My use of paypal is limited, but I don't think I would use it to pay a provider.  Cash is king!!!!!

Lou

If they find out, it is a violation of their TOS, your account will be frozen, and you won't have access to any of the money in it.

A few Topics "down" (earlier) than this one is "Questions Re: P411 and VIP Membership in TER" and I replied to it with "New way to pay anonymously: TrustCash".  Does anyone know if individuals can register to receive payments with TrustCash? Does it work fast enough so a gentleman could pay at the bank on the corner and the hostess would get confirmation (email? on-line account login?) by the time he rang the doorbell?

It wouldn't really matter to me. Personally, I'm a cash only kind of guy.

PayPal, even for "legitimate" e-commerce accounts typically suspends your account for "review" as soon as you start making any serious amount of money. (a few thousand or hundred dollars accumulated with any regularity) This review can happens either in weeks or after months. At that point, they will request information about your business, your services, want to call 'vendors' for references, see invoices, etc. In your case, they'd probably ask for ID, SS#, tax returns, business records... it goes on and on. There's a story that a legitimate mini-web celebrity was organizing a conference and taking payment via PayPal. They didn't like it for some reason and papered her to death with all the requests.

Even if they didn't do this to your account, these are again credit card transactions through a third party. Nevermind the negative or fake review. Someone can just decide to "dispute" your transaction for services not receive or not as described either through PayPal or their CC company. With PayPal's policies, good luck getting your money then.

Just don't do it. It's hard enough to get a PayPal account to not have limits on it (even if you pass the checks with a legitimate business, they can put you on things like a 20% rolling 90 day reserve) when selling tangible products. Using it for this, you're setting yourself up for a punch to the face.

unless you hook it an innocuous, "legit" site.  Waaaay back when, I hooked paypal to my adult website and now I am forever banned from using it.  All additional cards I've ever tried have been denied.

Saved me a bunch of money on ebay, but it's a pain.

I've since set up a website for my handknit baby sweaters, hooked google checkout to that and it's been fine.  That said, I think only 2 people in 3 years have charged their session .