I use Paypal to receive payments for my freelancing work from my clients all over the world. Today however, I got a shock on receiving the following mail from Paypal:
Hello Bhagwad Park,
Your payment of $ XX.XX has been sent back to the sender of the payment.
We reversed this payment because we have stopped allowing personal payments to be sent to or from India.
If this was a payment for a purchase of goods or services, and not a personal payment, then you may contact the buyer and have him or her resend the payment as follows: (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select “Goods,” and (c) provide a shipping address.
If this payment was a personal payment such as a gift, then we have requested that the sender find another payment method until we restore personal payments to and from India.
We are trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we’re sorry for any inconvenience.
Thank you,
Paypal
To be sure, they’ve given a workaround – they want my buyers to pretend they’re buying “goods” instead of services. There are several problems with this. For one, some of my largest clients are corporates whose payment system is automatic. They don’t “click” anything or “select” anything. The payments just goes from their systems. For me to ask them to change the way they do business is impossible.
Secondly, Paypal is asking me to encourage my buyers to lie! I don’t provide any goods and it’s quite possible that my buyers will refuse to falsify their accounts just because the almighty Paypal says they must.
Mind you, this is only for Indian Paypal accounts. Why has this happened? Paypal refuses to divulge more details on this issue and who knows how long this will last? There are very few reliable options to transfer money from abroad into India and Paypal is like a gateway. It’s tragic that there’s no real alternative to Paypal – most of my buyers know Paypal and will use it and if I tell them I can’t receive payments in Paypal, I don’t know how they’ll pay me.
Fortunately a lot depends on this and some corporations (like oDesk – the organization where I get part of my work from) and unless they find a way to resolve this, all their Indian providers will be unable to withdraw and hence work. And since they get large portions of their revenue from places like India, they simply have to find a viable workaround. Also, all web hosting payments to and from India will be canceled creating mass chaos – so I’m really a smaller fish :D
Crossing my fingers and hoping this goes away soon…
@Vikas Gupta
My God! Minus $68? I'm thanking the universe I left a goodly amount in my Paypal balance – at least it's not negative now…
What are you going to do? Paypal imposes strict penalties for a negative balance. And they've also delayed all bank transactions to and from India!
Something must be done about Paypal. They're too autocratic and aren't accountable to anyone by not having to follow standard banking procedures like other financial institutions. And there's no alternative either :(
I wish it is temporary! I have minus 68 dollars as a result! I hate them (and also the fraudsters in our country).
They also don’t allow one word names! Their recent bank verification for Indians had also developed some problem. I also don’t like their exchange rates.
Anyways I don’t use it much (just a few hundred dollars for some work I did).
This really sucks, I just got the notice today, I had just sent some cash to a guy that has been writing articles for me for over 2 years, now what am I supposed to do? if anyone knows an alternative to sending money to India , please let me know as I do not want to lose the people who have done work for me, as many people know.
is there an alternative if so what is it ?
Jeff
@Jeff Patterson
There are alternatives, but unfortunately none of them are as widely accepted as Paypal (I won't say "as good as Paypal", cause Paypal is highly autocratic).
Moneybookers is said to be a good option to send money to India even though I've never used it personally. And the place where I get part of my business from (oDesk) has a payment system called a "Payoneer" card. But otherwise I'm not aware of a service for general transfer (though I'm sure there are many more)
@bhagwad
Yes, I wish somebody files a class suit! Yes they are strict but it is due to their policy change and they will understand and give everyone some time. BTW, I got my payment back again from the sender and I have a surplus of 81 dollars. :)
Xoom is also an option (don't know much on its working though).
@Jeff Patterson
Jeff, just send the payment again as suggested: "resend the payment as follows: (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select “Goods,” and (c) provide a shipping address."
@bhagwad
It was using the Good option ( I sent them the mail I had got from PayPal, the same one as yours). This time no transaction fee of about 7 dollars was deducted.
@bhagwad
LOL! Blessing in disguise for me! I got 7 dollars more but I wish the issue is sorted out sooner than later.
@Vikas Gupta
How did your sender do it? Was it by using the “Goods” option, or has Paypal fixed the issue, thereby not necessitating a lie on the part of your sender?
@Vikas Gupta
I see s/he had to lie after all!