PayPal is great for ALL online auctions and payments
Written: Nov 04 '01
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Pros: Great way to pay for online auctions. $5 bonus for signing up
Cons: You can no longer accept credit cards on Personal accounts as of November 6.
The Bottom Line: I continue to recommend PayPal for online auction payments.
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| momofchris's Full Review: PayPal |
FIRST OF ALL – WHAT IS IT?
Paypal is an online e-mail payment service. The recipient does not even need to have an account with Paypal in order for you to send a payment. Once you have signed up for Paypal, all you need to do is click on the send money tab, enter the person’s e-mail address and the amount. Of course, that person needs to establish a Paypal account in order to retrieve the funds. Currently, you can fund payments into Paypal through your credit card or through your bank account. Since there are no fees to send the money either way, this is an extremely attractive way to send money online. The payments can really be for anything, not just an auction, but I suspect this is what most Paypal personal account holders use it for. I have been trying to convince my homeowners association to sign up with Paypal, but I think it is just a little to high tech for them right now. Most of the people here are much older and are not quite up on anything this new.
Essentially, PayPal, sets up a PayPal account for each person or business that signs up. When you sign up and get your bonus (currently there is again a sign up bonus – see the details below), the funds show up in the PayPal account. You can then transfer this to your bank account electronically if you have provided PayPal with your bank account information. Otherwise, you can request a check, which takes one to two weeks to be received by you. There is a $1.50 fee for requesting a check.
TYPES OF ACCOUNTS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE –
Paypal has three types of accounts available: Personal, Premier and Business accounts. The features available with a Personal account are also there for the Premier and Business accounts. Those features are: Sending money, requesting money, Auction Tools (accept paypal directly from your auction listing, automatically invoice winning bidders), establish a Money Market account, earn a $5 referral bonus (see details below), accept international payments from 37 countries, a downloadable history log and account insurance up to $10,000.
Premier and business accounts also have these additional features: accept unlimited credit card payments, placing a PayPal shopping account on your website, multiple payment functions, multiple logins – giving employees limited access to your paypal account, an ATM Debit card for instant access to your Paypal funds and a 7 day a week customer service center.
Only the premier and business accounts have fees. The fee for receiving a payment is 2.9% plus 30 cents for standard rate accounts. If you qualify for a merchant rate the fee is 2.2% plus 30 cents. Merchant accounts are only for people or businesses that have had a Paypal account for 90 days and have averaged $3,000 in PayPal payments over that same time frame. The rate is reduced to 1.4% plus 30 cents for the standard rate and 0.7% plus 30 cents for the merchant rate if you sign up for a Paypal ATM debit card and advertise Paypal for your online payment options in your Ebay listings.
Effective November 6, 2001, you can no longer accept credit card payments with a personal account. I’m not very happy with this change, but since I do not currently sell a great deal of items through Ebay or other auction sites, I’m going to keep my personal account and not bother to upgrade it unless conditions change.
BENEFITS FOR A PERSONAL ACCOUNT -
I really like PayPal and have used it for almost all of my Ebay transactions since I signed in August of 2000. I’ve used it as both a buyer and a seller on auction sites. As soon as you send the funds (credit card or cash transfer), Paypal will send you a confirmation and an e-mail to the recipient, so that they know the payment has been made. I’ve actually been online at the same time as someone paying me and it really is immediate. You can transfer funds through PayPal, if you chose to link it to a bank account. Once you link PayPal to a bank account, you become a verified user. You can have your "verified user" status show up in your seller auctions at Ebay or Yahoo through PayPal by chosing a logo under the your profile section of PayPal or by clicking on the sell tab of Paypal and setting up a logo there.
If you use PayPal just to pay for auctions, you just provide PayPal with the recipient's e-mail address and the amount on the first Send Money screen. You can check off the auction button on this screen as well. On the second screen you can breakdown the payment by the auction amount and the shipping, but this is not required. You can provide all the details of the auction or not. The only other required information is your shipping information. If you do not have enough funds in your PayPal account to pay for the auction, PayPal will offer you your payment options. If you have set up a bank account with PayPal, they can make an instant transfer. Only the name of the account and the last four numbers of the account number show up on the screen. If you prefer to pay by credit card (visa or mastercard), your credit card name and just the last four digits will show up on the screen. You can also request an e-mail receipt of the transaction.
