Dropbox stealing my money from Paypal!

[Peter R.27]

Dropbox have stolen $199 from my Paypal account!  My billing cycle isn't until August, and the annual charge is only $99.  But for some reason they have taken $199 at the beginning of the year!  And none of my emails or online support requests are being replied to.  About to file legal action against Dropbox to reclaim the money.  Has anybody else had a similar problem?

[Richard P.]

*sigh* yes, sure, file legal action as the first resort.  Go you.  

Have you at least tried to see what the charges were for by contacting support at www.dropbox.com/support ?

It may be that your paypal account has been compromised and someone has used it to upgrade two Dropbox accounts.  Dropbox isn't in the business of simply charging random amounts to peoples funding sources, there has to be an action to trigger it.

$199 is too little for a Dropbox for Business account, and as you note its too much for a Pro account annual renewal.  It is however the right price for an older 2TB Pro account (which are no longer available as a new upgrade)...

[Peter R.27]

Thanks for your sarcastic reply.  As I said in my message, but I guess you didn't read, I have tried emailing them (pretty much every day for the past 12 days) and posting support queries via the website.  None of these are being replied to.  Of course, there are no actual phone numbers that I can use to contact them on either.  I've tried appealing to Paypal, but as the arrangement is set-up via a recurring billing agreement, they have refused to accept a claim.  So it is in the hands of the bank now, who require me to start action in order to feel comfortable joining the claim.  Without any way of contacting someone at Dropbox, I have no further avenues to explore.

[Richard P.]

It isn't sarcastic, I just don't have a lot of respect for people who immediately and publicly threaten legal action as a way to be heard.

Dropbox doesn't respond to any email support, and only Business accounts have phone support.

The only way to query billing issues is to raise a support ticket at www.dropbox.com/support - you can follow up on tickets via http://dropbox.zendesk.com/ 

Support tickets generally take about 3 business days on average, so check the above link or your spam folder (in general, support tickets are not ignored - replies sometimes end up in peoples spam folders, but you can always check the zendesk link).

Your bank should not require you to start legal action to counter a fraudulent charge - thats their job.  You just have to identify a charge that was non-authorised and the bank should deal with it.  If your bank is suggesting otherwise, you need to give serious consideration as to whether you want to stay with that bank or not, as they aren't treating fraud seriously.

[Peter R.27]

When there appears to be no other way to be heard, I'm not sure what I've got left.  Maybe if 3 days is the average, and there has been some screw up so that everyone is complaining, then 12 days might be possible.  But it's not acceptable.

[Richard P.]

I have checked with our Super User liaison and he has confirmed that you had a reply to a ticket a week ago, so you can check that via the zendesk link above.

Also, if you have the billing receipt ID, you can enter it into https://www.dropbox.com/payments/find_receipt and see exactly which account it applies to.

[Peter R.27]

I had one reply saying they would deal with it that day and asking for a Paypal transaction id.  I've had nothing since then, and this support query doesn't exist in the zendesk system.  I can see the claim I've raised via the support link on the website, but it remains "unassigned".

That last link asks for a 12 character reference, but I don't have one.  My bank only shows the Direct debit aggreement number with Dropbox, and the reference on Paypal's website is much much longer (and not accepted by the Dropbox website).