PayPal - The Internet Moneygram
Written: Apr 01 '07 (Updated Apr 01 '07)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Customer Service: |
 |
|
| Web Site Experience: |
|
|
| Web Site Load Time: |
|
|
|
Pros: Easy way to send money over the internet.
Cons: Security can be a problem for some.
The Bottom Line: Many times PayPal is very handy. Many eBay sellers require it, so get informed and use wisely.
|
|
|
| rbinck's Full Review: PayPal |
Introduction
PayPal can be one of the handiest ways to transfer money over the internet that exists today. Many eBay sellers will only take PayPal payments.
Accounts
Basically when you create a PayPal account you can send money to another PayPal account or receive money from another PayPal account. Sending money is free of any fees, but receiving money will cost a transaction fee that is deducted from the transaction amount. In other words it is free to use for buyers, but will cost a seller.
Funding a transaction can be done by sending in a check to PayPal, via a credit card, or via a bank transfer. Some people will send in a flat amount and carry a balance in PayPal. At first PayPal would just hold your money until you spent it, but now you can sign up to get interest on your PayPal balance.
There are basically two types of PayPal accounts; verified and non-verified. The verified accounts require you to send to PayPal your bank’s routing number and account number so they can extract money from your bank account or transfer money to your bank account. In order to get any money from PayPal, you need to be verified. For paying only you can remain non-verified.
The verification process is not difficult, but it does take a while, maybe a couple of days. After you give PayPal your banking information, PayPal will make a couple of small deposit transactions to your bank account. This is at PayPal’s expense. Then you have to enter these deposits in PayPal’s verification page. If you have on-line access to your bank account data this is a lot easier than calling the bank to get the deposit amounts. Once PayPal receives the deposit feedback, your account will be verified.
Both accounts will require a credit card to be used as a backup funding source in case there are insufficient funds in your bank account unless you send in funds via check. There is also a method of using a credit card for the funding as well.
My Experiences
I have used PayPal quite a bit with great success. I had two occasions where I had to deal with PayPal due to problems.
The first occasion dealt with a transaction where the package never arrived. The seller had shipped via Fed-Ex without requiring a signature and Fed-Ex left the package at our front door. It disappeared. Well, I thought the PayPal protection would probably kick in. Wrong. It turns out that even though the seller’s page had the PayPal protection up to $2,000, what they don’t make apparent is there is essentially a $200 deductible, so if the transaction is under that amount there is not any PayPal buyer’s protection. I don’t know whether to say that PayPal or the seller is using deceptive practices, but to me advertising the PayPal buyer’s protection up to $2,000 is deceiving when the item is going to be less than $200.
Anyway, I contacted PayPal using the on-line forms required by PayPal and entered a claim. After about a month of emails going back and forth between PayPal and the seller, the claim was decided in the seller’s favor as far as him returning my money and with the deductible, well I got zip. If I have an issue with PayPal on this occasion it would be that in order to advertise the PayPal buyer’s protection, I think the seller should be required to get the package signed for, otherwise the seller should be charged back. I can see PayPal’s and the seller’s position that maybe I really did get the package and was just scamming them, so it is a tough call. From now on I insist on USPS or signature required shipments. I have never had a USPS shipment lost.
The second occasion was where my PayPal account was used by someone other than me. Apparently an eBay member in good standing member name and password was stolen and used to purchase a cell phone from a seller in the UK and shipped to an address in the UK. Further the thief had some way to use my PayPal account to fund the purchase. When I received the email alert saying thanks for the transaction, I immediately filled out a PayPal claim form on-line. Then I dug through the PayPal pages until I found a phone number and gave them a call. Good move because they immediately placed hold on my account until this was cleared up. Turned out the eBay member (actually the thief) made several other purchases using other PayPal accounts. I found this out by looking at the member’s feedback. Funny thing is the member had been inactive for quite a while before the fraudulent purchases and had a great rating.
The end result of this occasion was PayPal charged back the amount to the seller and refunded me the money. The problem at first had to do with the money exchange between USD and British Pounds. The dollar had gone down in value from the time that PayPal had funded the seller and the time that PayPal charged the seller back. This resulted in my losing about $20 on the transaction. Since the total was nearly $400 I thought, well that’s better than losing it all. But to PayPal’s credit they must have noticed the discrepancy and in about a week there was another deposit to my account for the difference plus a little extra even. Apparently the dollar had come back up, I guess.
So I had a good experience with PayPal and a not so good one. Point here is to consider PayPal payments pretty much like sending cash through the mail, the difference being you can verify how much was sent, so maybe it is more like sending a money order or cashier’s check through the mail. If something happens to the purchase between the seller and you, it could be your loss.
Also due to the fraudulent use of my PayPal account, I have adopted a practice of changing my password periodically, According to PayPal this is the best protection against your account being used fraudulently.
Conclusion
All in all if you buy stuff over the internet, PayPal is a good way to transfer money. Just remember that the transaction is more like cash than a credit card purchase and you may not have the same rights of getting your money back as you would have if you used a credit card. If you are going to depend on a PayPal account for your business transactions, like buying and selling on eBay, I would think about a special PayPal bank account so you could limit your exposure. Better to have a few overdraft fees than a lot of money being drained out of your account. Also it may be a good idea to use a special credit card with a low limit to be the back up funding card.
Bottom line is with proper precautions, a PayPal account can save a lot of headaches for sending and receiving money over the internet.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
rbinck
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Richard Binckley
Location: Houston, Texas
Reviews written: 125
Trusted by: 26 members
About Me:
Retired A/V professional, likes Hawaii and Classic Cars
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.