Actually, Paypal has a customer service number. I call it because I use their debit card services to. When I add money to my debit account it doesn't go directly to paypal it goes first to the US treasurt and then they send it to Paypal Takes about 5 days to add to the account. Conversly I have had trouble with CCBill. Seems for a couple months they were double dipping my checking account through my Debit card. They credited the over charge back, but when I tried to contact them about it they denied having me in their records. WHAT? You are debiting my card! My bank confirmed it even. I finally had to close out my card and now pay for my access through this site exclusively through paypal. I have made over 100 perfect transactions over Paypal. It always gives me a transaction record and logs all my past transactions for future reference. It's safe, sane and simple. I'll never use anything else. Anyone with an email address can receive funds. And no, I don't work for them or get paid by them in anyway.
Who is behind this site and why would anyone give all their personal information including bank information to a company that is faceless.
The site reminds me of something that could do down at any minute and well, all your account info would be poof gone but since ebay bought it I'm sure there will be some changes.
Most companies like ccbill and credit card companies, have customer service numbers where you can talk to real live people.
ccbill takes measures to prevent against losses. ibill used to allow everyone and their mother to chargeback and who was left holding the bag? web owners.
Safety against chargebacks on this system called paypal and what kind of company is this? Seems many sites use it to sell everything from underwear to bananas but I'm still a skeptic.
hb
How quickly we forget.
Pay Pal provided a CD-ROM to state prosecutors in the TBD case detailing all of his transactions with them, for use in evidence to put him away for life you realize. That is not nice.
ISPs and E-mail services also cooperated.
Any company with records in the US can be subpoenaed or searched for such records.
It is possible to do all of this offshore and still legitimately pay all of your taxes, without the risk of domestic records. Companies such as E-Gold and offshore international banks are dependable. The US banking and CC systems are very cooperative with LE, as are AOL, Earthlink, hotmail,phone companies, and others with whom we too often leave paper trails. You just have to take a lot of time to protect your assets that way.
Good observations, Heather. It is often said that Pay Pal sucks.
I know that they rat.
I promise to make no blonde jokes for 10 days now.
-- Modified on 11/23/2002 1:25:11 PM
besides egold do offshore banking/records?
Actually, Paypal has a customer service number. I call it because I use their debit card services to. When I add money to my debit account it doesn't go directly to paypal it goes first to the US treasurt and then they send it to Paypal Takes about 5 days to add to the account. Conversly I have had trouble with CCBill. Seems for a couple months they were double dipping my checking account through my Debit card. They credited the over charge back, but when I tried to contact them about it they denied having me in their records. WHAT? You are debiting my card! My bank confirmed it even. I finally had to close out my card and now pay for my access through this site exclusively through paypal. I have made over 100 perfect transactions over Paypal. It always gives me a transaction record and logs all my past transactions for future reference. It's safe, sane and simple. I'll never use anything else. Anyone with an email address can receive funds. And no, I don't work for them or get paid by them in anyway.
I have used PayPal for dozens of eBay transactions. So have millions of other people. PayPal was recently bought by eBay. This is indeed a legit company. See link below.
Pay Pal went through some growing pains -- including some rather inappropriate embezzling of funds -- during their early formation. People who got involved at a certain amount of money DID see their whole account "poof" disappear, and there were allegations of illegal activity. With the arrival of EBay, most of the problems will probably be solved, but that still doesn't clean up many of the past mistakes. If you look closely at your Pay Pall "customer service agreement" and read the fine print, you'll find that they have handily MADE IT LEGAL FOR THEM TO TAKE YOUR MONEY.
I wouldn't ever use Pay Pal until that fine print changes. Mostly, people don't experience problems. But, if you do a simple search through a usual engine such as Google, you'll find HORDES of people complaining about the shystering they received up the butt because of Pay Pal.
One reason EBay bought it, was because EBay pretty much requires a service like that in order to continue functioning, and at the time, all the legal problems that Pay Pal had made for itself, had lowered the price to rather a bargain.
CCBill, IBill, and the others are much more legit, but less lucrative because of the charge-back issues you mentioned. I recommend you try to do your business with a real bank. They at least have laws that govern their activities and protect you in the case of error or fraud.
