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I don't know if this is new or not but it's the first time I ran into it. I made a purchase (just a few dollars) on eBay for a slot machine part (something I have done a million times). I went to pay for it with PayPal and use my MasterCard for the funding source (something I've also done a million times). But it was declined and a message popped up to call PayPal customer service. After calling PayPal, I was told that it was not declined directly by MasterCard, but due to an agreement with Mastercard to not allow payments for adult material (i.e. porn etc) or gaming stuff. In other words, it was declined before even being sent to Mastercard. So WTF is up with that? Is this some new 'morals' policy from PayPal?  Anyone else run into this?

<edit> And just to make sure, I looked and the part was listed under:  Collectibles > Casino > Slots > Replacement Parts
 

oh crap...that's going to jam a wrench in the gears...Arghhh!!! :7- :277-

Wow, weird.  Haven't seen that one before.  Even when I buy myself a nice gift basket of porn.  ;)

Jason

Got this the other day. It did nit come from PayPal.
Needless to say I didn't respond to it.

Dear PayPal Account Holder,

As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in
the PayPal system. We recently contacted you after noticing an
issue on your account.

We request information from you for the following reason:

We recently received a report of unauthorized credit card use
associated with this account. As a precaution, we have limited
your online account access in order to protect against future
unauthorized transactions.

Case ID Number: PP-859-48-3971

This is a reminder to restore your account as soon as possible.

Please download the form attached to this email and open it in a
web browser. Once opened, you will be provided with steps to
restore your account access. We appreciate your understanding as
we work to ensure account safety.

In accordance with PayPal User Agreement, your account access
will remain unauthorized until the issue has been resolved.
Unfortunately, if access to your account remains unauthorized for
an extended period of time, it may result in eventual account closure.
We encourage you to restore your PayPal account as soon as possible
to help avoid this.
We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.Please understand
that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your
account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
PayPal

You are receiving this email notification because this email address is listed as the administrative contact email for your PayPal account.

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. Please download the attached PayPal
Form and complete the file and click on Submit button.

PayPal Email ID PP076
Case ID Number: PP-859-48-3971

That is an attempt at Phishing.
The addressee is generic.
Any communication from PayPal, EBay, credit card companies will be addressed to the account holder's name.
BEWARE and stay far, far, away from these scams!

 :266-

  :96-

Agreed :81-
Phishing and payment rejection are two completely different things.
Phishing can be detrimental to your identity.
Payment rejection only means you need to get a prepaid credit card so that your "adult" fun arrives intact and ready for the party! LOL
 :58-

Sorry Poppo

A little more info. The first time I tried to pay, and it tossed up the declined message, I called PayPal and was just told that MasterCard declined the charge. So I called my CC company because I have had them put a hold on my card before due to possible fraud. But when I talked to them, not only was there no hold on the card, but they had no record of an attempt being made to make the purchase (i.e. no authorization request). So thinking it may have just been a fluke because my Internet has been wigging out the last few day, I went back and tried it again. Same thing. So I called back again and that is when I was told that the first person did not explain it properly and that it was declined specifically because it was under the 'slot machine' category. She mentioned the adult stuff as another category that will get declined. She seemed to indicate that this was MasterCard's policy and not PayPal, but I don't trust PayPal to tell the truth on stuff like this.  I could see if perhaps I was in state that had a prohibition on slots and such, but I'm not. I told PayPal that I have made many purchases like this in the past without problem. The CS person told me that there are policy changes made all of the time and this may be a new one.

The bank account I have tied to the PayPal account never has any funds in it due to some of the horror stories I have heard about PayPal removing funds or doing other things that screw with your bank account. It's not easy for me to add money to that account since it's not local. I know I could link another credit card to it as a workaround, but this is more about the policy (if it's true) than how to make the payment. I don't like companies telling me I can't pay for legal items with my credit card. Whats next on the 'banned' list?

Anyway, it may have still been just a fluke of some sort. I may be buying something else slot related later today and may have a chance to try again.

poppo i just had 2 delivery's yesterday from eBay and used paypal. all slot stuff and I'm in a no no state  but i use visa

I just got some legends on Ebay & paid PayPal with MasterCard & no problem

When did you make the payment? If this is a change, it just took place in the last few days because I bought some stuff a few days ago without problem too. It was yesterday that this happened.

Yesterday around 4 PM

I called PayPal back again to see what their story was this time. She said that this is probably vendor specific. She said that when a vendor signs up for PayPal they have to list the type of business they are in. And depending on the category, MasterCard may not allow payment to be made. She said the 'return code' they get is not very specific and all it does it tells them that it was denied internally and due to a 'category' that is not allowed by MasterCard.

