PayPal risks?

Channard

I'm thinking of getting a PayPal account, mainly for use as a seller. Thing is, last time I applied, I was put off by the fact that I had to register a bank account. Can PayPal take money from your bank account without your permission, or can they only freeze your PayPal account?

I'd rather not use PayPal but as a seller it seems to be my only option if I want to get a decent number of people bidding/buying. How have folks here found it? There are a few horror stories, but have folks here found payPal useful as sellers?

alwaysonthego_2

I have never had a problem with paypal as a seller, but they are expensive with their fees. Aslong as you use a tracing delivery service for expensive items just incase the seller either does not recieve it or denies than you have proof that you that you have sent it, a proof of postage from the PO isn't exceptable.

Channard

Actually, I just checked again and it says that there are certain other payment services you can use such as NoChex. Is NoChex the most popular non-PayPal payment service? Or if not, what service would people use, other than NoChex or PayPal?

digerati

Channard wrote:

I'm thinking of getting a PayPal account, mainly for use as a seller... Can PayPal take money from your bank account without your permission, or can they only freeze your PayPal account?... How have folks here found it? There are a few horror stories, but have folks here found payPal useful as sellers?

PayPal cannot take money from your bank account without your permission. They don't usually freeze or suspend a PayPal account unless they have evidence of fraud. If you don't have enough funds available to pay back a charge back or payment reversal, they may apply all future inward payments to reducing your debt.

Whether PayPal is useful depends on what and how many you sell. If you are competing against many other sellers that offer PayPal, then you need to. However, if you are the sole supplier of an item or collectible on eBay and have a long track record with excellent feedback, then you can set your own terms. Accepting PayPal for consumer electronics is always risky and invites the usual attempts at fraud - so "be prepared". It's often a good idea with PayPal to set a risk threshold, and only accept it for items you can afford to lose.

Channard wrote:

Or if not, what service would people use, other than NoChex or PayPal?

Well, MoneyBookers is good for accepting international payments with less risk. They screen users before they can send or accept payments so they are IMHO much safer than PayPal (who only really do proper ID verification after an 'incident').

One of the best service for sellers is bank transfers. You can use them for free, and they are faster and safer than PayPal. They can even be used to get paid from buyers in the EU via BIC + IBAN transfers for free!

aj3001

If you wish to be fully informed: http://www.paypalsucks.com/

frivolous_fay

aj3001 wrote:

If you wish to be fully informed: http://www.paypalsucks.com/

Fully informed of one side of the argument, that is

soolin

Re the anti paypal sites. I particularly love the bit that says '2. Their customer service is horrible. They used to hide their telephone number, (intentionally - by their own admission) and only provided support via "form" emails:
"As for the customer service, Sollitto said they intentionally make the phone number very difficult to find in order to save costs."'

I personally would have serious concerns about any person who considers listing a phone number, and opening times under 'contact us' is hiding it away :eek: If paypal users can't see the contact details under contact us maybe they need to reconsider whether they should be let loose on paypal at all.

Soo

alba37

alwaysonthego wrote:

I have never had a problem with paypal as a seller, but they are expensive with their fees. Aslong as you use a tracing delivery service for expensive items just incase the seller either does not recieve it or denies than you have proof that you that you have sent it, a proof of postage from the PO isn't exceptable.

Totally agree with alwaysonthego.

I will never touch nochex again. They have made a large profit from people not reguarly using their accounts. Thread HERE

soolin

frivolous_fay wrote:

Fully informed of one side of the argument, that is

I agree!

I have in the past contributed and been a member of many anti this or that organisations and pressure groups. However, the fact that the anti paypal one has allowed so much wrong information, and so many posts by people who are clearly not particularly gifted common sense wise is a concern. 'Anti' sites only work where the information they contain is accurate and up to date, 99% of the stories carried on anti paypal can be dismissed out of hand purly because people don't understand how paypal works.

If people want to be serious in their anti paypal message they really need to control the content of such websites, and stick to the very few instances where paypal have gone wrong.