hi, i was just reading your complaint as i used to be a power seller on e-bay and always used paypal...the same thing happened to me, im in the u.s. and sold 2 vintage leather jackets equalling $600.00 to a guy in france...2 days after he paid, he filed a complaint through paypal that he hadnt received his purchases...well, duh...6-10 days for international priority mail and they allowed the complaint without using smart judgement and knowing that he could not possibly receive them in 2 days...they placed a hold on the $600.00 and i had already sent the jackets...he then sent me an e-mail with all kinds of vulgarities and threats and sent a link that i had won one of his jackets previously in e-bay auction and was furious that i sold it to him at a higher price...duh, the nature of business...the e-mails were scary threatening unlike anything i had ever heard and sent them to ebay and paypal but they did nothing except hold my $600.00 for 3 months while they "investigated"...they eventually only returned $300.00...i then moved out of town after not selling for the summer as i was doing flea markets and vintage clothing shows...it was fall and was ready to get back to selling using my e-bay account but my account had been frozen for what reason, i did not know but i decided to open a new account and i had a total of $1200.00 in my first 5 auctions and paypal would not let me process these payments because of a red flag on my previous account (i.e. the french guy)...i had 100% feedback before him and never had nothing but rave reviews and they decided to red flag my account when this guy was so awful?! they then required that i send a copy of my drivers license, my ss card, names and numbers of the sources where i bought my goods to sell and a couple of other things that i cant remember...i buy my things from estate sales, garage sales, thrift stores or wherever and i always sold in lots of 10 items or more so there was no way i could send that information nor should i because its not their business who my sources are...this was the only way they would re-open my account but i was skeptical...fortunately, the items i sold were to customers who i worked with for several years so we were able to work out other arrangements for payment and they received their merchandise but it took a long time to finalize the sales...since then, i have not used e-bay or paypal (as paypal is a company of e-bay and paypal functions the same way as a bank, handles peoples finances and holds peoples' security in their hands and yet they are not regulated by the FDIC)...now, i've heard from several sources that now to buy and sell on e-bay, they force you to use only paypal to complete a purchase...this sounds like nazi-ism to me and should be outlawed...why the press hasnt been all over them is beyond me!!! the point being, i have been selling on sites like etsy and ruby lane and have also been using a site called "google checkout" to process my online payments...they function very much in the positive ways of paypal without all the negative aspects of paypal...i highly recommend all of these if you're interested in finding other venues and sources for online payments...my customers have been very open to using them even if they dont currently have an account and has certainly not hurt the amount of business that i have and in fact, has simplified everything because i no longer live in fear selling on e-bay and using paypal as my online method of payment...i hope i have been of help and good luck in future endeavors!!! cheers!!! THIS HAPPENED SEVERAL YEARS AGO AND I STILL HAVE ALL CORRESPONDENCE IF ANYONE'S INTERESTED AND HAPPY...LETS GET GOOGLE CHECKOUT GOING SO PAYPAL HAS SOME COMPETITION SO THEY DONT CONTINUE TO MONOPOLIZE AND MAYBE THEY'LL BECOME MORE LEGALLY AND ETHICALLY MORAL!!! GOVERNMENT WONT DO NOTHING, PRESS WONT DO NOTHING SO PEOPLE, ITS ALL IN OUR HANDS...BOYCOTT IS THE ONLY POWER WE HAVE!!!