So for now I will just assume it has something to do with this one particular vendor and how he set up his account.

I also asked how it is that he is selling on eBay using the PayPal logo with the MasterCard, Visa, Discover etc. logos saying they are accepted as payment. She didn't really have a good answer except to say the different CC logos are on the PayPal logo by default, but that doesn't automatically mean they will take every card.  :25-

Isn't that false advertising?

I'm amazed at the ineptness you're able to find out about the services that are present around you...lol
You need to be writing stories for "60 Minutes"  :96-

The MasterCard fallout comes courtesy of online casinos and the UIGEA. MasterCard has just stopped processing anything that even resembles a gambling charge from an online casino.. ie slot machines, of course in the process shooting down hundreds of other transactions that aren't related online casinos.

I use my PP account and when I receive funds, I just leave them on there so if I want to purchase something, the funds are there. If I go over, the remainder comes out of my checking account because it is linked to the PP account. I do not have a credit card because of financial issues and personally dislike them. I never had an issue like the one described in this thread. Poppo, my Debit cards are VISA and work really well.

CRAP it just happened to me  my credit card is not excepted and all i bought is some silly legend stickers. i contacted the seller i dont know what to do . what a pain in the ass. If we cant buy slot stuff  off eBay  its going the be a lot tougher 

I bought a DSV00042 today and used paypal tied to discover card, no problem :89-

Do it the old fashion way, send the seller a money order. ( Cash if your brave )

LOL! Last time I paid cash I could feel the tickle on my colon for weeks afterward :97- Cash only works if you're standing in front of what your buying. Like the old saying "A picture is worth a thousand lies"

Was the seller by any chance glassjawmcgraw? If so, it may indeed just be vendor specific. If not.  :47-

Many sellers require paypal as payment, especially on buy it now items. And I for one am not going to drive 30 miles to the post office to buy a MO.

yes it was

That may be a good sign then, since that is the same one I had the problem with. PayPal lists the name as Vintage Slot Parts Inc., which does not look anything like an on-line casino, so I'm not sure why it got flagged by MasterCard. :103-

poppo what did you do to sent payment  :103- mine was a visa card

The best that we can do as "consumers" is let the vendors know that they need to change
their names to allow the CC companies like Mastercard or whatever to process
the Paypal services or they will lose all their online Paypal business.

I'm finding that's it's better to do business directly with the vendor rather than use ebay.
I just ask them for a phone number or email to get a hold of them.
The Paypal is then billed with a different name so the word 'slots' or 'gaming' is omitted and the Paypal
sales goes through.

thanks   :3-   bunker I am trying this as i post    And by the way i am blaming poppo for all this mess      :279- lol

Well according to the CC's logic, no purchases to Toys R Us should go through either as they sell "games" LOL

I just happened to have about $30 in the bank account I have tied to my PP account. So I just paid from there. As I noted earlier, that account is not used for anything else except PP. Sometimes if I sell something, i will transfer some money into. But I usually try not to have more than $50-$75 in it.

So, apparently this is not just a MasterCard only thing. Maybe the vendor just won't take any CC payments via PP. I 'think' the seller has to pay the CC fees is you use one (vice paying out of PP account or bank). But if that is the case, then he is misusing the PP CC logo.  :30-

 :210-

So I went to make an e-bay payment for something else slot related (one of the vendors here) and got the payment denied again. So I go to call PayPal and the first thing it does is tell me there is no record of my phone number - ever!  :25- So next it asks me for the web pin and it says that is not valid either.   :25- So I try 3 more times with the same result.  :8- And there is no easy way to get past the stupid voice prompts. You either need a valid phone number in their system, or a valid web pin. FINALLY I must have hit the right combination of buttons and got to someone. Of course they had no idea why the phone number or web pin were not working.  :47-

So we get discussing the declined charge. I go round and round with them about it because of what happened the last time, but they insist it's my credit card company. SO I finally get fed up and hang up and call my CC company. Well, sure enough, there was a block put on my account. BUT it was only because PayPal somehow was hosing up the transaction and it triggered a fraud alert. After I get the block removed, the charge went through fine. But something is seriously wrong with PayPal's system today.  :30-

Sounds like Paypal's system is fraudulently sending out fraud alerts...lol
They tout themselves as a secure system...What a fraud!!!  :96-

The fact that their automated system says that there is no record of my phone number, that it won't accept the web pin, and that it is somehow 'glitching' transactions to the CC company makes me think it's time to stay away from PayPal for a few days in case there is a more serious problem.

