I’m really down on Skype right now. I’m trying to set up an account for the Uplifters with a SkypeIn number. It is a downright nightmare to try to pay these sons of bitches. They have this anti-fraud policy that doesn’t let you pay with the same credit card across different Skype accounts. I wanted to pay with PayPal, but apparently the same deal applies (even though there is nothing in their docs specific to PayPal that I could find.) Even using different email addresses, it doesn’t go through when they are associated with the same PayPal account. To make it more fun, it fails in the worst possible way – the money leaves out of PayPal and I get an email from Skype saying my transaction was cancelled.
I’m just plain pissed, and where yesterday I was all excited about using Skype to solve this specific problem and giving them money to make it happen, now I’m figuring out alternatives that involve giving that money to anyone else. Damn it Skype, if you are going to fail somewhere, failing at taking the money is the dumbest place to do it.
On top of that, I’ve now realized that if they are preventing me paying with the same credit card, that implies that they are keeping my credit card information around. Is that making me safer? I can maybe see disallowing a number of transactions in a short period, but to make me never use the same card again ever is downright absurd. I’m mad, and on the path to becoming an un-customer of Skype.
Update: On further reflection, I don’t even know why Skype thinks this is protection. Who are they to decide that the same credit card can’t be used across accounts? If my wife and I each have a Skype account and want SkypeIn numbers, we have to pay via different methods? Why? We use the same card in different Amazon accounts, the same card at different stores.
This is such a simple and common use case that I can’t believe they do business this way. I’ve worked up a head of steam over this, and I’m just getting madder all the time.