Almost EIGHT months later, and both accounts that I reported are STILL active, and STILL actively being used to scam people. Your failure to do ANYTHING about the issue in that amount of time gives a very strong impression that Paypal is deliberately turning a blind eye, knowingly allowing the use of your service to process payments for a blatant scam - while you also coincidentally profiting from said scam, by way of transaction fees.
It certainly doesn't help that impression much when nearly every response I've had from Paypal has attempted to pass the buck & get me to jump through hoops to spoon-feed you easily available information, so you can fix an issue that you are responsible (at least in theory, since you've failed to actually address it). On that topic, is there any valid reason why Paypal support staff often reference pages on the Paypal website, but then consistently fail to provide actual links to them? That's been the case with nearly every response I've had from Paypal on this issue? That just makes it look even more like you're deliberately giving me the run-around.
That said, I've decided not to waste anymore of my own time on this. Instead, I've provided all of the information that I've collected about this matter to Brian Krebs, an independent journalist who is well-known for writing about tech security and online scams - since, as it just so happens, he's recently published an article about this exact scam, and is preparing a follow-up. So you might want to let your media relations people (that is, if Paypal isn't too cheap to have any on staff) know that they should expect to hear from him - I'm honestly quite curious to see if you give a journalist read by millions the same run-around. Partly for the entertainment value, and partly because it would fairly definitively establish whether the run-around you've given me was deliberate, or merely ineptitude.
Last, as a professional web developer & business owner who has used Paypal on numerous sites over the last 15 years (as well as to receive payments from our own customers), this experience does NOT inspire confidence - and that's putting very mildly. I run a business, and seeing how Paypal handles (or doesn't) these types of issues has raised serious concerns about the risk of having my business associated with a company that knowingly allows the use of their services to scam people... not that your reputation was that great to begin with, frankly, I've had multiple responses over the years from customers saying things like "Oooooh, you use Paypal? Nevermind, I'll just send a cheque by mail instead." To be honest, I've been meaning to try out your competitors for a while now, but this experience just gave me a final push - and in the process, I've discovered that their systems are substantially easier to work. So, thanks, I guess?. Perhaps Stripe, Square, Moneris, etc, should be paying a commission to Paypal support, because if nothing else, you've done a fantastic job of promoting their services!
P.S.
Since you keep removing them, here are the offending accounts once more: exaltka_AT_gmail.com, info_AT_internetbirodalom.hu