On the issue with the phone number, the first thing it does is tries to use caller ID (I was on my home phone which is the one on record and I even checked it on-line). If that doesn't match, then it asks you to manually input the phone number. It verified it by repeating it back, but then it would still say there was no record of it EVER being used in any transaction. The next step is to use the web pin. But again, it would say the pin was not valid. You have up to an hour to use it, but I was well within that. I called back 2 more times (different web pins) but ran into the same thing.

Maybe all of those Bunker posts ARE crashing systems.  :72-

I still have not payed for my parts on eBay  ( not my fault  ) been denied  emailed vendor about 6   times NO RESPONCE  . I even had my phone / home address and my credit card verified  as per eBay request they said this was the problem    WRONG     Still denied.  I'm so f-cking verified i must be who i think i am . A supervisor  called me back and said every thing was good on my end but the vendor is in a classification that flagged the account . DENIED . Sh-t .  POPPO  what exactly did you do have the credit card co do to make this go away ? What did they REMOVE ?  eBay said it emailed the vendor that i am having a problem with.  and told them it had to be changed on  HIS end .  STILL NO RESPONCE

There were two different issues. The first that I posted about was with not being able to pay the vendor using the MasterCard. I ended up paying with my bank account. This second issue at first looked like the same thing, but in this case somehow PayPal 'glitched' the credit card transaction which triggered a block by my CC company. All I had to do was call my CC company and have them remove the block. When I asked just what happened, they could not (would not) tell me specifics other than there was an anomaly in the transaction that triggered a fraud alert.

So the first incident was a denial by PayPal it's self, and the second was actually by my CC company after the goofy transaction.

<edit> I just tried to call PayPal again and this time it recognized my phone number. Go figure.

BTW, when I called today and was arguing with PayPal about denying payments for a slot parts, they did suggest not to use the e-bay checkout, but to go in and manually pay for it (first get the e-mail address from the payment you know will fail). I don't know if that will work or not. I do know there is a place to put an auction number.

Poppo
I mentioned that a few days ago!



Use Send money and on the second page just before you comfirm payment (or make the payment final) should be text boxes
One will say "You Got Money" basically Subject and the next box  becomes part of the body of the e-mail.

Can you put money in your PP account from your cc and then pay it from there? That way it will be taken out of your existing funds instead of going through your cc.

Or set up another PP account and send yourself the money (plus 4 percent they take out for fees) and then u can pay the merchant from those funds?

Just trying to help

No, you can't stick money in from a credit card (there is no option).

While you 'could' set up a second account, PayPal will ban you for life if they catch you. And it's not that hard for them, since you have to give them so much info to verify your account.

In any case, this still seems to be limited to just a few vendors as I have not had any problems with any of the others.

Emelie, I am giving you "starter karma" because of your dedication to getting your slot up and running.

Awe why thank you kind Sir :)

And I'm giving you another one for taking moment to come here (to this thread) to try to help someone else while you're still completely immersed in trying to get your machine running.

 :259-


Stat :31-



By the way, after trying out more nicknames than we could count, we finally settled on calling stayouttadabunker "Bunker"... but, shhhhh, don't tell anybody -- and yes, "StayOut" was one of them, as was "Stout", which was one of the finalists. :96- :200- :97- :97- :97- :97-

I was thinking of changing my name to "wholetdadogsout"

For my 2c I have had slot parts ceased at the Canadian border  despite slots being perfectly legal here.

It's een unclear if it's the us or canadiian authorities and impossible to get a straight answer. Other times
Stuf just shows up without any fuss.

None the less I have taken to requesting that this is shipped under the description of arcade parts.

This is probably a quick fix to your MasterCard problem as well.

The problem is that with ebay auctions you can't do that especially if it has a buy it now with immediate payment required. As soon as you BIN, it sends you to PayPal where it will get rejected (for certain vendors).

It's not the same as it used to be....

W

Wayne,

we should talk.

Yes, I agree.

The paypal + porn law passed way back in 2003 ? But if it has in the item description or catagory as porn related. It will also get popped off as a no pay pal item. It depends what it is + how its described ? Slot handle with BIG KNOB on end ? Or LONG STICK? Can be used to please the wife etc.  Its all Semantics.   

I haven't seen the slot sellers and vendors running to place items under the "Arcade" category yet.
Maybe this Paypal /credit card "gaming" problem isn't affecting everyone?  :129-