Google just scammed me out of $2,000

O

o hai guyz

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Jan 15, 2010
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Had about 2k or so in Checkout from last month and they randomly decided to shut down my account this morning. Everything on it was legit and I wasn't using it for anything shady plus had barely any chargebacks. Emailed them to ask why and they replied back linking me to some tiny fine print in the terms saying "We reserve the right to terminate any account at any time without reason."

Obv 2k isn't that big a deal and I'm not gonna go after them for it, but I thought this would be interesting for anyone using Checkout and you might want to look for a better payment processor (even paypal for ex).

Out of curiosity, is it even legal to have something so ridiculous like that in tiny print? Reminds me of rebills, which I don't consider illegal or unethical, but now that I'm on the other side of the fence it does seem pretty bad what goog is doing. If this is actually legal, it opens up so many possibilities for scams - think online t-shirt shop, sell shirts for $10 and then put in fine print "we reserve the right to charge you a $10,000 handling fee per order, and then not send you the shirt anyway lololol!" or antivirus software with fine print saying "we reserve the right to install a keylogger on your comp and use your banking info for anything we want lololol!" the possibilities are endless.
 


They can terminate, but they can't just keep your money without a reason (fraud etc.).
 
They refund the money back to the customer? Typically funds are put on a 6 month hold assuming no chargebacks they release funds to the merchant in a typical merchant processing world.

Was there fraudulent orders that you didn't detect perhaps?

and in response to this "If this is actually legal, it opens up so many possibilities for scams - think online t-shirt shop, sell shirts for $10 and then put in fine print "we reserve the right to charge you a $10,000 handling fee per order, and then not send you the shirt anyway lololol!" its called free trial offers just pay shipping! :p
 
Looks like they're refunding some of them to the customers, and since my products are all digital I didn't technically lose any money, except for the advertising costs. But imagine if someone were selling physical products - they'd obviously have shipped them already (an entire month later) and it's not like the customers are gonna send them back.
 
ahoys said:
They refund the money back to the customer? Typically funds are put on a 6 month hold assuming no chargebacks they release funds to the merchant in a typical merchant processing world.

Was there fraudulent orders that you didn't detect perhaps?

and in response to this "If this is actually legal, it opens up so many possibilities for scams - think online t-shirt shop, sell shirts for $10 and then put in fine print "we reserve the right to charge you a $10,000 handling fee per order, and then not send you the shirt anyway lololol!" its called free trial offers just pay shipping! :p
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Yeah that's the first thing I thought of when I saw this. If Google is allowed to do this, then that automatically makes all rebills legal; and if rebills aren't legal (ie. jessie goes to jail) then by precedent Google is automatically breaking the law as well. In fact terminating accounts for no reason is worse than charging people for pills, because at least with the pills it should be common sense that you'd have to pay for them, whereas no one can argue it's common sense that they'd randomly shut down accounts and scam you out of your pending earnings.
 
Two thousand dollars sounds like a big deal to me. I already use Paypal, but if I didn't, I'd be headed there right now. For that matter, it makes me rethink Adsense.
 
learn2b said:
Two thousand dollars sounds like a big deal to me. I already use Paypal, but if I didn't, I'd be headed there right now. For that matter, it makes me rethink Adsense.
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At least PayPal lets you withdraw your money whenever you want. Goog will only do monthly wires which means you have to make your customers wait an entire month before you send them the product if you don't want to risk getting scammed.
 
o hai guyz said:
Looks like they're refunding some of them to the customers, and since my products are all digital I didn't technically lose any money, except for the advertising costs. But imagine if someone were selling physical products - they'd obviously have shipped them already (an entire month later) and it's not like the customers are gonna send them back.
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Well, surely Google will not literally terminate random accounts for no reason whatsoever. Could the nature of your digital products be seen as dodgy by a Google employee? Or someone claiming you've stolen/infringed on others work?
 
As has already been said, Google doesn't keep the funds in the Checkout account, they are credited back to the buyers. Sucks when you have mailed out physical goods though, and Google decides after the fact that they don't want Google Checkout used for those goods (despite approving it 3 months before).
 
Having dealt with GC. They don't shut things down for no reason. You have obviously or the other party didn't follow the line of sequence.
 
Sucks, but there is no way they can keep the money if clients don`t do chargebacks, stay on them bro and get your money.
 
SpiderHunter said:
Sucks, but there is no way they can keep the money if clients don`t do chargebacks, stay on them bro and get your money.
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Google refunds (most of) the money to the buyers, so they essentially got all the products for free. But tbh based on how silly this is I wouldn't be surprised if they just pocket the money - the buyers already got the products so it's not like they're gonna check or complain, since they weren't trying to charge them back anyway.
 
yeah it is a bitch because it is not enough to hire lawyers over. Hell 5 years ago Hydra nicked me for 35 K and I DID hire lawyers (they said I mailed a remove list... bunch of bull shit) and I got 5 K into it and my guy said it was a losing battle, even after I proved I did not do it, Hydra came up with another BS excuse. Now I admit my lawyer sucked the brown hole.
 
mGrunin said:
They refund all the orders. They don't keep the money.
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I highly doubt thats even true. I dont even recollect getting any money on adwords as refunds from fraud clicks and they ban almost 1000s of accounts every month for click fraud? where does all that money go?

Lemme guess, those mofo adwords employees are securing a bonus.

if thats what they are doing in adwords, am confident they do the same with checkout. they are greedy afterall. OP, sue those fuckers for $2000 at small claims courts and you should get the money back. The good things is they can't bring a lawyer in small claims court so you can prove it easily that they tried to fuck with you.

"We reserve the right to terminate any account at any time without reason" will not work in small claims court. Dont hesitate to sue them and when you win, paypal me 10%
 
Haha I can't believe anyone still does business with Google. No customer support ever just a fuck you email every time.
 
o hai guyz said:
At least PayPal lets you withdraw your money whenever you want. Goog will only do monthly wires which means you have to make your customers wait an entire month before you send them the product if you don't want to risk getting scammed.
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Monthly wires?

Google Checkout sends me my money EVERY TWO DAYS.
 
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