PayPal sucks -- can you use something else?

General discussion re sg.

Would you trust PayPal with your bank account information to "verify" who you are -- just so that you can make large Credit Card purchases?

Yes, I trust them with complete access to money in my bank account.
2
25%
No way! My bank account information is mine alone!
3
38%
What, do you think I'm an idiot?
3
38%
 
Total votes : 8

PayPal sucks -- can you use something else?

Postby acce » Thu Jul 17, 2008 8:36 pm

I hit the "donate" button and saw that Spamgormet uses PayPal.

PayPal is so horrible that I won't send or receive money through them anymore. Don't just take my word for it -- do a quick Google search on "PayPal complaints". It is absolutly shocking that a company as bad as PayPal can continue to live and grow when there are better alternatives. My bad experiences are trivial compared to what they are doing to other people!

I love Spamgourmet -- but I can not donate in good conscious as long as Spamgourmet continues to support a nasty company like PayPal.
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Postby SysKoll » Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:29 pm

Paypal/Ebay are well-know for being totally defective and for acting as a scammer haven.

They are also the leader on the market.

Many of their competitors suffer from the same problem. See e-gold for instance. At least, EBay's execs haven't been arrested for money laundering.

We're open to suggestion. What would you consider an acceptable electronic money transfer company?
-- SysKoll
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PayPal sucks -- can you use something else?

Postby rdigqd » Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:34 pm

.
.
SysKoll wrote:Paypal/Ebay are well-know for being totally defective and for acting as a scammer haven.

They are also the leader on the market.

Many of their competitors suffer from the same problem. See e-gold for instance. At least, EBay's execs haven't been arrested for money laundering.

We're open to suggestion. What would you consider an acceptable electronic money transfer company?


I agree 10000% with posters 'nervous' (at least!!) about
using PP with funds being taken from their bank acct.

Potential for disaster is too, too high.

OTOH... they (IMO) need to take a 'chill pill' and
investigate setting up their PP access to draw funds
from a credit card instead.

Then (unless their C-Card is with a low-life financial
institution <G>), they have that company on-hand to
'go to bat' for them if incorrect/improper transactions
come to occur (cuz PP, as has been loudly decried
here, sure as heck won't do that!).

I've used that approach for quite a number of years
and have _NOT_ had problems.

j.
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PayPal sucks -- can you use something else?

Postby clio » Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:45 pm

I agree with rdigqd. I've used PayPal for a few years now to make payments with a credit card for online purchases. PayPal doesn't have and doesn't need my bank account information. I haven't had any problems.
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Postby josh » Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:28 pm

I'd be open to alternatives, too, but haven't seen any good ones
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Postby miniscus » Fri Aug 08, 2008 11:30 pm

I do basically agree and avoid PP where possible, but the prob is not Paypal itself. It is a very basic political thing, visible when viewed internationally.

To whom it may interest...:

In the core EU countries you cannot open a bank account w/o being officially registered at the town you live by address. We all are registered here, by law.

As a 'fascinating' result, all banks here guarantee to draw back any electr. debit payment that the payer within 30 days declares as false. I need no reason to do so, and have no risk whatsoever. All payments are instantly reversed, and it is up to the original recipient to prove I need to have paid something.

In these countries all payments are done by auto-debit, electr. transfer, DC or CC. Checks are considers very unsafe, unused since decades.

Paypal (and other commercial companies) just cannot "misbehave" a lot here (or be egocentrically incompetent). Downside of the core EU-system is government control of your homestead. Upside is fast, advanced and safe payment modes. I allways have severe problems with international payments to and from english origined countries, a terrible hassle (incl. EU-UK). :? I believe it results from the peoples demand for a slim government, which is understandable! Unfortunately commercial power tends to grow out of control a bit by that, pushing ordinary people to the end of the line.


But what was said above with banks offering to draw back CC payments on cards issued by them seems an equivalent safety.
I would check if your CC payments are insured or the issueing bank garantees reverse payments within a time limit. That would seem equally safe to me, if that bank is trustworthy (as mentioned above).
Arick
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paypal

Postby Jim27106 » Thu Jan 08, 2009 2:11 am

I've heard of issues with Paypal. Specifically freezing accounts. I've never heard of them taking money out of the bank account. And sucking money from a credit card when not authorized would be a bad idea.

It isn't just a company that goes to bat for you. It is a bank. Step 1 is your write a letter and they charge the abusive charger a fee. Step 2 of a chargeback is they send the company a letter and put a hold on the money. Step 3 is the company has to convince the bank the money was a legit charge - most abusive chargers can't even get that right. Railpass.com wrote a letter saying their charge was legit. In step 4 I told the bank they had done a bait-and-switch and had not honored the contract. It took 4 months but I got a refund of the additional charges.

Long story short, Spamgourmet should probably not keep a lot of money in the paypal account.
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Postby Paranoid2000 » Sat Mar 14, 2009 1:54 pm

Paypal has become completely unusable for me. Although I use a valid credit card (actually a bank application that generates "virtual" one-time use CC numbers) and create a new Paypal account for each purchase, Paypal more often than not freezes that account instantly (reversing any transaction) and demands bank details as part of their "conflict resolution" procedure. This means I can't use Paypal to make any more SG donations without placing SG's account at risk.

As for alternatives, how about Google Checkout or the Paysafecard (Wikipedia details here). While this is limited to Europe it can be purchased at many stores, making it accessible to anyone with cash.
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Postby Paranoid2000 » Wed Jun 30, 2010 3:04 pm

Another possibility - Moneybookers. They impose a flat-rate charge on account withdrawals (and some forms of payment) making them rather pricey for small amounts of money, but very good on larger sums. Not actually used them though.
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Postby jgombos » Mon Aug 09, 2010 7:01 pm

It's a no-brainer to accept paper checks. Just put a name and address on the donation page. This will ensure that Americans can easily donate without using paypal, and even better there is no middle-man taking a cut, so the donation goes 100% to sg.

Some US banks support p2p payments (eg. www.becu.org). P2p is going to rely more on the sender to have a bank that supports it, but you could make available a mobile phone number and other means for people to send to (hopefully it doesn't mean you have to answer the phone). And some banks support internal transfers (although you need to have an account at the same bank, and be willing to publish the account number).

For non-us donations, you could open accounts in different currencies (eg. moneybookers, alertpay, pecunix), and try to get an account in GBP and EUR so you have the three major currencies covered (because conversions are lossy).

electronic money accounts are generally free to open, so why not just open them to give more options?
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