On 28/9 I attempted to buy some Tyres from a well known online Tyre distributor, upon entering my Paypal Mastercard payment details, the payment was immediately declined. Thinking it was simply a glitch with the checkout / website I waited a few minutes and then tried again, which was also declined, finally I tried a third time and this payment was also declined. I then checked my emails, to find that I had three emails from Paypal confirming that each of those three declined payments had been individually deducted from my paypal balance, 3 individual payments totaling £736.68. I then logged back into the Tyre Vendors' website and confirmed that no active orders had been placed with them, a phone call also confirmed the fact that they have received no payment from me, and had no orders on the system. I then logged into my Paypal Access card account, to see that the three declined payments hadn't actually been made, but were now appearing in a 'pending' status, and there was no way of cancelling them. I then contacted the card issuer - Prepay Technologies, using the 0845 number provided by Paypal, the person I spoke to, was very sympathetic but declared that there was no way that they could manually cancel off the three payments held in pending status and return the balance to my paypal account, and I would have to wait until 25th November for the pending status to essentially time out and the balance to be returned. Not happy at hearing the news that over £700 was going to be out of my reach for nearly two months, I asked to speak to a more senior member of staff who basically repeated the same thing, but advised me to contact Paypal to see if there was anything they could do to overturn the original payments to the card. So I contacted Paypal on their support number, who were even less helpful than Prepay Technologies, they stated that all they could do was escalate my complaint to an "Account Specialist" who would let me know their decision within 48 hours. Needless to say, that was almost a week ago and no email has been received. A further call to chase it up with Paypal has resulted in them simply washing their hands of the problem, stating that obtaining the refund is an issue between me and Prepay Technologies, and I should contact the card support 0845 number, and so the circle continues..... Obviously having £736 gone from my Paypal balance and tied up and out of reach for nearly two months simply from what are essentially duplicated declined transactions, is a problem, and the lack of funds is also now preventing me from making the purchase I had originally wanted to do in the first place. I'm guessing that the rules for prepayment cards differ from normal credit cards, but are they really able to hold a refund from what were immediately declined transactions for that long?. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Hello, I would like to call on everyone that is currently being harassed and intimidated by Marshall Hoares/Northern Debt Recover/Toothfairy/Paycheck Credit. As you will may be aware these companies are all one and the same: http://companycheck.co.uk/company/06871092 http://companycheck.co.uk/company/06956396 NDR & Marsahall Hoares are registered to the same address: · 15 Lyndhurst Terrace, London, NW3 5QA This address is also at the bottom of Toothfairy’s website. Also anyone with an account/balance with Toothfairy Finance can also log into their account detail on the Paycheck Credit website. Both are mirrors of each other. http://www.paycheckcredit.co.uk/ https://www.toothfairyfinance.com/ This is as serious breach of the data protection act as Toothfairy and Paycheck Credit both claim to be independent of each other. I suggest anyone with an outstanding balance with either to go and try for themselves. Furthermore all of the letters they send out breach many OFT guidelines: ·Levy charges that are disproportionate to the main debt and which do not reflect the actual, necessary cost of recovering a debt" ·"Pressure debtors who have defaulted on an agreement to pay unreasonably large instalments when they are unable to do so" ·"Make misleading representations as to the action it might take or might be taking to recover a debt" *MARSHALL HOARES IMPLY THEY ARE COURT APPOINTED ect.. Please please if you are having any hassle with these companies make a complaint to: The Office of Fair Trading - [email protected] Camden Council Consumer Affairs - [email protected] You can also contact the Daily Mirror who also investigating Daily Mirror - [email protected] (FAO Nick Sommerlad) If we all pull together finally something will get done about these the way these companies are doing business.