The PayPal bank transfers are a bit slow (other than the instant payment transfers). It can take five business days for a transfer with PayPal to be completed. The credit card and online payments for auctions, like Ebay are very quick. Once you enter the required information, the funds are immediately transfered within your PayPal account. The site is relatively easy to use.
You certainly can't beat the price (FREE!!) for personal accounts. Even without being able to accept credit card payments, I don't see the benefits of a business account for me at this time. I mainly use Paypal to pay for auctions and only occasionally to accept a payment for an auction. I currently do not sell very many items. I think the best thing about PayPal is the extra income it can help create with your auctions (like Ebay, yahoo or bargain and haggle). It would be especially good for someone who is very new to the auction sites. Since people can pay you online, it will make them feel more willing to bid on your items.
The payments go into your PayPal account very quickly. Again it can take five business days though for PayPal to transfer the funds to your bank account. To be on the safe side, it might be best to just set up a separate small bank account just to use for your auctions.
With the current changes, it is still completely free if you only plan on using PayPal for auction payments. The main benefit with paying for an auction with PayPal is that you do not have to wait for you shipment to arrive. Most PayPal users will ship the same day with a PayPal payment. This sure beats the charges with money orders and the long wait, usually two weeks when you pay by check!
SIGN UP BONUS IS BACK -
You do currently get a $5 sign up bonus, but only if you set up a bank account with PayPal. It's not a bad idea though, but I would recommend the separate auction account. You also get an extra bonus though because PayPal transfers about a $1.00 in order to verify your bank account. Don't forget to give a friend's e-mail address when you sign up, so they can also get a $5 referral bonus. The current rules for getting a sign up bonus and for your friend to receive a referral bonus are:
1. Signs up for PayPal
2. Confirm your email address
3. Confirm a checking account
4. Adds $250 or more by electronic funds transfer into their PayPal account
5. Signs up for a Money Market Fund
The money market fund is offered by PayPal in partnership with Barclays Global Investors. It works just like most money market mutual funds that are currently available today.
SHOPPING WITH PAYPAL –
PayPal now has several online shopping sites. Most of these sites are relatively small but can have some interesting items. Some of the major categories are: Babies & Kids, Books, Clothing, Crafts, Electronics, Real Estate, Toys & games and Travel. You can also shop at the following major online retailers: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, Buy, CDNow, Eddie Bauer, Expedia, FTD, Jcrew, Office depot, outpost, Toys “R” Us and Wal-mart.
To shop at these retailers, you must first have the funds in your Paypal account. Then you click on the shop tab and Shop anywhere. You select the merchant and then PayPal assigns a "virtual" MasterCard debit number to your PayPal account. The virtual debit number appears on your PayPal Debit Bar. The Bar will appear below your browser as you shop. When you buy something online, enter your PayPal Debit Bar information to pay using your PayPal balance.
PAYPAL CREDIT CARD -
The Paypal credit card offers you an introductory rate of 1.9% but this rate only applies to the first 2 or 3 billing cycles. You do receive a $5 credit the first time you use it, but the regular rates are relatively high. The lowest interest rate is on the PayPal Premium Visa which is 9.99%. I do not currently have or plan to get any of their credit cards.
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS –
I wish I could still accept credit card payments through PayPal with my personal account, but I’m still glad that I have PayPal. It has helped out with my auctions at several sites making the transactions fast and easy. It is well worth signing up for if you wish to purchase items online.
If this looks somewhat familiar to you, you may have been among the original 25 people that read my first PayPal review. I have deleted that Epinion and reposted it here since PayPal has changed significantly since I wrote that initial review over a year ago.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
momofchris
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Location: outside of Washington DC
Reviews written: 68
Trusted by: 59 members
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