There have been numerous complains about Payoneer scamming people from outside the United States of America (especially third world countries). They are known to close accounts for no apparent reason and just keep the money. PayPal doesn't accept payments in some countries, hence why people have to rely on Payoneer for payments. They know that and people have said they are abusing that fact, due to laws not being as strict in such countries compared to the USA.
First my story: When I try to log in, they ask me for an answer to a security question about something I don't even have (I'm not sure if I can put what the security question was due to this rule "Private information can not be shared on this board". I don't see it as private, but it doesn't matter.) Keep in mind I didn't chose that question because I can't answer it. It shouldn't be appearing on my login page when I enter my email and password.
Because of that, my account was locked. It showed on the screen that I needed to reset my password and I did. On their support page it says when you reset the password, the security question(s) don't appear next time. I did that twice, but nothing.
I tried contacting support a few times, but nothing again.
I'm not telling itch.io to remove Payonner completely from their platform. I'm in no position to do that. It's not my platform. I just want to bring awareness about the abuse people receive from Payonner. Knowing that I hope itch.io one day will allow direct bank transfers as that seems to be the safest option.
Here are some stories from other people:
1. "I’d like to advise everyone on here or any other website. Please avoid using Payoneer service. It will ask you for personal documents, questions upon questions and in the end will randomly either block your account, block your transactions or freeze your transactions.
I advise some journalists and tech writers to write on these issues I’ve and many others I know have experienced issues, many paycheck-to-paycheck freelancers, workers have suffered a lot of problems from this service’s shady behavior. I suggest a heavy lawsuit or legal proceedings against this company is the best option. If it were me I’d make sure to black-list the whole company.
First of all, the customer support, verification staff will constantly haggle you, annoy you to the point of hating that you even signed up for their service. It is a very, very fraudulent company.
It has frozen funds of many other accounts, blocked accounts, disabled the ability to withdraw your own funds or those you’ve received from other people. I repeat, DO NOT use this company’s services, DO NOT sign up or provide your private details to this company. It is a very fraudulent corporation which has swindled and conned many customers." - Jack H. Duncan
2. "Hi
Has anyone gotten their Payoneer account terminated after submitting documents for address verification?
I opened my account intending to sell on eBay. Account opening with Payoneer with initially approved but to be able to receive payouts from eBay, I needed to upload additional docs for verification. Uploaded two bank statements from separate banks; Payoneer rejected them. I then sent in a utility bill, and that, too, was denied due to the address having a P.O. Box, but it literally shows the same address I’ve registered the account with. I then uploaded another utility bill but before I did, I made a tweak to my address by removing the P.O. Box number because all of my bills have my P.O. Box number as that’s how we received mail here in my country.
Woke up this morning to an email from Payoneer saying my account was closed and deactivated with no reason at all.
I’m not sure if making that slight modification to my utility bill by removing P.O. Box number flagged me as suspicious.
Any thoughts?" - u/RalaxxxT
2.1. "Same thing happened to me, I contacted the support to ask why my acc was closed and how can I have my account back. They didn't tell me the reason and told me to "politely" find a different payment service. Despicable." - u/BigP****Bonpensiero
2.2 "Bro! Same thing happened to me 10 days ago. Same mail i got received. But this company is s*** company no matter what you do you will not be able to get your account back." - u/Lord_Emperor23
2.3 "They don't open the accounts back. You can get your money but they don't even know why the accounts are closed in the first place." - u/maricatu (They don't always return the money.)
3. "Yes it is, I was using payoneer for 10 years for smaller amounts and withdraw. Then I decided to collect my money in payoneer. When it reach 11k usd they suddenly close my account and not providing any reason. And they told me you can never withdraw this money and it also can’t be refund back to my customer. Totally Fraud company. No more payoneer" - Wasim Abbas
4. "Better to withdraw all money from to your local bank just when you receive it. Since some countries in third world doesn't have PayPal we have to use Payoneer. They know this and keep exploiting us." - u/Strict-Koala-7192
5. "[Title] PAYONEER IS A SCAM USING SHADY TACTICS AND UNMARKED "TERMS AND CONDITIONS" TO CAPTURE YOUR FUNDS ON BOGUS CHARGES WITHOUT ANY JUSTIFICATION. [End of Title]
Just had my friend's account closed with the usual "Security Department found you breached Terms and Conditions. We cannot tell you what your breached because fokh you and farkh off". Today just banned my Payoneer to Payoneer payments silently, no update, no notification whatsoever. I got informed by a client when they tried to make a payment. Went to Customer Support and they gave me the same "final and irreversable" BS answer. Immediately withdrew all my funds from this scam platform.
Chat Transcript: https://ibb.co/v49dmh4" - u/A-Griffindor