In an interesting development, PayPal has become a bank in Luxembourg and will migrate all their EU-based accounts to fall under the control of the new Luxembourg bank…
“PayPal was granted a bank license with the Luxembourg bank authority. Under this license, PayPal will be regulated centrally by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), the Luxembourg bank authority.
On 2 July 2007, your customer relationship will be automatically transferred from PayPal (Europe) Ltd. to PayPal Luxembourg.”
(source)
Why are they doing it? Well…
“Other eBay group companies, such as Skype and eBay, have an important presence in Luxembourg, so it makes sense for PayPal Europe to co-locate with them.”
According to PayPal, “The transfer will not affect the way you use PayPal. The only change is your customer relationship being transferred to PayPal Luxembourg.”
Which is all fine and dandy, assuming UK account holders trust the Luxembourg banking authorities as much as they trust the Financial Services Authority (FSA) based in London who PayPal are regulated by, but presumably won’t be if they re-locate to Luxembourg..
“PayPal (Europe) Ltd. is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom as an electronic money institution. PayPal FSA Register Number: 226056.”
Will they still have to be FSA-registered if they want to do business in the UK? I doubt it. What with the EU supposedly having a “common market” for the free movement of goods, people and (I guess), money and the fact that “The only change is your customer relationship being transferred to PayPal Luxembourg”, we’ll be looking to Luxembourg if anything goes wrong I guess.
Neil
I work at PayPal’s UK pr agency. Just to say that PayPal in the UK will, as you say, be regulated from Lux. However it will remain a voluntary member of the UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service so UK PayPal customers will still have recourse to that if they can’t sort an issue out directly. Hope that helps. Ian
Personally, I’d be inclined to trust just about anybody over the FSA, who appear to have a history of lacking any sort of teeth when it comes to dealing with anybody acting fraudulently.
Thanks for letting us know, Ian. Much appreciated.
Neil.
Paypal has moved to Luxemburg – Why are they doing it?! Look out UK consumers!!
Paypal moving from its Richmond Surrey headquarters to Luxembourg and severing all its UK ties is a litigation-avoiding scam. The move means its UK customers can no longer serve proceedings on them when Paypal steal money from their accounts.
How do I know? Because Paypal recently stole several hundred pounds from my account, and when I contacted them to issue proceedings, they informed me that they no longer have any UK address to serve proceedings at, or a UK firm of solicitors authorised to accept proceedings. Instead, they told me, I should get in touch with their Luxembourg office.
A brilliant scam shielding Paypal from legal action from all of their UK victims!
So be warned. If you live in the UK and Paypal steal money from your account too, you will have no legal redress whatsoever.
I have sued paypal once and they gave in. I am in the process of the 2nd case, which I expect to win in March/April. From now on though, I want to bring a 3rd case and they are now in Lixembourg in law do they not have to have a UK base in order to offer services in the UK? If not is it possible to sue them in Luxembourg?
Hi Mike,
Good luck with your lawsuits. I guess any legal action against a Luxembourg-based company would have to be a European action. I’m not sure what’s being done at an EU level, but presumably if PayPal is authorized to conduct business in the UK, they can be sued from here too.
Neil.
Hi Mike Ellery,
do you have any contact numbers for paypal? Im also im a massive dispute with them atm due to loosing alot of money, due to there pathetic support and error’s,they say they protect us…but this is so not true, if they are no longer part of the fsa what steps did you take to take legal action against them? any replies would be positive as i have the police involved also in this dispute
regards
support@inspired-host.com
mia@creative-sanctuary.co.uk
Contrary to what you are led to believe Paypal ARE regulated in the UK by the FSA.
Although they are registered in Luxembourg, their passport to the UK is conditional on consumers being able to take up a complaint with the FSA.
You must write to Paypal.
They hve 8 weeks to deal with your complaint.
Keep copies of everything including their response.
They may tell you they have no rep in the uk.
This doesn’t mean anything.
Send your complaint to the FSA.
It works the same as if their office is in the UK.
It also costs them money for the complaint.
They are fined if they do not follow procedure.
STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS.
FSA is likely to get your money back!
My problem with Paypal is this. They advertise buyer protection – lower tier £150 & top tier £500. My son bought 2 sets of golf clubs from a fraudulent seller on Ebay through Paypal. The seller became unregistered (alarm bells). Contacted Paypal and opened a dispute,stating that the seller ticked all the right boxes for the top tier amount. Paypal after 20 days found in our havour however as the seller had no funds in his account we could not be paid back – case closed. I then made a complaint to Paypal about Paypals decision pointing out buyer protection etc. They then came back after 10days with the £300 for the lower tier protection. Again I have complained that i should have had the total amount returned to me. They have just sent me an Email to say that I do not qualify for the toptier even though the seller has 546 items has 98.6% positive feedback, is based in the UK, and is a business seller -which means there should be £500 top tier protection. It would appear that Paypals are trying everything not to pay me the remaining £385 which is owing to me. My next plan is to get in touch with the FSA & then the credit card company. It just amazes me that a supposed large bank can act in such a corrupt way. This is only a snippet of my frustration about Paypal – if you want more let me know – the psychotherapy may be good.
Robert