paypal

Discussion in 'Discussion Group' started by Rockyv58, Oct 31, 2011.

  1. Rockyv58

    Rockyv58 Well-Known Member

    Anyone buy anything online using paypal? Any thoughts good or bad.
     
  2. browneyedgirl

    browneyedgirl Well-Known Member

    i have used it a bunch of times, even getting payment from my customers, never had any problems, but i do not use it for CL,, i just dont trust the scammers on there
     
  3. kdc1970

    kdc1970 Guest

    I've used it for years with no problems.
     
  4. tassy

    tassy Well-Known Member

    I use it all the time when buying stuff from ebay, some other assorted websites, but never anything through Craigs List. I've also used it to make donations to a variety of charity websites and individuals. I've never had any problems using it for payment.
     
  5. RealityWorkouts

    RealityWorkouts Well-Known Member

    I had an online business for years, accepted payment direct from web site and from eBay auctions w/ no problems. No problems using PayPal for purchases either. Like it better than using my Credit Card.
     
  6. Hatteras6

    Hatteras6 Well-Known Member

    Never had a problem with purchasing using PP or payments to us using PP.
     
  7. below14thdesigns

    below14thdesigns Well-Known Member

    I use is as buyer and as a seller with my Etsy shop. Never had any problems.
     
  8. KellBell

    KellBell Well-Known Member


    ditto.
     
  9. shar824

    shar824 Well-Known Member

    Me too, have been doing transactions on paypal since 2007
     
  10. kaci

    kaci Well-Known Member

    i've used it too for purchases, so easy and linked to my check card so can use the check card without giving out the info every time.
     
  11. GarnerHome

    GarnerHome Well-Known Member

    It's OK, but not perfect.

    I've been using paypal for around 10 years. Originally, a PayPal account could be funded with an electronic debit from a bank account or by a credit card at the payer's choice. But sometime in 2010 or early 2011, PayPal began to require a verified bank account after the account holder exceeded a predetermined spending limit. Basically, Paypal wants you to either 1) open a paypal credit card, or 2) given them access to you back account to "verify" you, including your online login/password:shock:

    That just did not sit right with me, especially given a prior incident I had with paypal 5 years ago involving around 40 bucks. I bought something that the seller did not send. reported it to paypal. Paypal purportedly gave me my money back, but then deducted a $25 "investigation" fee to cover the cost of the investigation. They claimed that if the seller had any money in her account (no surprise that she did not since she was a fraud), then they would have collected the full $25 from her instead. Since she did not, they deducted the fee from my account instead. (which means that for any charge below $25 that you dispute, you could end up losing money). Even worse, a year or so later, I looked and she was still selling stuff through ebay (which owns paypal). So exactly why couldn't they get the money from her if people were making payments to her through ebay.

    They also prohibit you from reporting charges to your credit card company and will/could cancel your account if you do. Reason: they don't want to have deal with the credit card rules, which of course, will not allow them to charge the $25 "investigation" fee.

    I fully believe the reason they are now requiring you to either open a paypal credit card or give them access to your bank account is that they want to prevent you from using the protections offered by your credit card.

    That said, it's extremely hard to do business on ebay without paypal. I love ebay. I just need to figure a way to get around paypal.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2011
  12. michelle

    michelle Well-Known Member

    I've used them for 10 years and never had a single problem. I have not experienced what the above poster said about being verified . . . not sure what that is about.
     
  13. GarnerHome

    GarnerHome Well-Known Member

    See below from this website. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/your-money/28haggler.html


    Q. After years of using PayPal — which allows you to pay for stuff and donate to charities online — the company refused to execute a recent transaction. The reason was that I had not “verified” my account. To “verify” your account, you need to provide access to your bank account or sign up for a PayPal credit card, neither of which I want to do.

    So I called PayPal and entered the first circle of hell. Apparently, when I signed up for PayPal, I got a $10,000 sending limit and have now used it up. Why, I asked a company rep, was I eligible to send 10 grand back when I had no history with the company, and now, after years as a customer in good standing, I can’t send another nickel until I’m “verified”?

    The first person I talked to kept putting me on hold and gave me the same canned response, over and over: You need to get verified. I then had a fruitless conversation with a supervisor. I was finally transferred to a manager who, after repeating the party line a few more times, finally offered some candor.

    “If we asked people to verify when they signed up,” he said, “how many people do you think would sign up?”

    Aha.

    Interestingly, once they have your bank account they use it as the default payment source unless you change it each time you use PayPal, which I imagine lowers their costs because no credit card fees are involved.

    If nothing else, I hope you can let readers know that if PayPal insists you get “verified,” it is a waste of time and energy to complain about it.

    Alexandra Schweitzer

    Lexington, Mass.

    A. "First and foremost, it is part of our risk-prevention technique," said Sara Gorman, a PayPal spokeswoman, as she explained the logic of getting “verified.” (Sorry, but the quotation marks are kind of hard to resist, under the circumstances.) “The more data we have, the better our models are at detecting risk and fraud.”

    This statement is both true and utterly cockamamie. No doubt that if PayPal had the bank account information of every one of its 81 million active accounts, the sum total of fraud in the system would be reduced. But if fraud reduction was the primary goal of the “get verified” exercise, it would be part of the sign-up process.

    When Ms. Gorman noted that until 2008, PayPal required verification after a mere $2,000 in sent money — raising it to $10,000 was a conciliatory step in response to customer complaints, she said — it seemed for a moment that she didn’t grasp the essential cockamamieness of the policy she was defending. You see, the more you send responsibly, the less risk you represent.

    The truth is that PayPal prefers to scoop money you send directly out of your bank account, rather than charging it to your credit card, because, as Ms. Gorman explained later in our conversation, the company’s transaction costs are much lower when it deals with banks than when it deals with credit card companies. (She declined to get into specific numbers.)

    It seems that this is all about profits, not fraud. The question is this: Why can’t PayPal just come straight out and acknowledge to customers that the point of requesting their bank account information isn’t to “verify” them, it’s to “profit maximize” them?

    Too blunt? O.K., how about giving people the option to keep their bank information to themselves if they are willing to pay a modest sum for the service? PayPal is actually a terrific service and the Haggler, for one, would part with some money for it, if the price were right.

    The Haggler shared these and other thoughts with Ms. Gorman, who certainly seemed to be listening attentively.

    “It’s an interesting communication challenge,” she said. “We’ll see what we can do to be more frank.”

    She also said the company was “testing functionality” for customers who didn’t want to share their bank account data. She declined to go into details. Which means they can’t be verified.
     

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