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Posts: 180 | Thanked: 180 times | Joined on Nov 2014 @ New Delhi, DELHI, INDIA
#2342
Originally Posted by pichlo View Post
[OT]
@endso,
True dat!

Whenever I feel that PayPal fees are extortionate, I remind myself of this story...

As a bunch of students in a certain Central-European country that no longer exists, we applied for some voluntary work in the UK. This involved sending an application fee of 50 GBP per person to an agency organising said work - an astronomical amount of money at the time not just for us poor students, but also for our parents.

The bank charged a fixed fee plus a percentage of the amount. There were 20 of us and to save on the fixed part, we sent the money in a single payment. Needless to say, the charges were enormous, coming to about 100 GBP, or 5 each.

A month later, when nothing happened, we called the agency who informed us, as confirmed by sending us a copy of their bank statement, that our application was rejected because the amount of money they received was much lower than the 50 GBP required. It was in fact 45 GBP, meaning that another 5 GBP each, on top of what we had already paid, was lost on the way.

The agency, as a gesture of good will, agreed to refund the money, even though the contract said explicitly that the fee was non-refundable. For a few more months, nothing happened. We did not receive the refund. Following another enquiry, the agency sent us another bank statement confirming that the money had in fact been sent.

To cut the long story short, we did eventually receive the refund. Long after we graduated and went our separate ways. To be absolutely specific, it took 18 months between the agency sending the refund and us receiving it. Another 100 GBP, or 5 per person, was lost again on the way back. If you've lost count, and won't blame you, the total loss was 15 of initially paid 55 GBP each, or about 27%.

Who was the bank sitting on our money for 18 months, you may ask? I know I should not name and shame, but so bad was my experience that I feel obliged to warn everyone I know. It was Československá Obchodní Banka, a. s. It happened 25 years ago and they may have turned around 25 times since then, but to this day, whenever I see a business client using that bank, I see a bright red flashing light and hear claxons. In all my long life, only one other company had left such a bad taste: a car service in the UK. But that is another story...
[/OT]
Huh! Well thank God we have a place called Internet and things like Paypal and Bitcoin exist. :P


Though I was just wondering after looking at a Kickstarter project. Why isn't this one there?
 

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