i run into Paypal everytime i look at stuff like the chip maestro, and LSDJ, my mom has warned me that paypal is not trustworthy, but is it really? i'm pretty skeptical, and i'm hoping you guys can clear up my suspicions about it, and does paypal only take credit, or does it take debit?
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logan city, UT, USA
does it take debit though? because i wouldn't really mind signing up for it.
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Québec
You can do bank transfers, which is what I use actually.
Not needing a credit card is pretty useful.
Apeshit: I'm not a seller, how exactly is it untrustworthy?
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Australia
a buyer can say he/she did not receive this/that and BAM! Paypal holds your money until you can prove this/that. It is what has driven postage rates up (the necessity for tracking/registered/insured). I think most sellers have had this happen at least once...
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Unsubscribe
you can also use a visa gift card or whatever with paypal if your are super paranoid. Sellers need to document everything they ship, get insurance, and NEVER LEAVE MONEY IN YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT..
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Michigan
BennVenn wrote:
a buyer can say he/she did not receive this/that and BAM! Paypal holds your money until you can prove this/that. It is what has driven postage rates up (the necessity for tracking/registered/insured). I think most sellers have had this happen at least once...
Not only that, but buyers can decide they no longer want what they bought and tell (ebay for example) that it is not as described. They will always side with the buyer and immediately TAKE BACK the money that was in your account.
I sold my laptop once and the buyer said the screen wasn't bright enough. He opened a claim which gave me a negative balance on paypal for a month before I could fix it! In other news I have been using the laptop for four years after that so...its perfectly fine. He just decided he didn't want it anymore.
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hiding under your bed
Since we're on the topic, what would you guys suggest as a good alternative to Paypal as a seller?
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logan city, UT, USA
herr_prof wrote:
you can also use a visa gift card or whatever with paypal if your are super paranoid. Sellers need to document everything they ship, get insurance, and NEVER LEAVE MONEY IN YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT..
lol true dat.
so paypal is "ok"?
"teach a man to fish" lol, is that a hint telling me to 'google' it?
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logan city, UT, USA
BennVenn wrote:
a buyer can say he/she did not receive this/that and BAM! Paypal holds your money until you can prove this/that. It is what has driven postage rates up (the necessity for tracking/registered/insured). I think most sellers have had this happen at least once...
huh, that's pretty useful, actually. Elon musk knew what he was doing when he helped found it. . .
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Seattle, WA
Apeshit wrote:
I hate to be that guy, but if you teach a man to fish...
If you build a man a fire, he'll be warm for a night. If you light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
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Montreal, Canada
Teach a man to fish and you'll feed him. Turn the man into a fish and.... I don't know where I'm going with this. I just wanted to hop on that bandwagon.
Also.. a buyer cannot just say "dude that shit isn't like advertised" and have Paypal go beat up the sellers with an aluminium bat. I had to make a Paypal claim once for an item that simply did not function at all, and I had to give them a TON of proof that I did my best to contact the customer support and didn't get any help from them, emails, forum posts, etc etc. It took two weeks of constant communication between all three parties before Paypal sided with me on this. For low amounts of money, you have a good chance of filing a claim and winning, but when an item is worth a non negligible amount of money it's really not that easy. Every escrow service works the same and none of them is less trustworthy than another. Same applies for credit cards. You can charge back a purchase if you're not happy with the product and didn't any satisfaction through customer support. It negatively affects the seller and they can even lose the privilege to accept credit if they get too many chargebacks. But again, these things need to be proven.
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Michigan
Just set up a paypal account and to be honest, I was a little upset because of how long it took to transfer money from my bank to the paypal account. I sent money to someone for a couple gameboy mods (now that I think of it, I should get back with him), but here is what I did.
Opened up a new checking account that is not linked with my main.
Tied that account with Paypal.
Only keep a max of $100 in that account.
If it is untrustworthy, then I'm only out $100. Not loosing everything. /shrug
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Arad, Romania
PayPal is like any other bank except they do their business online. How could they not be trustworthy?
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Indiana
i think trustworthy is the wrong word. Paypal is very reputable, and theyre not going to sell your credit card information or anything. Your mom is probably remembering the early, pre-ebay era of Paypal, where they were kind of a shadier, less secure company...
Using your credit/debit card information on Paypal is typically more secure than just directly giving it to the seller.
I think a better summary would be that Paypal is VERY buyer friendly, sometimes at a massive inconvenience to sellers. definitely two sides of the coin with that imo, an early chiptuning me got his money back from midines guy so...