I’ve never used PayPal and I’ve seen threads that it can be hard to cancel / dissassociate from.
I want to buy something online from a site which only accepts PayPal.
So how do I
a) Create a PayPal account
b) Pay for the thing
c) Cause PayPal to forget I ever existed. Or at least have no knowledge of any of my credit cards.
a & b are easy (I assume).
It’s c I wonder about. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Or am I just being paranoid / silly / Luddite and having a CC attached to PayPal is safe, convenient, and fun. And spam-free. And (reasonably) privacy- and fraud-safe.
Credit cards are protected by a number of laws that make them quite low risk. A legitimate business like Paypal having your credit card number is not something to get worked up about.
If you remain unconvinced, you’ll need to get a temporary credit card number from your credit card issuer and use that. I don’t know if Paypal offers a way to delete your account info, but even if they did, why would you trust them to do that if you don’t trust them to keep your credit card secure in the first place?
a & b are easy. Just go to paypal.com and follow the prompts.
OMFG. I just spent the last week trying to get my online credit card disassociated from PayPal. I only have a PayPal account because of the same reason, I had to start one to buy something from a site that only took PayPal (and I want to keep the account for the same reason in the future). My online credit card is just what I want it to be; I have no use for an intrusive PayPal account except for sites that only take PayPal.
Once I was able to disassociate my credit card from PayPal (I had to delete my cookies to make it go away), when I entered the credit card number again on a different site (this one, actually), PayPal glommed onto it again and put it back on my account if I signed back into PayPal (which was the big, flashing radio button - the link for continuing without signing in was a tiny, non-descript link underneath it). At this point I would advise getting a credit card that is only associated with PayPal, or use it this once and cancel the whole account after you’re done. There is no doubt in my mind that PayPal will find a way to grab onto my credit card number again the minute I let my guard down.
I always find it odd that people will happily give their credit card to any random waiter/waitress who will disappear with it for several minutes before returning it, but then get paranoid when a fairly reputable large company with high-grade encryption and full-time security experts want to store it to pay for something.
In my opinion, you’re being paranoid. For the vast majority of people, Paypal is a pretty safe, easy, and painless way of paying for things online. They do have a questionable policy of freezing accounts with suspicious behavior (money transfers of thousands of dollars), but unless you’re laundering money with them, you don’t have anything to worry about. I’d keep the account after using it for whatever reason. Lots of online stores take Paypal and I’d rather enter my login information rather than enter my name, address, phone number, and credit card information each time.
If you’re that concerned about PP and your credit card, call your credit card issuer and tell them you lost the card. They will give you a new number. Then there is no way anyone can get a hold of a new number.
Word of advice, NEVER repeat NEVER buy anything with paypal EXCEPT if you fund it through a credit card. Did you read that NEVER NEVER NEVER buy anything through PP EXCEPT through a PP transaction funded with a credit card.
This way if something goes wrong and PP won’t back you up, which they often don’t, you also can dispute the charge with your credit card.
Again, if you’re worried, buy with PP and use a credit card as your source of payment and then after you get the item and are satisfied, call the bank that issued your credit card, report it as lost and get a new cc number.
Second word of advice, be careful when you go into paypal. Sometimes when you hit change, to change funding from your bank account to credit card, the change doesn’t take. LOOK first.
Because Paypal gets in the news for this, while your local waiter doesn’t. I really would like to see real numbers on how often a credit card’s information gets stolen during a normal transaction, and how often Paypal screws people over.
My actual suggestion is to go ahead and let Paypal have your credit card info, and just look out for bad charges. But absolutely do not let there be a balance on the account. As long as there is no balance, you’re just as safe as letting the waiter take it.
Are you sure the store only accepts PayPal? Or do they just use the PayPal payment gateway?
In most of the PayPal-related stores I’ve set up, the user gets shuttled over to a PayPal web page on checkout, and there’s a BIG “log in to PayPal to pay!” form and a tiny link that says “Don’t have a PayPal account? Pay using your credit card” on the same page. Here’s a random person’s screen shot.
You can check out using your credit card and you don’t have to set up a PayPal account. PayPal doesn’t keep any of your info, and it’s exactly the same as checking out at any other online store - the store owner just happens to use PayPal’s hosted forms for the checkout process.
I was going to post the same thing ZipperJJ just did - I thought if you got a money request through Paypal, you’d get the option to pay it with your credit card, without setting up a Paypal account. I know it does this when I’ve seen it.
Maybe I’m under-paranoid, but I’ve had a PayPal account now for years, and have never had any issues with either payments I’ve made, or fraud / theft of my bank account/credit card.
Same here. I have PayPal set up through a checking account where I maintain a relatively low balance that I use just for paying for small internet purchases. No sweat (to date).
