Previously I had given up on ebay for photo related stuff because prices always seemed to go out of control. However, I've been browsing again recently and I notice that every single person selling what I'm looking for wants paypal and paypal only. Why? Why would people not ALSO accept a money order? It simply makes no sense to me. From my point of view money is money. It takes time for money to clear through paypal and it takes time for someone to mail a money order. In the end, you'll get paid no matter what. Paypal's "buyers protection" is a joke, and having them tied to your bank account is just asking to have it cleared out when things go south when someone back charges their credit card because of whatever reason they choose...or just because paypal feels like it.
Now, obviously I have a bias against paypal. That is because I can never again have an account with them. I bought a car engine and performance parts about 5 years ago from a guy online (he was a moderator of a forum, so it didn't SOUND sketchy at first...) and he never sent me the rest of the parts to go with it, also it was grossly misrepresented in terms of the condition it was in. I tried to get him to take it back, OR send the rest of the parts but eventually he disappeared. Paypal would do nothing for me so I was forced to back charge the credit card I used to pay for it. They refunded me my money once I proved that I shipped the engine back to him, and as far as I can tell they took the money from paypal. Paypal then tried to collect from the guy, but he had no money. In light of that, they said that I owed them the money. So now, I can never again have a paypal account unless I pay them 4300 dollars. Needless to say, I'm done with paypal after that! I also learned that they really don't care about the buyers or the sellers as long as they get their money. I would much rather send USPS money orders to sellers that I trust now, and this is what I generally do. Back to my original question, why wouldn't someone ACCEPT a money order? I can see not wanting to send one, you don't have a lot of recourse real or perceived. Obviously I'm comfortable with that fact myself!
Nathan27 wrote:
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Now, obviously I have a bias against paypal.
Honestly, what's the point of your thread? You're asking why people use Paypal, yet you have a "bias" against them? Seems like a thread like this is just set up for flames, arguments and eventually getting locked.
Why? Well, I happen to like Paypal and have very different exeriences than you've described. They've been very responsive and have resolved what few issues I've had in a very quick, professional manner.
So, there you have it...a very different perspective than yours, isn't it? Too bad you had a bad experience, but it's not the exerience everyone has. And that makes me wonder again...what's the point?
I'd suggest if you don't like Paypal, don't use it and don't buy from sellers who only take Paypal. Seems simple enough.
What's the point of your post? DISCUSSION. I think we are all on here to chat about something, and this was what I felt like talking about! There are plenty of useless posts on this board and any other, please allow me to have mine. I am not asking why people use paypal, rather I am simply wondering why a seller would limit the number of people who can purchase their item. It is counter intuitive to the whole selling process. In business I try to make my services available to the greatest number of people in the hopes that I will make more money. Selling old crap on ebay is pretty much the same. If I could bid on these items they would conceivably sell at a higher point than they would otherwise. Really though, I'm mostly pissed that of the 10 old 540ez's I've been looking at on ebay, only ONE of them accepted money order. I lost that one with 6 seconds to go .
Hmm...interesting...both your posts in this thread seem much more like complaining than "discussion."
But I stand by a key point I made previously. If you don't want to use Paypal, you have the choice to use something else or to buy from someone who accepts other forms of payment.
In your original post you said "every single person selling what I'm looking for wants paypal and paypal only." Well, wouldn't that mean that you simply have to look for different sellers? I don't even have to go to eBay or anywhere else to know not every single seller on the internet takes only Paypal.
I will now bow out of this "discussion" and let others chime in. I'm guessing this could get interesting as we've seen these kinds of "I hate Paypal" rants...woops, I mean "discussions" before.
Why, paypal, because it's the fastest way for someone to get your money or you getting their money. Why only paypal, because Ebay own it's, simply as that. I've seen people get screwed using both, I have not.
I stopped using ebay years ago when it became a "I'll sell you the same thing the local store is selling you at the same price". I still use paypal but I only use it maybe five times a year.
I just sent someone a MO for a RRS plate for a EOS 3, not a lot of money, I don't really know the person, but he has a good rating here and has been a member for awhile. A MO doesn't really have any recourse and with as so many scams out there, PP is the easiest.
But it's about the speed of buying and getting the item you want. When 95% of the items I buy are from amazon 2day free ship or BH normal UPS ground is two free ship for me. Why bother with ebay and paypal. Though BH does paypal.
