StatCounter Faces Problems With PayPal, What is Your Experience?

StatCounter sent a somewhat emotional email yesterday to all customers (paying or non-paying) telling us about the problems it is facing with PayPal. To summarize the two major issues affecting StatCounter Paypal subscribers are:
- Delayed issuing of invoices
- Instances of double billing

StatCounter complains -

At StatCounter we have tried phoning, emailing, posting on the Paypal forums… Many of our contacts are ignored, but even when we do get an answer all we are told is that “Upon review of your account, unfortunately we do not have a time frame for a resolution to your issue we are currently actively investigating your issue with subscriptions.”

Personally I never had problems with PayPal and I am planning on increasing my business with PayPal. However I had five small irritants:
1. Recently a con made a payment for products which was promptly delivered and then he canceled the payment. He did it thrice, ordering high cost products for the same domain and then canceling it after delivery. What bothers me is how it was done without any intimation to me or allowing me to have any say in the matter. Most likely it happened because he made the payment by eCheck. Interestingly eCheck takes 4-5 days to clear and then after it is cleared and the product delivered, he cancels it suddenly.

2. PayPal charges very high fees for high valued products. For a 400$ product, it charges 17$!

3. Once I lost my password, I had to wait months and send several documents by FAX before PayPal partially resolved the issue. The account had to be closed and I re-opened again. Lesson learned: Never lose your password with PayPal.

4. Transferring money from one PayPal account to another costs a ton. It doesn’t make any sense as for PayPal it is just a matter of changing a database record and doesn’t require any human intervention. I think PayPal is not being fair in this case.

5. Once someone managed to pay one cent for a 30$ product! I guess he manipulated the form data. In any case PayPal needs to provide encrypted form facility with all the options and not just for the basic case.

Overall I think PayPal needs to promptly resolve customer concerns and reduce its fees.

We also need good alternatives to PayPal to increase competition and improve overall service.

What is your experience with PayPal? Any suggestions on PayPal alternatives?