, but all of them failed.

Now please let me explain the reasons to you.

To ensure the integrity of our network, PayPal may take security measures, which may affect some accounts in good standing. We regret any inconvenience may have caused.

PayPal employs complex statistical models to identify patterns of behavior. This is similar to the way banks and credit card companies
identify patterns of behavior those are abnormal when verifying individual transactions. When our system rejects a certain funding source for a transaction, it is merely an indication that the individual transaction fits a pattern may cause a high risk of failure.

If your transaction has been denied, you may be able to complete the transaction with another funding source such as U.S. bank account or PayPal balance.

In addition, I would like to recommend you not to pay at this time. Please take another try after 3 to 4 days with your credit card.

You may contact your seller and explain the reason why you can not pay
him now. Hope he can understand your situation and let you pay him at a later time. If you need make this payment urgently, you can choose
another funding method.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused you.

If you need any other further assistance, please do not hesitate to
contact us.

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal.

Sincerely,
Kelly
PayPal, an eBay Company

The good news was that they reply fast. But the bad news was I still can't make a payment. The clue we have right now is "PayPal may take security measures, which may affect some accounts in good standing." which translates to "I can lock your money anytime I want."

But I was angry because I am trying to pay just $20 while my account is having 4 digits balance! And I am not trying to use my credit card as claimed in the reply! So I shot back an email telling them so. They replied.

Hello, my name is Susan. I will be happy to assist you with your question regarding your PayPal account.

I understand that you wonder why you could not make a payment from your PayPal balance.

I checked your PayPal account and find that there is sufficient balance for you to pay $20.00USD. Generally, if you have sufficient balance of certain currency, the payment will be first charged from your balance. But if our system decides the transaction contains higher than normal risk at the moment, you may try to make this payment later.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

If you need any other assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal.

Sincerely,
Susan
PayPal, an eBay Company

So that's still being equal to, "I can LIMIT you anytime I want and you really can't do anything about it".

Frustrated, I shut down my PC and went to sleep. Waking up the morning, I tried the payment again and all the limits were gone!

So, is that just a "nightmare"? That's it? That's it? I hope it won't happen again. But You Wish! It happens again and again! The only way for me to handle that is whenever it happens, I can show them this post and hope that my seller can understand my situation!

PayPal Sucks!

Related:

- PayPal Web Hosting

First of all, if you haven't know it yet, BlueHost and HostMonster is technically the same web hosting company that are owned and operated by Matt Heaton. Basically they share almost everything from pricing to office address to servers and to staffs, except the name. More discussions are in my Host Monster review.

Knowing that, some people will have the dilemma on which one to choose! And that's why in this post, I will explain why I am biased towards BlueHost.

Reason #1 - Age & Brand

If they are brothers, Blue Host is born in 2003 and Hostmonster in 2005. And because of the head start, Blue Host is a lot larger than Hostmonster in terms of customers. They are more well known and have a stronger brand. As of writing, Blue Host is hosting 915,000 domains while Hostmonster 600,000.

[Note: number of domains does not equal to number of customers because 1 customer can host unlimited domains]

Matt Heaton will always call himself the "CEO of BlueHost and HostMonster" but will never call himself the "CEO of HostMonster and BlueHost". BlueHost always comes first.

Because of the brand and size, BlueHost is worth a lot more than HostMonster and it will make business sense to take greater care of it.

Reason #2 - Forum Size

BlueHost customer forum is significantly larger than HostMonster's. There are more active customers and postings in BlueHost forum as compared to Host Monster. You can expect more discussions and replies if you are a BlueHost customer.

Reason #3 - Pricing & Promotion

While we are able to offer the same discounted price of $3.95 for both BlueHost and HostMonter, please remember that not everyone is getting the price! Those who don't come here and go directly to them will have to pay $6.95!

However, from time to time, Hostmonster will slash the price by $1 for everyone, selling it at only $5.95. They will never do that for BlueHost.

That means 3 things. One, when you purchase using our discount link of $3.95, you get bigger discount "psychologically". And two, because they make more money with BlueHost than HostMonster, the owner will love BlueHost more than HostMonster. And three, BlueHost is marketed as a "premium" hosting while HostMonster is marketed as a "low cost" hosting.

Why don't they stick to 1 brand and 1 name?

It is all marketing. As mentioned earlier, BlueHost is meant to be marketed as a "premium" host while HostMonster as a "low cost" host. But you may not know it, they even have the third brand known as FastDomain which I believe is meant to target customers looking for the lowest possible price! Unfortunately (or fortunately for simplicity sake), FastDomain is not able to make it big. Maybe they abandoned the plan and focus on marketing Bluehost and Hostmonster instead.

It is very common to have a company owning several brands of similar products. For example, Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Herbal Essences are all owned by P&G. In hosting, iPowerWeb, iPage, FatCow, StartLogic, PowWeb are all under the Endurance Group! So the important thing for us is whether we are getting what we want, i.e. the quality of the service.

Conclusion

At the end, all parents love their children no matter what. Whether it is BlueHost or HostMonster, I believe Matt will take good care of them. And if the brand and forum really mean nothing to you, they are really not that different. Maybe it is just me that's more biased towards BlueHost because I have been using it for more than 4 years without any problem! (and maybe that's the reason why I try to make up these excuses here) :)

Read my BlueHost Review and HostMonster Review if you haven't do so yet!