I don't restrict people from sending MO or check, but in more than 1 occassion i've heard..its in the mail...and here i am holding onto the item while i have other offers...and guess what..the MO/Check never arrived and i'm left with the item or having to lower my price to sell it to someone else because now they think i'm trying to get rid of a defective part.
with paypal, you send the money, i have it..here is your tracking #..all done from 1 place..paypal sends the notification item has been shipped. bada bing bada boom..done.
Scott...maybe you wont read this since you are going to "bow out" but of course I'm complaining. It's a damn internet forum! I kinda thought that was the idea Don't you have friends? Don't you guys ever sit around and just bitch a little? This is me bitching and whining, I think its ok from time to time!
I don't really see paypal being any faster, it takes time for the buyer to transfer money into their paypal account, then it takes time for it to be processed into the buyers account, and then it takes time to transfer it OUT of the buyers account. I would NEVER leave money in a paypal account, that's just sketchy as all hell to me. Hence, you can easily waste a week and a half waiting for that crap. I buy something, I drop a money order in a priority envelope the next day, if there is a weekend it MIGHT take until tuesday or wednesday of the next week to get somewhere. I realize that I don't have any recourse really if the seller disappears, but I'm not concerned about that. I'm willing to take the risk and I minimize it by choosing who I buy from selectively. As for being able to find a seller on ebay who will accept something other than money order...take a look! When it comes to photo gear, its very hard to do. I've been looking for a used 540ez for about 2 weeks now, I've seen probably 15 of them, of those TWO have accepted money orders, the others were all paypal only. Generally, I only try to buy old fly fishing reels off of ebay (there isn't a big market for them, so thats the easiest place to find them) and funny enough the fishing auctions almost ALWAYS accept several forms of payment. I think it is interesting that there is such a difference between the fly fishing community and the photography community.
Sunny Sra, I can't believe you've had people do that to you. Luckily, I rarely sell anything and I've never had someone mess around with me like that but it is a shame you have. I really didn't know it was that big of a problem to collect money for something a person has "bought".
First of all. if there is a charge back, paypal can not take money out of your checking account. They can take it out of your paypal account, but to take it out of your checking account without your permission is a violation of a metric crap load of banking laws. They don't do it. they will however, take funds from your paypal account every time you get paid by paypal if there is a legitimate complaint against you. if you feel the complaint went wrong simply close your paypal account. In 10 years I've never had anything like that happen. I have had paypal refund money to me on two separate sales that went bad. Buyer protection works quite well.
I have a paypal debit card. when I sell something using paypal I have the money in my pocket as soon as I can make it down the street to the ATM (chase ones are free). Last thing I sold I was able to use said card to buy grocerys within half an hour of the buyer pulling the trigger on the sale. Unless they do an echeck, not transfer from their bank account or credit card, it's instant...really.
Money orders are commonly forged. So common I stopped taking them about a year ago. Anyone would access to a good color laser printer can forge one.
Certified or cashiers checks are also pretty commonly forged. thats why all those wacky nigerians use them for scams. i don't take those either.
Postal money orders are a bit safer since its a big time federal crime to forge them. But they only go up to a certain amount and it's a pain because you have to deposit them and wait for them to clear.
Paypal is the safest (though not perfect) way to take money from people you don't know. It's instantaneous. You cant get faster without proving Einstein horribly wrong. It's easy. I take two forms of payment for anything I sell, paypal and cash if the person is local. I figure the paypal fee's into my asking price since it's against paypal rules to do what most people do here and ask the buyer to pay paypal fees.
As for the fishing community...a lot of people into fishing don't understand how to use paypal. It's not a technogeek hobbiy. Photography is. When I sell vintage motorcycle parts I usually allow postal money orders for the same reason. Everything else is paypal only
Without getting into a ton of detail, I know of absolutely ZERO online retailers, who will accept a money order as a form of payment. The average user on ebay will get far more sales if they accept the 'new' cash (credit cards). However, the same average person cannot justify setting up a vendor account with Visa/MC/AMEX and the likes, so PayPal fills that void.
If retailers don't take MO, why should I
Take a second to consider your unfortunate experiance with PP as it stands now. If you had paid by money order, what recourse would you have had getting your money back?? I would think, absolutely NONE. THere would have been no third party buffer standing there to protect you. While it may have been unpleasent to deal with, these things usually are not easy. And in the end you got your money back. So other than being pissed off that you can't have a PP account anymore, I would be happy about the outcome, really..
