I have run into quite a few people who really dislike paypal.  I would be interested in seeing who here uses, likes, dislikes Paypal...

I've never used it, but I will sign up tonight.

propably never will...

I don't, and never will, since the news broke not long ago about their system being hacked into ... hundreds of people lost alot of money; not to mention confidence in any of these programs.

Personally I see it as the only way to make payments to a variety of small buisnesses or  websites online, so that's why I use it.

When was their system hacked?  Does anyone have a link to an article on this?

I use PayPal, but I don't think I would use it as a primary means to accept money because of the number of people who refuse to use it...

I just signed up for paypall today, it seems pretty neat for collecting payments.  I haven't bought anything yet, but I've heard all the horror stories about people who pay something paypall with a credit card and then charge it back once they get the merchandise and stuff like that.  As far as the hacking of paypall, there was an episode a few years ago where the e-mail addresses of paypall users were hacked and used for a massive phishing scam, I believe that might be what they are talking about.

SR -- Mutilated is correct about the episode a couple of years ago; but these phishing scams have also hit similar programs like ... "EGold; StormPay" and many others.

One such story about PayPal broke in Las Vegas and you can read about it here ... however, there is a far more detailed site about what happened; how it happened; and other safer programs to use shown here -- pay very close attention to the 6 items on the left; not to mention, the PayPal hidden T.O.S. on the right side of the page.

Another note about "StormPay" -- this is an MLM Pyramid Scheme company that's clearly shown by Tennessee Authorities as being heavily investigated as they change alot of things constantly -- read the story here.

Good stuff...I'll be looking at this in detail later on today.

The Phishing scams don't bother me too much. After all, PayPal is certainly not the only company that has this problem.  In fact, most of the phishing e-mails I get focus on banks and credit cards...

I have been using Paypal for years. Mostly for auction purchases and collecting payments on Ebay. I have never had a problem with them. I give purchasers the option to use paypal or send a money order and i would venture a guess that 90-95% send payments by Paypal. I have sent money to my kids in school and use their Paypal Atm card while traveling. Paul

P.S. my websites also accept Paypal for payments to post ads.No problem there either.

Most times I use my credit card but when I have found a site that only accepts paypal I really go away,once I tried getting my paypal account and the amount of information requested was so big that I got tired of answering and filling in the blanks.

If I can't make a purchase/payment with my Credit Card I prefer using pre paid cards,of course these only work when you know that person with whom you are making business.

To my mind if you are a halfway serious online business person you will have a credit card merchant facility with your bank attached to your business account.

To me Paypal (and most other forms of aggregated payment services) implies that the business is small time (really small) and not all that serious about business. This has an impact on trust. Lets face it, if they are serious enough about getting a good site set up (and quite a few have got great sites), then they should also be serious about transacting their own CC payments

Don't know about the US or UK, but here in Oz its not that hard to get a merchant account.

In addition you also don't need real time payment - I don't because I get too many fraud attmpts (espc. on one product - 99% of US orders are fraud). When you start to spend too much time clearing card details then move to automated - this also give you a feel for what products attract the 'bad apples'

One thing to keep in mind is that there are a lot of people who can't get a credit card, but they can get a paypal account.  There are a lot of people you can sell to who aren't old enough to get a credit card.

I voted yes as my reply, in truth I just added PayPal to my site www.smocksnfrocks.ca as my shopping cart. I however haven't had a sale were the customer has used this service.

I use PayPal on my website, it was bought out by E-Bay. And I have an E-bay account so it works out for me. You hear all types of stories about hacking tho, it's all over even the govenrment systems have been hacked into. in a way its a good thing for they can fix  that open end of software as its found. I do also plan to creat a merchant account I just havent had the time to do so in building my site"ghostwares.net"
I really like the money orders and certified bank checks tho.  It gives me a thrill to open my mail box and find them ! and you dont have to worry bout not being paid !
Western union is another way i like to do buisness.

PRO:
1. Pay Pal has a long list of countries that can pay you instantly; But can not make charge-backs.
2. The list gets even longer if you set your options right.
3. These are countries you would never take credit cards or certified cheques from.
4. The people in these countries will literally buy anything.
5. The USPS ( POST OFFICE ) provides an easy to use customs resource to determine what items can be shipped to which country.

CON:
1. You have to ignore 20 requests to make special shipping and payment arrangements for everything you sell.
2. You must never, never, never forget to use the easy USPS customs information.

I love Pay Pal now.  Most of my customers are too young for credit cards, but many have pay-pal and also since I like to buy stuff on eBay it makes it really convienent because I can pay for stuff I buy too.

I get a paypal order and I never even have to cash it into my bank account most times, I just order something on eBay instead. 

Been using PayPal for many years and, as of yet, never had any problems. I use it for auctions and my web page shopping cart checkout. The accept all the credit cards and transfer the profits to my bank. I never heard of any problems, but I am going to read the articles in the previous posts.
Thaks for the info.. God Bless

I have been offering both on my caricatures site (PP and CC options).

CC accounts for 70% of payments.

One aspect with PP is their fees are a bit high transaction costs then currency conversion rates are REALLY bad to bring money into my account.

Hi All

I'm a newbie to this forum but I'd like to say that I've been using PayPal very happily for about two years and no problems. It could'nt be easier to put Buy Now buttons on my site and I'm happy to refer others to PayPal. =D