Of interest to Clayfans: Paypal Outage

PayPal outages, complaints continue
Some users can't take auction payments, withdraw funds
By Bob Sullivan
Technology correspondent
MSNBC
Updated: 1:43 p.m. ET Oct. 12, 2004PayPal.com, eBay's electronic payment arm, continued to suffer intermittent outages Tuesday, the firm said. Some consumers complained their money was completely frozen by the glitch, as they were unable to access funds in their accounts. Many also could not use debit cards tied to their PayPal balances, either.

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The problems actually began Friday, according to PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Pires, after the firm added some "code enhancements" to the site.

"We believe progress has been made," Pires said. "We’re working diligently on the problem with both eBay and PayPal technical teams. The issues are still intermittent so some people can use the system and others can’t."

eBay.com put up a notice on its Web site Monday afternoon alerting customers to the problem.

Some users complained to MSNBC.com that they were completely cut off from their money, and effectively cut off from their eBay business.

"Since my customers can't place an order at all, I am losing sales, and money, said user Winsor White. "The term intermittent, as it is being used by PayPal, is highly misleading because it implies that the system has been more up than it has been down."

Attempts by MSNBC.com to log in to the site Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning were unsuccessful.

Auction watchdog Rosalinda Baldwin, who runs The Auction Guild, said she thought the problems were connected to a recent design update for PayPal, but Pires said the outage wasn't related to a redesign.

"We saw a small issue on Friday," after adding some new programming code to the site Thursday evening, Pires said. "We believed we solved it. But there were intermittent problems on Sunday, and then (Monday)."

PayPal is an important cog in eBay.com. The company claims it has more than 50 million account members and is available to users in 45 countries around the world. Last year, the firm handled $12 billion in transactions.

It's not clear how many members were impacted by the outage. But in an odd crossover from the cyberworld to the real world, some PayPal-branded ATM cards weren't working either, Pires confirmed.

Baldwin said the outage is causing trouble with some account balances.

"When folks go to use their PayPal debit cards, the payment is rejected, but the charge actually goes through and PayPal is deducting the amount from their account," she said. "From what I hear, a call to PayPal does correct the problem, but what a mess!"

Pires said the company is working as quickly as it can to solve the problem, but didn't have a time estimate.

PayPal users — some who rely on the firm as the main payment tool for their eBay business — expressed frustration over the situation.

"I have a small online business selling World War II DVDs whose orders are processed exclusively by PayPal," said White. "I normally average about 5-10 orders a day averaging about $20-$50 each. Over the last two days, I have not received any orders."

© 2004 MSNBC Interactive