I hate you PayPal

I HATE paypal. Talk about a monopoly!! If you buy/sell on eBay there is virtually no alternative. I bet over 95% of transactions on eBay flow through their Paypal subsidiary.

If you really wanna screw them make sure your purchase is funded with a debit card (as a credit) or a credit card. This way they have to eat the discount rate. If you notice, they always try to make you pay with a debit to your bank account as it costs them less and they don't have to pay the discount rate to the credit card company.

 

What kind of Paypal account do you have? I often sell things on Ebay and always use Paypal. But I have a Paypal Business account and I've never heard what happened to your payment in the 8 years I've used Paypal.

Steve

 

New users get their funds held.
Probably not a bad idea ,if it keeps the scammers off of Ebay.

 

I pay almost everything I buy on ebay via direct bank deposit. It takes a day or 2 longer but that is the banks greed not ebay's fault.

 

I kind of like PayPal. They are a bank, and as such will do all the legal but nefarious things banks do to make money. But they offer me a layer of security between me and unknown on-line merchants. The alternative, when shopping on-line, is to give my credit card info to someone I know nothing about, or mail a money order and wait weeks for it to arrive and clear before they ship my stuff. I'd be very reluctant to buy stuff on eBay without PayPal, and in fact I don't buy anything there if the seller won't take PayPal.

(Amazon gives me the same level of security when buying from independent stores that list on their site.)

 

you have to have over 100 feedbacks and they no longer hold the moneythe minute it show delived call them they will release it

 

For buying Paypal gives you a lot of protection.
Too much protection really.
Because it can hurt the seller easily.
If you dont receive an item you can put a hold on the payment.
There used to be too much seller fraud on Ebay where nothing was delivered.
But now if you change your mind and want to return an item ,its easy to put a hold on the payment and return the item.
Even if you broke the item or even if you return a brick you will get your money back.

 

And all that someone has to do is know your Email address that's connected to your Paypal account in order to "ding" your account as a vendor. We had several unauthorized transactions, all in one day, and it came directly out of our checking account.

Of course, IF we had been close on our checking account, we would have been screwed. Luckily, we noticed it immediately the morning it happened, and most of it was reversed immediately. The rest took several days to sort out.

Since then, we no longer list a bank account for them to take funds out of, nor use a debit card, and it gives us twice the security...Paypal, AND the Credit Card. Of course for safety reasons we closed the account that was compromised.

Scared the heck out of me to think someone accessed our checking account and took just about what they wanted....felt violated to say the least!

 

I don't think it's that easy, or it would happen a lot more often. A vendor cannot just tell PayPal to send them money from someone's account. Someone has to know your email address with PayPal and your password. As with any on-line bank account, your password should be secure. E.g. a random string of letters mixing upper and lower case with a few digits mixed in. If you use your dog's name or your wife's birthday as your password you're asking for trouble.

 

Daniel is correct on all counts, plus Paypal issues to it users a third safeguard, it's a little digital instrument that issues a number after you key in your email address, then your password and then the digital number to Paypal to authorize issue of funds for payment.
I have been using Paypal for many years and have always been very happy with them. They aren't just for ebayers any longer, there are several hundred online stores that allow you to pay with Paypal. Most helpful to consumers, I say.
I also use a "virtual" credit card #, sometimes, and feel just as secure with Paypal.

 

I prefer google checkout but not too many merchants accept it. If you google paypal you will read about some pretty bad stories about experiences people have had with them. I'm neutral in that respect because I've never had any issues. I just don't like how they try and push electronic bank debit as opposed to credit card payment. I want my miles thank you very much!!!

 

The vendor does NOT know what my passwords are, nor do they, or can they... use them.

We had just completed some transactions through Paypal for Ebay. I can only attest that we concluded the charges were related only to recent purchases from Ebay. We still receive spam Email from vendors overseas that we can only conclude came from the same dealings.

There were charges for a web hosting service, and others for other things that we have NEVER subscribed for nor would ever need.

As I said, we was vigilant enough to catch the charges the VERY day that they were initiated, and shut them down.

Paypal is NOT secure, and I will vouch for it!!!

 

I sent a macbook air to bulivia, because it shipped slow was priority but still slow, i got negitive feedback and a debit to my account,,,

 

Part of the credit card scam is that banks charge merchants a fee for each charge. Then they encourage consumers to use the card by giving her/him a small percentage of that charge (as airline miles or merchandise or cash back). Merchants have to eat that charge because their contract with the bank prohibits them from charging extra for card purchases, though you will note that they won't accept cards for big purchases like automobiles. So the merchant has to charge all buyers extra to make up for the bank charge.

PayPal and other on-line payment brokers try to push you to use ACH draft so they don't have to pay the credit card fee. It's all part of the cutthroat world of finance. Bottom line: nobody has to buy anything on eBay.

I get 1.2% cash back on my card. If I spend $100 on eBay and have to use bank draft instead of my card through PayPal that's $1.20. Hardly enough to get all stoked up about.

Did you mean Bolivia? (Misspelling a country name could certainly slow down a delivery.) Never never never send anything overseas to a third-world country by the U.S. Postal Service. Once it reaches a foreign country it goes to the postal service of that country, and third-world country postal services are notoriously unreliable. When shipping overseas, unless it's to a country with a reliable (not corrupt) government, use one of the private package services like UPS, Fed Ex, or DHL.

I lived in Mexico for a while. Of the letters I knew were sent to me, roughly one in 8 disappeared entirely (and these were letters of no monetary value) and the ones that arrived averaged 6 weeks to get from California to whichever major Mexican city I was living in at the time, with 4 weeks being the fastest, and two months being not uncommon.

Packages sent to me by Priority Mail took a month! (I let everybody know not to do that! Funny, that people would think that the U.S.P.S. could deliver to Mexico, or that the Mexican post could be trusted!)

 

Ouch.
Now Paypal requires delivery confirmation for international.
Meaning everything must be sent Express mail or Fed Ex UPS etc.
Priority can be charged back and you have no proof of delivery.
Also, international buyers can open a Paypal account with a stolen credit card.
You can get charged back months later if this is the case.
I dont ship internationally to anyone whose account is less than 6 months old.

 

I will always contact the seller when I am wishing to buy from an overseas seller. I alway get approval first and have only ever been refused once. I would never sell to someone from an African country, it seems to be a national sport to rip people off there. Australia, USA, UK and Europe seem to be pretty safe bets.

For Electronic Funds Transfers (EFT) I have a small no fees electronic transaction only account attached to my main account. I keep the balance in this account low and it is the only account I use for EFT. If anyone hacks this account they wont get much. This is my extra layer of protection. When I make a big purchase I move money from my main account to the side account then transfer to the vendor from there. This is also the account PayPal draws from.

 

I only buy from sellers with very high approval ratings. I've only ever sold anything on eBay twice. One was bought locally and delivered in person and paid for in cash. The other was shipped. No problems.