I wanted a laptop since I bought my first desktop in 1998. Never had enough money to buy one, at least not a good one.

Usually I buy everything inside the country I’m living in(Romania), but I knew about ebay and I’m pretty familiar with some of the current payment processors(ECHO, PayPal, Authorize.net) as being a software developer I made several e-commerce solutions where I integrated those payment methods.

In the first place I was looking for a good laptop in Romania. After lot’s and lot’s of research I decided what I would like to buy:
- HP or Dell manufacturer
- Intel Core I7 720QM CPU, 1.6Ghz upto 2.8 Ghz using Intels Turbo Boost
- 17″ LCD with 1440×900 or 1600×900 resolution
- 320 GB or bigger HDD
- 4 GB or more memory, possible DDR3
- HDMI, DVD RW, wireless

Once decided about specs, I started looking for such a laptop in romanian shops. I found a Dell Studio 1747 at 6200 RON (2170 USD). I thought that’s way to mutch, so decided to look for same item on ebay.

Once I got to the ebay page, I found a new HP at a reasonable price (1122$, shipping and insurance included). Looked up sellers ratings, seamed ok so decided to buy that one

Created an ebay account, created a paypal account and thought: wow, this is easy.
Well, it’s NOT Paypal Romania needs a credit card attached to the paypal account. Trying to attach the card I encountered lots and lots of issues: first, even through Paypal asks for CVV2 code, it doesn’t send it to the bank, so the bank immediately refuse the transaction.
My first attempts to link the card to my account failed. After a few emails back and forth with paypal I went to my bank and disabled CVV2 protection. I also raised the limit on my account, so I can easily pay that item. After a few days I managed to link my card to the paypal account. They made a transaction, I went to the bank, got the paypal code I had to use for confirming my card.

Once my card was confirmed, I signed into ebay and used the “Buy it now” button. My nightmare just stared.
My ebay and paypal accounts were linked together, and because my card is linked with paypal all the payments I made using paypal should be immediately taken from my card.

So, my first attempt of paying the item from ebay resulted in an error, saying:
“Your request could not be processed at this time , Sorry, this page is not available at this time.”
I sad, OK…let’s try again…and again, and again. Contacted ebay support, they sad a lot of blablabla and that I can’t pay yet, because the paypal security system rejects my payment(Paypal easy to use, right?).
Now started emailing paypal. They sad a lot of blablablas and then: our system is refusing the transaction and there is nothing we can do about it…try again later, leave it for 24-48 hours.

I emailed the seller about what’s happening. Tried paying again again and again, without any luck. After 4 days that I confirmed my paypal account I was able to send money to the seller using paypal, but he refunded in 5 minutes, saying that I should pay using the “pay for ebay items” option. Didn’t understand his action, I mean, I sent him over the full amount. Refunding with paypal however has some negative actions associated: they can hold up your money from 1 to 4 weeks before you can see them on your bank account.

Next I tried paying him again, payment didn’t succeeded, as for that day the maximum amount set by my bank was reached. So, my bank refused the payment. Guess what paypal did? Well, they blocked my payments again, saying that their system blablabla and that they can’t do anything.

In the same time, the seller opened an unpaid item case for the purchase. Well, I sent him the money over paypal using money transfer and he refunded. Ok, lets say, I can understand him. He doesn’t know me, doesn’t trust me, he needs some insurance, right?

I tried signing up on http://www.escrow.com/ , the escrow company that ebay recommends, but got the message “Your access to Escrow.com has been denied.“  After contacting them using email, they sad that they don’t provide services to Romanian users. Wow, being born in Romania sucks. Isn’t this discrimination?

Today, I am trying to pay that item again again and again…no success. 5 days have passed since I used the “Buy now” button.

My first experience with Paypal is horrible. Wouldn’t recommend to anyone. The people answering the emails, the lady calling you on support might be nice, but their system is just STUPID. How can they block me, when the card is linked and confirmed?

Here it is  the first of their emails, looks like copy paste, probably they are sending it to many many paypal users, experiencing the issues I did:

“We employ complex statistical models to identify patterns of behavior.
This is similar to the way banks and credit card companies identify
patterns of behavior that are out of the ordinary when approving
individual transactions. When our system does not allow a certain funding
source for a transaction, it is merely an indication that the individual
transaction fits a pattern we have observed in the past to have a higher
risk of failure.

Although your credit card has already been confirmed and your account is
perfectly in order, the system has stopped your payment. Unfortunately also
some legitimate transactions may be affected by this security measure and
there is really nothing we can do to force the system.

I would advise you not to make any attempts for the next 48 hours. Then try
again to send your payment, if it keeps being blocked it means that payment
does not meet our security requirements and cannot be done within our
system.”

After this one, many other emails followed. Every mail contained a solution, but none of them really worked. So, now I’m stuck. Would like to pay the item but can’t.

Did I say, that my ebay and paypal accounts are linked? Items bought on ebay are showing up in the paypal account. But I have issues there too. After trying to remove the item, I couldn’t bring it back any more. The paypal system removed it once and for all, didn’t even asked if I’m sure. Tried un-linking and linking the accounts again…Item shows up on ebay but not on paypal any more. I get the message “We did not find any items that require payment at this time.” on paypals “Pay for ebay items” page. It has a nice link, saying refresh page if you feel that an item is missing from the list, but nothing works.

Nightmare didn’t ended yet, I feel that a new post will come soon.

LE.
Today is 22 January 2010, it’s been 9 days since I tried paying the ebay item for the first time using Paypal.  It’s also the day when the “An unpaid item case” period ended.
Since 18 January I couldn’t contact the seller. Also ebay support started giving me the same speech like in the first day. Paypal support stopped responding.
I believe I tried paying over 100 times for that item, but Paypal refused every transaction. I give away the item.

Today I went to a local computer shop and ordered a new laptop from there. It’s not as fancy as the ebay one, but it comes within the same amount of money and should be a pretty good one (it’s an Acer Aspire 7738g-904g100mn lx.pfu02.058, with 4 GB Memory, Core 2 Quad Q9000 CPU, 17″, Windows 7)

Now, the good news is, that the money I sent to the seller using the “send money” paypal option has been refunded to my bank
I wonder if the nightmare ends…I heard stories about paypal…they can do anything to me, I mean they have my card information and everything. I think I will go to the bank and will lower the limit that Paypal can get out of my account. Also, there is another auction where I successfully bought an item, once I receive the item I will close/delete my Paypal account immediately. It just doesn’t worth it.

It was a great time working for Micronets, but as so many things in life, everything comes to an end.

OpenText bought Vignette in May 2009 (Micronets-Vidavee was part of Vignette) and they decided(on July 2009) to close the office in Cluj Napoca. Everybody(around 24 people) was layd off by 30 December 2009. This is so sad, we had a great team and cool products.

We received some severance payment from OpenText (that Romanian laws grant us) but nothing more. There were people in the office who received the value of one salary…I was happy to get severance payment for two months.
The really sad part of the story is how OpenText treated us. More on this on a future post.

I learned a lot, I meet wonderful people(in India, US and UK) I made friends at Micronets and I’m sure life will be better without OpenText

We just had Christmas and New Year, right now I don’t have big plans, just trying to rest. I’m thinking to take a freelance position for a while.