Paypal And You
<div class="IPBDescription">Do you trust it?</div> I notice a lot of people seem to dislike paypal. Personally, I've used it for quite a while without any problems whatsoever. My account has never had a problem and I've never had a complaint about lost money. I decided to do a little research into what people were talking about and did some searches. I've found that people have made actual websites (some even with registered domain names) about paypal and it's services. From the stories I've read, it seems like every story has a catch to it.
People say they've had their account "hacked" into when really they share their password or don't have a secure password (something like their birthday or dogs name). Ever since I joined the military my passwords have gone from something like those easily hacked ones to insanely complicated ones, which you'd be surprised how easy it is to memorize. I estimate I have around 30+ different passwords at one time, which may be too much for those who don't use computers all the time but it's not that hard once you get used to it. Having !@#$#%$% characters in your password help immensly and making a password that makes no sense like a pound on the keyboard... jfa2ph8419pfh!@#$ helps even more.
The second type of complaint was the closeout complaint. The people who were closing their accounts and didn't have immediate access to their money. They sited things from emergency's to frustration with other issues which I'll cover later. They say their money was "too hard to get to". In this case...why did they store it electronically in the first place? If you think keeping your backup emergency money in an electronic account is a good idea...your way off. A bank does much better and a box under your bed works for those that don't trust banks.
Another complaint was the use of public access terminals (computers for you youngins). Accessing extremely sensitive information over a public network is NEVER the brightest thing to do, such as this link <a href='http://www.aboutpaypal.org/' target='_blank'>HERE</a>. It's like trusting Joe Schmoe off the street corner to do your banking in private without giving out details. Don't you know that libraries, coffee shops, etc, DO keep logs of where you're going even if you erase the history on that computer? And sometimes the person running them is not the most trustworthy? Get a home computer and a phone line or go to a real bank and use money orders. As far as I know, you don't need to use paypal to get the basics of living (i.e. food and shelter).
More people didn't know what they were getting into. Read the fine print. They try to make cases and class action lawsuits when they didn't read their contract agreement, argueably, who does...but then again...you clicked the "I agree" when you entered your checking account number, agreed that funds may sometimes take up to 30 days to transfer if you're not in the country and the other various complaints surrounding this part. Some people actually think that paypal is a bank and expect it to act as such. Paypal is NOT a bank, they are backed by banks but in themselves are NOT.
Others try to shift blame from the buyers/sellers that they are dealing with to paypal. One person recieves an item that is not in the described condition (as with a lot of the ebay complaints) or the buyer tries to scam money out of them by submitting a request to refund money. This is quite obviously NOT a paypal problem. This is a problem between two people who are both trying to use paypal to leverage over one another. If you have a problem with this person, you should deal with them directly. If you have no contact information, you should've recieved it beforehand, especially in cases dealing with large amounts of money. Once again, if you find yourself unable to pay rent because you do all your transactions through paypal...maybe you should've used a REAL bank.
Every single case I've read or heard about has a catch to it, so if anyone has a real case, I'd be interested to hear it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
People say they've had their account "hacked" into when really they share their password or don't have a secure password (something like their birthday or dogs name). Ever since I joined the military my passwords have gone from something like those easily hacked ones to insanely complicated ones, which you'd be surprised how easy it is to memorize. I estimate I have around 30+ different passwords at one time, which may be too much for those who don't use computers all the time but it's not that hard once you get used to it. Having !@#$#%$% characters in your password help immensly and making a password that makes no sense like a pound on the keyboard... jfa2ph8419pfh!@#$ helps even more.
The second type of complaint was the closeout complaint. The people who were closing their accounts and didn't have immediate access to their money. They sited things from emergency's to frustration with other issues which I'll cover later. They say their money was "too hard to get to". In this case...why did they store it electronically in the first place? If you think keeping your backup emergency money in an electronic account is a good idea...your way off. A bank does much better and a box under your bed works for those that don't trust banks.
Another complaint was the use of public access terminals (computers for you youngins). Accessing extremely sensitive information over a public network is NEVER the brightest thing to do, such as this link <a href='http://www.aboutpaypal.org/' target='_blank'>HERE</a>. It's like trusting Joe Schmoe off the street corner to do your banking in private without giving out details. Don't you know that libraries, coffee shops, etc, DO keep logs of where you're going even if you erase the history on that computer? And sometimes the person running them is not the most trustworthy? Get a home computer and a phone line or go to a real bank and use money orders. As far as I know, you don't need to use paypal to get the basics of living (i.e. food and shelter).
More people didn't know what they were getting into. Read the fine print. They try to make cases and class action lawsuits when they didn't read their contract agreement, argueably, who does...but then again...you clicked the "I agree" when you entered your checking account number, agreed that funds may sometimes take up to 30 days to transfer if you're not in the country and the other various complaints surrounding this part. Some people actually think that paypal is a bank and expect it to act as such. Paypal is NOT a bank, they are backed by banks but in themselves are NOT.
Others try to shift blame from the buyers/sellers that they are dealing with to paypal. One person recieves an item that is not in the described condition (as with a lot of the ebay complaints) or the buyer tries to scam money out of them by submitting a request to refund money. This is quite obviously NOT a paypal problem. This is a problem between two people who are both trying to use paypal to leverage over one another. If you have a problem with this person, you should deal with them directly. If you have no contact information, you should've recieved it beforehand, especially in cases dealing with large amounts of money. Once again, if you find yourself unable to pay rent because you do all your transactions through paypal...maybe you should've used a REAL bank.
Every single case I've read or heard about has a catch to it, so if anyone has a real case, I'd be interested to hear it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
I, too, use PayPal (<i>although rarely</i>), and have never had a problem with it. I live in Canada, but even that hasn't affected the quality of the service I have received so far.
It seems the biggest root problem in most 'complaints' is that, as you mentioned, PayPal is <b>not</b> a bank. PayPal really should make that more obvious in their User Agreement. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
It's just a very shoddy service, and I wish places I wanted to get things from would stop using it, so I could too.
I am from NYC however I go to school out in Ohio (Oberlin). my parents still pay me an alowance ($100 a month to live off of) my dad can simply send me the $100 wich I can promptly put into my acount (never takes longer then 4 buissness days for me).
Also when I am at home I have 2 options for deposittinf paychecks, sign em, seal em up and send em back to ohio for deposit (I don't trust USPS), or I can give it to one of my parents to deposit in their accnts then pay pall me the $ (and I can then either keep it in pay pal or pop it off to my accnt in ohio.
I have never had any problems with pay pal, thougH Ihave heard many of the horror stories (suposedly if they think you are doing anything illegit they have the right to freez/liquidate your accnt, meh)
oh, and incase you didn't catch on both my parents use paypal also (my dad is a comp prof and thus does alot of ol ordering and my mom collects autographs from ebay)
oh, and I like the fact that the minimum password for paypal is like 7 or 8 chars <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
and for all of you who have a hard time remembering/cmming up with 'secure PWs here is a neat trick
come up with a simple word
Dragon
spell it backwords
nogard
leet it
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so long as you stick to one form of leet (basicaly you knwo what each char maps to) you will be able to create rather secure pasword <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
And they say leet has no uses <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> <EG>