If you tag a credit card to your paypal account instead of a bank account, transfers are nearly instant in my experiance, so I don't know what the poster is talking about waiting for the money to transfer.
If you have a bank account attached to your PP account!!! Shame on you. CC much safer than a bank account link...
my contribution
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and for the record I may use other types of online checkouts, but I also would not take money orders. My wife works in a bank, and believe it or not, every so often they get a counterfit money orders. Just like cash, paper transactions are not as safe as credit, in the end.
I agree with the OP and I dont see why so many people use Pay Pal. I refuse to use it
and I havent lost money to them . I just dont like how they operate. There are too many other ways to transact business without using that group.
Whether I agree with the OP or not is irrelevant, he's got a valid discussion point and every right to discuss it here. This isn't a forum just for people to extoll the virtues of one thing or another. It's perfectly acceptable to question and criticize. He makes a valid point and whether you agree or not, he's got every right to make it.
I don't get this whole "attach a credit card to paypal" thing. How does that work? Do you actually mean a debit card that just pulls from your paypal account? Funny enough I'm not even quite 25 yet and I've apparently lost my technogeek status already. Obviously I used to have a paypal account and I remember it as being that you absolutely HAD to attach it to a bank account. In order to have money in my paypal account I had to move it into that bank account, then into paypal, and then pay the person. Each step took a bit of time. If someone paid me it took 3 or 4 days to clear into my bank account from paypal, and then I would transfer it out of that bank account. I really had no idea you could do it "instantaneously" but tying it to a credit card sounds sketchy too. The last thing I need is some weird paypal card to also have to deal with every month.
I am aware of the forging of money orders, that is why I only send USPS money orders for anything. I stopped using Western Union years ago! Like you said, it isn't foolproof but its reasonably safe (as safe as buying anything from a stranger online really can be). I would personally have no problem with a seller saying "yeah you can pay with money order, but let me wait a week for it to clear". That seems prudent to me and might be something I do in the future when I sell stuff.
Oh, and I just was reading paypalsucks.com Obviously there are some people who did retarded things on there and are now surprised that they have paypal problems. However, if even 1 in 10 of those are accurate its pretty scary! Anybody who thinks that paypal cares about them is out of their mind, the ONLY thing they care about is what will make them the most money with the least amount of risk. Heaven help you if they decide that you will cost them money or expose them to some form of risk.
Edit: oh yeah, I don't mind the dissenters, it sounds like for them Paypal is working well. I really hope it stays that way, truly I do. The more people who lose money online and the more problems they have then the more problems I have buying stuff I want!
I also have a debit card, issued by paypal (through chase bank) that allows me to either withdraw funds from my paypal account, or use it as a visa to buy things at stores or online.
I also have a credit card or two for both my busienss and my personal cards attached to the account so if I need to buy something by credit card I can do so without having input the numbers.
I also have a line of credit issued by paypal attached to my account so if I dont want to draw it out of my bank account, or from my credit card, I can get it there, then pay it back through paypal when I sell something. I sell a lot of stuff on ebay.
as for paypalsucks.com.
There were a lot of valid complaints against paypal when they were new. The service grew beyond what they thought it was and they weren't prepared for it. After ebay bought it it got better. However...any...ANY institution that processes the millions of transactions that paypal does will experiance some mistakes. If man built it, it's going to screw up. Paypal, IMHO has cleaned up pretty well since ebay bought the company. For instance, they now have a phone number you can call and talk to a live person....I've had more screw ups from my old mortgage company (one of the really big ones)....any time you do a transaction over the internet there is an element of risk. Hell, anytime you do a transaction over the counter in the convience stores in my neighborhood you take a risk. Paypal just gives the best odds and the least grief on the average.
If you do a straight transfer from your bankaccount to paypal to the seller it's instant.
If you don't have a credit card on file then it becomes an echeck and it takes days. The credit card is to serve as backup in case your echeck bounces.
I personally dont like paypal, but they are the most used, so you are kinda forced to use them. just like when some places only take cash, I much rather use my creditcard/debit card, but I dont have another choice.
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Don't you have friends? Don't you guys ever sit around and just bitch a little? This is me bitching and whining, I think its ok from time to time! 