Pay Pal is some sort of outfit that helps with on-line purchasing.
I don’t know anything about this. 
I need some info.
Not the company site, but some input from people who have used it. Am I gonna be ripped off by these guys? I’ve heard that people are complaining about it, & some credit card outfits won’t let you use your card.
How 'bout it Dopers?
How does this thing work? Will I get ripped off? And, what are your experiences?
I’ve used it a number of times and have never had a problem.
There have been a couple of class action lawsuits filed since the beginning of the year against PayPal for freezing users’ accwithout cause and then providing no way to get funds un-frozen. The suits also claim that PayPal provides little or no customer service to get such problems resolved. One of them was filed in California –
Lots of people use Paypal all the time without problems. However, a few people have had problems and like to share their grievances. You can read about them here:
The main problem is that Paypal is not licensed or regulated in the same way as a normal bank, and isn’t really answerable to anyone but itself. It seems that on occasion it has ‘frozen’ an individual’s assets while investigating some alleged problem, and if this takes a long time to sort out, the individual concerned naturally feels a bit helpless and aggrieved. So, if you do use PayPal, never leave a substantial portion of your cash assets sitting in that account.
It’s an easy way to pay for an auction. The seller doesn’t have to wonder if the buyer’s check is going to bounce; the buyer doesn’t have to worry about the seller getting access to his bank or credit card information. Basically you’re telling PayPal to take X dollars out of your bank account (or you can put it on your credit card too) and give it to the seller. I’ve never had any problems with them.
I’ve used Pay Pal for auction purchases and income, as well as CD sales for my husband. We have a Pay-Pal Mastercard, which allows us to use the funds immediately or withdraw it at any ATM. I’ve never had a single issue with their service and have been very pleased thus far. Then again, I’ve not had any disputed payments or anything else to deal with.
Zette
I’ve used paypal. Usually it works fine.
I did run into one issue. I sent a paypal payment to someone who said they accepted paypal, but they didn’t want to take it because I had paid with a credit card and apparently paypal requires that the seller have a more expensive account before they will accept this. I tried to figure out how to cancel the transaction but wasn’t able to. I search through all of paypal’s help but it wasn’t any help. It was almost impossible to find an e-mail address to send any sort of message to and I just got a form letter in response. I asked the seller if he could somehow cancel the transaction from his end, and he refused the payment and it bounced back to me, and I sent him a check and all was well.
I have also heard the previously mentioned stories of people getting their accounts frozen.
I haven’t used paypal since, because I know that if anything goes wrong it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to resolve. I probably will use it again if I’m buying something over ebay, but not for anything over $50 (just in case).
I’ve used PayPal a lot. I like it. I probably wouldn’t leave hundreds of dollars sitting in my PayPal account for any length of time, but as you can transfer funds directly to your bank account at any time, that’s not really a problem.
Since you seem to be looking for anecdotal evidence more than verifiable facts, I’ll move this thread to IMHO.
I have used PayPal literally hundreds of times, as both buyer and seller. Many of these transactions were substantial (over $300), and I have never had a single problem. If you are careful who you accept money from, and who you send money to, you won’t have any problems. The ratio of smooth transactions versus problem transactions is tens of thousands to one. The fact that Paypal does millions of transaction per month makes the few that do go bad stand out. Usually the problem lies with one of the parties to the transaction commiting a fraud, not PayPal stealing anybody’s money.
I use PayPal all the time, for receiving and sending money. I also have the Mastercard that lets me access the money in my account easily.
Not having a PayPal account seems so caveman like to me! heh
Oh, both suits were in California, one in federal court and one in state court –
Federal case –
Fawcett v. PayPal Inc., N.D. Cal., C 02 1227 JF PVT, complaint filed 3/12/02
Alleges violations of the federal Electronic Fund Transfer Act, 15 U.S.C. §1693 – failing to disclose a correct telephone number and address that consumers could use in case of unauthorized electronic transfer and errors or questions concerning EFTs – also violated provision requiring the reporting of an investigation and determination within 10 days of being informed of an error – also violated a provision of the statute giving 45 days to complete an investigation of a reported error if it provisionally credits, with interest, a customer’s account.
More charges - failed to conduct good faith investigations, failed to give provisional credits, failed to correct alleged errors, failed to credit interest, or failed to allow consumers to obtain documents that formed the basis of decisions as required by the statute.
Also charges under California fraudulent business practices statute, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §17200 and common causes of action for conversion, unjust enrichment, negligence, and for money had and received.
State case –
Kamdar v. PayPal Inc., Cal. Super. Ct., Santa Clara Cty., complaint filed 2/20/02
Charges PayPal violated its user agreement as well as the California unfair business practices statute.
Reading the text of the complaints, it looks like some people have had rather horrific experiences.
I use Paypal, both to send and recieve money.
Sending works great; I can charge things whey I bid on them on eBay.
Same for accepting payments. They take a cut, but it’s small, and much better than what you’d get from a bank to accept credit cards.
No problems either way.
I sell my artwork online, and often people are sending me $100+ at a time for pictures… they see it, they want it, they don’t want to wait for it any longer than they have to. Paypal has been an amazing help in selling stuff online. So far I haven’t had any problems with it, but I do transfer my payments into my real bank account as soon as they clear.
Im still waiting to collect from them on their sort of insurance program. At any rate, putting
‘paypal’ into the search box should bring up numerous topics on them.
I used paypal, bout tickets off an auction, the seller didn’t really have the tickets filed a claim, Pay Pal said they were investigating. Over a year later I got my refund. My account then became locked. I had to fax information mutiple times before they finally got it to verify my identity and unlock my account. I prefer using billpoint from E-bay or c2it from citibank
I have used PayPal hundreds of times without a hitch. In fact I look for sellers that accept Paypal and give them my business.
A couple of months ago I had a problem with a seller not sending an item I had paid for with Paypal. She ignored my e-mails and inquiries from E-Bay. Finally I got PayPal involved and they gave me her real name and address. I don’t know what else they did but I got my item withing the next few days.
I send money to my daughter and pay for auctions, and all sorts of things. I love Paypal.
Do remember that paypal takes a percentage of your funds when someone makes
a CC deposit & that it’s against Ebay rules to
charge extra in your auction because of that. I don’t know why that is but several people in the ebay newsgroup
said thats the case. I think paypal takes 4% (but check their rates) when people put money into your account.
I don’t keep more than fifteen dollars in my paypal account. It costs $1.50 for them to mail me a check of my funds
& they have been pretty nice about getting me my checks.