PayPal experience

Wow, thank you everyone for all your info. I will do alot more research on this and see what will be the best way for me to just make small sales on line... I will also look into the debit card offered. Halfpint I will look into a credit union also... I can't believe what the bank did to our account and it is "supposed" to be a small friendly customer loving bank... I think NOT!

I do have one little hint for you, when you submit your bank & credit card info to PayPal for verification, use the information for the debit card that's tied to your checking account for the credit card. That way you're only giving out the information for one account. After you verify you can close the account any time you like and PayPal will never know it's closed.

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Or you can use a H&R block prepaid credit card paypal thinks it is a bank (because there is a bank tied to it so that the use of Greendot to refill it is available everywhere) so they see it as a bank then you are not at such risk due to it being a prepaid Credit card only keep minimal funds on the card ( I was using direct deposit to the card then paying the bills and removing almost all the rest ( cept maybe $20 or whatever I needed to cover online fees((Ebay))

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Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't you are right.... Henry Ford

I've found that eBay isn't picky about credit cards. They just want to charge a buck on it to verify your address.

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No. Didn't happen. I NEVER give my account info out and I NEVER access a website by clicking my email because I am concerned about such dummy sites. I always went directly to the paypal.com site. But Paypal kept insisting that I did somthing stupid.

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"Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."

This is almost exactly what happened to me...and the date is about the same time, as well.

http://www.paypalwarning.com/my_payp...t_was_hijacked

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"Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."

That story is almost 5 years old.

As I said, I do about 25 PayPal transactions per day and it's clean so far. I've had my current account since 2003, and I had another before that.

Just for the record, I do have issues with they way they conduct business sometimes (poor communications, etc.), but nothing fraudulent.

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So what if it is 5 years old???

I said that the date of the story even occurs around the same time it happened to me. The same exact time. I remember because I remember why I was making purchase on ebay and need the paypal account.

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"Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."

Interestingly, I was more or less forced to open my first PayPal account by an eBay buyer. At the time I was skeptical about PayPal, so I only accepted mail-in payments for my eBay auctions.

Contrary to the auction instructions a buyer paid by PayPal, then informed me by email that he had already paid for the item. I told him that was impossible, since I didn't even have a Payal account. The buyer was indignant, and threatened to file a claim with both eBay and PayPal if I didn't send the item immediately.

At that point I called PayPal and told the agent what the buyer told me. The agent cheerfully replied that yes, they had automatically opened a PayPal account for me and accepted the payment, in an account identified by my email address. The agent told me that I would indeed be in trouble with both them and eBay if I didn't follow through with creating the PayPal account and shipping the product. While I believed that I was on firm ground for refusing to accept payment by PayPal, since the auction payment instructions were obviously ignored, I begrudgingly complied.

Strangely, today I only accept PayPal. I don't fool with mail-in payments at all anymore.

As I said, I don't like the way PayPal does business. I just haven't encountered fraud.

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I agree with Nevada. (though I still take money orders also).
I've had a single glitch with PayPal (lost about $70 to a fraudulent seller four years ago). But in light of the fact that I use them not only for my eBay store, but my web store credit card processor as well, I've simply not run into any other bad experiences.

I've been with PayPal since they were called X.com, or something along those lines... Ten years.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Wait until paypal freezes your account for 6 months with $10,000 in it to "protect you", refuses to pay interest in the interim, and will not answer your emails or let you speak to someone other than a bottom of the ladder telephone "associate" who will not give you his last name so that if you call back you can speak with him again. No thanks....

I can't see any advantage to a buyer in using PayPal. The last few times I paid for ebay purchases with it there has been a 6-7 day wating period before the transaction "cleared".

Most of the time I can send a money order and have the goods about the same time or before a PayPal payment is completed.

And I no longer take PP for things I sell, the fees are just too big of a bite.

I trust PP, but not that much! It's a rare day that I let more than $500 sit in my PP account. I withdraw well before then.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

I've always wondered about this.
The vast majority of my payments show up as instant. But now and again I get an "eCheck" that has to clear.
Did you choose the eCheck option? Or was it chosen for you?

So far as the cost of receiving PP payments, for me, it's just a cost of doing business. Any business that accepts credit/debit cards has to use a payment processor and the processor always takes a bite.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

An e-check means the buyer has indicated they want to payment taken out of their checking account. Cleaning typically takes about four days, but I have seen it take longer - up to about six days.

This is the transaction I think PayPal shafted me on. Received one of these eChecks. When PP notified me it cleared, I shipped. Then about a week later they notified me the check hadn't cleared and took the payment back. To me this is their problem, not mine.

If you are an active eBay seller requiring a personal check or money order gets to be quite a hassle. Many people simply don't want to pay that way (so you lose some orders) and you have the package sitting around waiting up to a week (probably average) for payment to arrive. Then you have to deposit the checks/MO*s and hope they clear. (*I accepted one counterfeit Western Union MO.)

I would say about 80% of my orders have been paid immediately after purchase through PayPal. In fact, I discourage this for order more than one of something. Usually the buyer pays too much in shipping and I have to refund it to them.

I also periodically siphon off excess funds from my PayPal account to one of my two checking accounts. One account is personal/farm. Other is eBay related. I can readily choose which account payment is to go to as I need funds there. Takes about four days to clear into account.

I require PayPal payment for anyone outside the U.S. and Canada. However, here apparently eBay charges about 10% rather than their normal 3% or so for the transaction.

I buy two particular shop supplies from one seller. I send him an e-mail stating what I want. He sends me a PayPal invoice. I pay it and he ships. If he is on-line, this transaction has taken less than 10 minutes to complete.

Overall I would say I'm 99.99% pleased with PayPal.

Sellers who will use ONLY paypal also lose orders. Since I refuse to have a PP account I won't buy from sellers who have only PP as a payment option, and I know I'm not the only one out there.

To be fair, when I was selling a lot on ebay, PP worked pretty well with few problems. I did get my account frozen once after someone made a possibly fraudulent payment, but it wasn't frozen for six months.

I really don't like the way they do business... AFAIC they don't have very good business ethics.

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“You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”

True. But at the same time, speaking as one who has always taken MOs, almost all buyers pay via PayPal (or some other online service) these days. I'd venture to guess that for every 100 orders I have, only one of them will be a money order payment.

But, that's why I still accept MOs. (I haven't taken personal checks for about eight years. That's way more than it's worth)
Yes, as Ken described, it is a bigger hassle, but for as often as they come in, it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. And it does open me up for more customers. I've even had a couple of occasions where customers, knowing that I accept MOs in my eBay store, will ask if they can check out on my website and then forego the CC and send me a MO for the amount instead.
Sure.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Thank you for still accepting money orders! I know what you mean about checks, definitely too much trouble!

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“You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”

all this is so very interesting, thank you and I really appreciate all the info. I am still reading all the info as you all have stated, and if I do go ahead with it I will only keep small amounts in it and I think I will use a seperate bank card and account. That is a great idea. I can always transfere any needed money to my main account if I need it.

I accept personal checks, money orders and stamps (which a couple of people have sent on occasion). On personal checks I look at their feedback rating. Ten or less is the trip point, but depends on a gut feel and amount.

Had one guy send me a PC for the highest cost item I had offered at the time. Zero feedback rating. When received I sent him a notice I would deposit it and wait three weeks to ship - as it has taken that long for a bounced check to get back to me. He was livid, saying it should only take five days to process. Ended up sending him back his check. Kept his ebay id and periodically checked. Several later negatives for a bad check.

Be careful out there!