The Long Term Cost of Damaging Relationships with Your Customers...

[TheRealDrHyde]

I have had a business relationship with PayPal for over 15 years. In that time I've never been anything but a revenue generator for PayPal.  I've contributed to PayPal's bottom line through the percentage they have taken from my sales on Ebay and through a percentage taken from the vendors I've purchased from.

I also have a 15 year business relationship with Ebay.  In that time I've gone above and beyond what could be expected as the norm to ensure that I maintain my 100% positive feedback rating.  I'm the guy that realizes a package is $3 less to ship than charged and refunds the money back to the often shocked and very happy customer.

Why?  Because that is how you build happy, loyal, return customers. 

I use my Ebay and PayPal accounts to maintain another important relationship - with my wife.  I do not do "business" on Ebay.  I am not a company.  I'm an individual who sells things he no longer uses or needs to fund the purchase of things he does want or need.  I'm a casual user of both. 

That being said my main fetish is guitars.  I am a musician - for my own sense of finding balance in a world that is unfortunately lacking in that same equilibrium.  I sometimes decide to part with a guitar or other piece of equipment so I can fund something else I'd rather have.  In the past year I've sold 4 very rare and valuable guitars through Ebay - each transaction SEVERAL thousands of dollars each.  Each transaction has been flawless resulting in a happy buyer and me with more positive feedback. 

This morning I sold a guitar body.  It was a $300 transaction.  I was sent the "OK to Ship" message and so I did.  I then went looking for some parts for a guitar I'm building.  I purchased 4 items and imagine my surprise when my bank texted me (I get texts when money is taken out of my account).  For some reason the funds were pulled out of my bank.  No big deal I'll just move the money from PayPal over to my bank to keep my wife happy. 

Except I can't…  After a frustrating call to PayPal where I was told "Bad sellers have lost PayPal enormous amounts of money so a new system of "flagging and holding" transactions considered "high risk" has been engaged."

Wait just a second.  I think I heard this person tell me that a bunch of dishonest people have ripped PayPal off and in response they are now profiling transactions that they feel might be high risk - and me selling a guitar body to another musician (who spoke with me about the body and knows exactly what they are getting and they're excited by it) is high risk.

So let me see if I can explain how this makes me feel.  For no reason that makes any sense to me - for I've never been involved in a dispute where anyone has lost money... I don't get complaints or flagged for being a bad seller (thus my 100% positive feedback rating) and I'm not a new account dealing in "high risk" items... I am being punished, being treated like a bad seller - having funds I had planned on spending for more guitar parts through Ebay - thus making more fees (profit) for PayPal and Ebay - I am being told "we do not care about any relationship with you" - "we do not care about your past exemplary history with us" - "we don't care because we've made sure that your funds - money that rightfully is yours - are not available to you until we decide you can have them." 

OK.  I see.  Well that's really unfortunate.  See it's not the money... it's really not.  It's the principle.  It's the fact that I have a 25 year career of helping companies build lasting relationships with customers - B2B - retail - B2G - I've done it all.  And when a company starts using computer based algorithms to decide which customers get treated fairly and which don't... that company has lost focus of the single most important truth in business; "relationships are everything." 

Today my trust was broken.  I have lost faith that I can be or will be treated fairly by PayPal.  For the first time I felt as if I am nothing more than a very small number in a vast sea of numbers to the management of PayPal.  Remove me and the levels of that sea are not affected at all.  It's the truth.  I don't matter because I don't impact their bottom line one way or the other. 

Not yet anyway.  What I hope the management of PayPal figures out - and does so quickly - is that every broken relationship gives power to - it feeds - negative brand perception.  It's the opposite of Top of Mind Awareness.  It's the death of a brand.  If anyone asks me what I think about PayPal the response will reflect my disenchantment with the way I've been treated.  In time as more relationships are broken a greater sense of negative brand perception will prevail.  Journalists will pick up on it and articles about everything PayPal is doing wrong will start being published in economic journals. 

I myself have a blog with over 70,000 followers.  What happens when I share this VERY SAME essay with them? 

What happens when a politician or a lawyer feels as if they've been treated unfairly and they make investigation of unfair business practices their purpose for living?  What happens when they decide to spend their energy pushing for an anti-trust investigation - one that could potentially cost millions of dollars in legal fees and severely damage their brand? 

Not saying that PayPal is guilty of such a thing... but emotions are not about logic - and right now I feel as if I've been treated in a horribly unfair and unjustified way.  Especially given that no one at PayPal has been able to give me a SINGLE justifiable reason based on my transaction history that I've been "targeted" - other than saying it was "random".  So randomly PayPal is going to pick long-time, loyal, happy customers and mistreat them? 

The bad thing about justifying mistreatment of your customers through "random" selection is that it doesn't feel random to the customer.  It feels deliberate and unfair. 

What's worse is that in losing me as a customer - in losing hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands... of customers like me who feel unvalued and unappreciated - your partners will suffer. 

I am going to let the pending transactions I have on Ebay close out.  Then I will close my PayPal account.  I'll close my Ebay account.  And any future online purchases will be done with a credit card.  This means any vendor who ONLY offers PayPal fulfillment will never have a chance to earn my business. 

So congratulations - you've been given a glimpse into the mindset of a growing number of modern consumers who are increasingly using smart phones and the internet to purchase (and sell).  The picture I've painted above is your future unless you make some changes to how you choose to engage in "liability screening" in the future. 

You've lost me.  I'm done.  But it's not too late for you to prevent this unnecessary mistreatment of other small but valuable long-term customers. 

[beckrose]

Thanks for putting into words exactly how I feel about this company which, like so many internet companies now, hide behind a wall of cyber-anonimity.  Why? Because they can. Paypal, go to **bleep**.