Using PayPal

[tubeswell]

Having had many hours of fun as a result of stuff learned (and time spent) on this forum, I'm keen to support tboy's endeavour and today I set up a debt visa card a/c for that purpose (even tho', being the old fashioned payer that I am, I have deep mistrust about doing funds transactions over the 'net, and have always paid by direct deposit or bank draft) but I see the donate button requires you to become a part of PayPal.

I've read various horror stories about unauthorised deductions of $,000s of bucks from peoples bank a/c s via PayPal, with little sympathy from PayPal when it happens. Seeing as how there's a worldwide recession going down, I wonder further whether this is the worst possible time to sign up to PayPal, in that regard. (Sorry if I sound like a hill-billy from the back of beyond on the other side of the world , but in lots of ways that's what I is). So I unashamedly am being timorous and seeking the views of others here about their experiences with it before I commit myself to PayPal.

What's the 'safest' way to make payment by PayPal?

Or (failing that) what's the 'safest' way to make payments by the internerd?

[tboy]

You'll probably want to be hearing from someone other than me on this, but for what it's worth I've been using PayPal since they began without any problems.

Even though PayPal does what they can to obscure it, it is possible to send money through them without signing up for an account, and doing it that way should be no more risky than any other credit card transaction. There's really no reason I can think of to sign up unless you want to be able to receive money from other people.

But hey, I'm open to any other method you'd care to use; just PM if you have an idea.

[Enzo]

I just sent a paypal donation, it took about 12 seconds. I use it for a variety of needs, and have never had a problem.

You might hear stories about someone losing money through a paypal rip off, but the newspapers are full of stories how someone's identity was stolen, or how someone's credit card numbers were stolen, it ain;t just paypal. Scams are everywhere.

I think a lot of problems occur when gullible people fall for scams. When I get an email from "paypal" telling me there has been an unauthorized attempt to make a withdrawal, and won;t I please enter my password and banking information to "make sure the records are correct," I recognize it for the scam that it is. If I followed the instructions in the email, they'd have me. But i get the same sort of phishing emails from my "bank", and even plenty of banks I have never done business with. it is hardly the fault of paypal, the bank, or ebay, or anyone else that crooks pretend to be them.

[VA3UX]

I've never had a problem with PayPal and I've been using it for several years. However like you, I too have a general mistrust of transferring funds over the net. I think many (most/all) of the PayPal horror stories were from the early days before eBay bought it out. I *think* most of that is in the past.

A couple of ways of building-in a little extra protection with PayPal :
1) Open a separate bank account just for PayPal transactions. Don't leave any more money in it than is required and this limits your exposure to fraud.

2) Open a separate credit card account just for PayPal / internet use but keep a real low limit on it ($500 or whatever).

Despite my mistrust of internet security, I have to say that these quick payments via PayPal are awesome. I've payed for eBay auctions within minutes of the auction ending. Then just an hour or two later, I get an automated message with a Fedex or USPS tracking number for the item I just paid for. And I didn't have to leave the house.

[Robert M. Martinelli]

hi,
I don't either like or approve their way of doing business ( e.g. on ebay they have found the way to earn three times as much on each transaction - first the ebay fees, then the PayPal fees for the seller - which sometimes are transferred by the seller to the buyer, but someone pays for them, anyway - and, last but not least, they also apply an unfavorable exchange rate ( some 4-5 % below the "official" exchange rate of the day )).

This said, I've been using PayPal since 2003 and never had a problem with it ( other than the above mentioned issues ).

Cheers

Bob

[tubeswell]

Originally Posted by tboy

Even though PayPal does what they can to obscure it, it is possible to send money through them without signing up for an account, and doing it that way should be no more risky than any other credit card transaction.

How does one go about that then?

[tboy]

When you click the Donate link up above, the forum presents a simple form where you select (or enter) the donation amount. Then when you hit the Submit button it takes you to a page on Paypal that looks like this:

ppscreen.png

See the part in the lower left that I highlighted in pink? Just click the Continue link and and it gives you a form to fill out with your credit card info.

[tubeswell]

Thanks tboy - my card arrived on Monday - I'm just waiting for some more funds to put on it (sorry for the delay)

[Enzo]

And I don;t know if it applies here, but I know Visa, and probably the others, has some sort of deal where you can generate one-time-use Visa account numbers. I mainly see it around the Xmas shopping season. For people concerned about their numbers getting stolen, you sign up for this for your own Visa, and when you make a online purchase, you use the one time number, just as you would use your own, and it is no good thereafter. SO anyone can steal the number and have nothing.

I have zero idea how it works or the process, I just know it exists. perhaps you run the purchase through the Visa system and it generates a number on the spot and puts it in place of your number seamlessly. If that were the case, you wouldn;t even have to know the number yourself.

Worth looking into.

[tubeswell]

Yay I lost my Paypal virginity.