pay pal ???

Chuck Beland

Member
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800
Location
Rhode Island
OK I have never used pay pal what is it?

I really don't like using a card for purchasing over the internet. Do the banks have some type of single use card that you can get or one that you can put just enough money in for the items you need?

Chuck
 
There are people that hate PayPal but whats new? PayPal is basically an online bank. You can go to their web page, log in and access your account. You can have people pay you, you send money to other peoples PayPal account. Pay businesses that accept PayPal, (more ever day do), you can transfer money from and to your regualr checking account. Just a checking account with electronic access only.

I use it as a means of accepting Credit Cards in my business. People go to my web site and they click the Pay Button and they can pay me by Credit Card via PayPal. Of course they charge me a pretty good fee for each transaction. Because or my low volume it was by far cheaper than a true mercants account for me.

There are horror stories out there, as with anything. But my service has been excellent with PayPal. I use it all the time. In my business I just don't keep a lot of money in there. Once I get paid by a client I transfer the money to my checking account. That takes 2-4 days.That way if anything does happen my funds are not tied up.

I had my first problem with them this week. I had transferred $800 to my checking and for some reason it never went through. I didn't notice till I got another payment and went to move that to my checking account. But I should have followed up on it. Other than that, no issues, I am a happy coustomer.

EDIT
Just wanted to ad something. I personally think your CC is best way to buy online. Assuming you pay it off that is. There is more fraud protection on there than with cash. My neighbor got her statement and found a $4000 +/- charge on her card she didn't make. It created some fear but a couple of phone calls and it was taken care of. CC companies want your interest every month and are willing to work with you when you have fraud. They are VERY experienced at dealing with it.

If a merchant cheats you, you do have some recourse through the card company too. I just bought a new TV online and I paid by card even though I had cash. If I had a problem that gave me options.
 
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pay no-pal

last month our mail was stolen and the thieves used pay pal to break into our business account. I immediately called pay pal, explained the situation , was told yes we see this happening in real time right now, and they refused to help me stop it or give me any information on the thief, without a court order.pay pal was a partner in this crime and steadfastly willing to be this partner.
 
Many people find them convenient. Being in the data security biz, their name comes up all too often for me. I have used credit cards online for many. many years and have never been burned. Just use common sense about who you are giving your numbers to and their reputation for secure transactions. If there is something you want and the only way to get it doesn't feel safe online, send them a check in the mail.

P.s. I know Robert is just poking fun with "Your only really at risk if you run windows " because I joke about it too. We clean up Solaris, Linux and Unix machines frequently at work. Windows is far worse but other OS's are not inherently "safe", just less exposed and less targeted ;-)
 
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To follow up on what Jeff posted, if someone steals (or finds, if you lost it) your credit card and uses it, your liability is limited - by law - to $50, providing you report the loss as soon as you discover it. And if your card number is stolen, but not the actual card, you have no liability. See here, and check the "Fair Credit Billing Act".

I haven't checked on debit cards recently but last time I checked, they did not have the same protections so you're much better off using a credit card than a debit card.

Mike
 
I'm not a fan of paypal, but, I do use it when that is the only choice avail.

I have it tied to a seperate account that I keep very little money in, one which I also have a debit card on... if I need to make an online purchase, I just transfer money from my day to day account into the "special" account to cover...I'll never lose much if any money on this basis...and it is a free account with no min balance.
 
I had a problem with Pay Pal deciding they wanted to only link through a bank account, and didn't want to use my credit card any more. I refused, went through hoops with them trying to get it straightened out, tried closing and opening a new account with them, nothing. Said they could only make it work with bank account access. So I will not use them, which means I won't be able to buy from someone that only accepts payment from PayPal, unless for some reason I decide to sell stuff on Ebay, which I don't see happening. I just don't make enough purchases to do the separate account thing at this point. Jim.
 
I've heard to many horror stories about EBay,Paypal & using credit cards & doing business on line as well as on line banking nope don't do any of it.

I don't put anything on a computer that can be stolen even it you were to take the whole computer. Everything with a name or address or CC number or other important information gets run through a cross cut shredder before disposal.
 
Since this is a family forum I can't describe my feelings for pay pal and flea bay.

As for on line purchases we just keep a separate savings account with a debit card. The only times theres any money in it is when we want to buy something on line.

Our bank(small locally owned) gives our debit card the same protection as a CC. I just don't wish to test it with our every day bank account.

Since the only way they are getting the info off of your computer is through a virus or a trojan. Your only really at risk if you run windows :D
 
I have used PayPal for years and a couple of different businesses. I have never had a problem.

I would strongly suggest that you spend $5 and get a physical security key. This is a device that generates a number that allows access. If you do not have the device you cannot access your account.( There are ways around this, read the FAQ's )

Put "PayPal Security Key" in the top right search box. It should be the 1st search result.

I sell websites using PayPal as a subscription fee service. Every month my customers are billed automatcially and I get the money deposited in my PP account. Sometimes if I do contact work and they customer needs to pay by CC I generate an invoice from PP and they can pay by CC.

I do have my PP account connected to my business account, which is a very small volume. This was left over from my consulting business. I do think it is a good idea if you are going to run large volumes of charges to have checking account just for PP.

I also have created payment systems for client so they can sell products from website using paypal like this www.thegeargrabber.com

But like Vaughn said, there are people who hate PP and it seems that problems can be difficult to get fix.
 
After losing sales show after show because I didn't have a merchant account, and thus couldn't take credit cards, and thus only a personal check if they didn't have enough cash (yikes...), I bit the bullet and got a VISA/MC merchant account. It costs me $300 a year, but I know for a fact that I would lose way more than that in sales if I didn't take cards so I think of it as just a business expense, and I throw it into the shop overhead account when figuring actual profit at the end of the year. I don't do business online yet (don't have the time to make that much product) so I just do shows, thus don't do the paypal/cc thing either. I have used paypal myself a few times, both to pay and to recieve funds, no problems yet, but I just don't have a good feeling about it given the problems I hear every once in a while. Just the fact that I've been spammed with umpteen million bogus paypal emails scares me away. It seems to be a huge target for the bad guys.

Thing with a merchant account to remember if you're the merchant is, the BANK ISSUING the CARD holds all the cards (pun intended), and the bank tries to side with the customer if it can (because that's where they make their money). If a customer calls their cc bank and disputes a charge, the merchant is assumed guilty until proven innocent, and gets slapped with a chargback charge etc. I haven’t had a problem yet, but I've heard horror stories there also. Keep all signed receipts for at least a year in case you get a bad apple that refuses to acknowledge they made that sale when they get their statement. Even then... all they have to do if they really wanted to scam you from the start is sign their name falsely. On large sales, I always ask for a drivers license etc. On very large sales I call my merchant account (800 number) and verify that the cc is good, not canceled etc... but that costs me $2.

Bottom line is, not to sound cynical, but there are bad guys out there, and if you go 10 years in a business without ever running into a cc problem, you are fortunate.
 
I've had a paypal account for years and never had a problem with it (knock, knock, knock). I setup a free checking account and also got a debit card for it specifically for making internet purchases. The paypal account is also setup to draft through this account. This limits my loses should anything occur.
 
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