-- Modified on 11/23/2002 9:02:55 AM
With E-bay having purchased PayPal, the odds are pretty good that PayPal will be suspending its accounts with adult-related activities. E-Bay bought PayPal to oversee billing through its site, and probably views extra-E-bay transactions as a distraction. Meg Whitman and E-Bay are pretty mainstream, and will be sensitive to criticisms that PayPal is sponsoring adult activities.
The chargeback problem that you cite is real, and it's entirely possible that both Mastercard and Visa will withdraw sponsorship of billing for adult sites. I think some of this is already happening with ibill. Just part of the on-going bursting of the internet bubble.
I've used it to pay for things for a few years now without any problems. I like it, but I have heard of other people who have had problems. I mainly use it for relatively small payments.
Ive been using paypal for a long time.... started using their service when they were x.com... like since 98 or 99...
i use paypal for tons of stuff....
i use it on my website for memberships and on ebay for selling and buying...for my webstore... for party admissions.. appt deposits and donations and gifts... i use it to pay bills and send my mom cash... and lots of other stuff... i can accept payments from visa, mastercard, amex, discover and e-checks too...
i earn interest on the cash balance i leave with paypal... and have access to it through an atm or visa merchant... or i can deposit into my bank account...
like with financial institution.. there are occasional speed bumps and hurdles.... but i have been able to resolve the few issues i have had rather easily...
never have i had a... un... "problem" where someone got in trouble..
do i sound like a comercial yet?...
i only say all this because i think paypal is great.. and want people to know that they dont have to be scared... they really dont ask for any more info then your local bank...
not to mention... visa has recently imposed a huge registration fee merchants accepting visa through companies like ccbill and ibill and what not... i for one dont see myself paying the $700 charge and so i will only continue to accept visa only through paypal...
and about security in this scene... i would think that if you send money "quasi cash" or as a "donation" to an email address (which is all you use to send) how can it be bad?
maybe im just naive... but its been good to me..=)
The remarks you make are fine for your, I assume, legal business on the net. Certainly e-bay, the mother of all e-cash cows, agrees since they now own it.
Be that as it may, there is a paper trail (or an e-trail I suppose) that can be subpoenaed by LE, or used in some way against either a provider or a client. As a general rule, I will not use any on-line service for advance payments. In fact, to date I have never had a situation where an advance deposit was required as I have steered away from providers that required them. But, this is about to happen with a provider I plan to see, and she has, to use TER vernacular, gone the extra mile by providing a snail-mail box to send a money order to for a payment. This eliminates any use of Pay-Pal or other services, and I believe a simple remedy to any delemma regarding on-line services. A mail box in my neighborhood costs about $12 per month, a small price to pay for security, and probably far less than the fees exacted by these services.
BTW, for the very same reason, I will not sign up with RoomService 2000. It leaves a record for someone to examine. I provide references instead, if needed.
PayPal leaves open a pretty wide door for the less-than scrupulous to use to their one-sided benefit. The fact that E-bay is successful and now owns PayPal shouldn't legitimize it's use any more than membership in tghe New York Stock Exchange means company XYZ is going to be around next year.
-- Modified on 11/24/2002 9:19:45 AM
A big fat papertrail.
Why anyone would want to use paypal for that thing of ours, is beyond me. Why use paypal when you have cold hard impersonal anonymous cash sitting around. (and if you answer is "so that I can put it on my credit card"...that is an even worse reason)
I have used PayPal for a couple of years (small transactions) and have zero complaints. That said, for any activities that I would NOT want a paper trail, I wouldn't use any sort of financial institution.
-Hoot.
I am careful about whom I accept payments from and have never had a chargeback (chargebacks seem to be the cause of many of the bad experiences with PP).
I also offer a snail mail alternative to PayPal so that guys can use cash instead, when it is needed.
No one way of doing business suits everyone, which is why I offer choices, but PayPal is fast, easy and convenient and is great for a lot of people.
For more on Paypal you should visit the attached link.
pg
I just used Paypal the other day to pay for an appointment. I have seen this provider several times in the past, so I know her pretty well. Never would I consider using it to setup a first time appointment.