Paypal?

[TMF Jeff]

How many people use or would use PayPal?

Paypal's biggest advantage is that it allows for some protection of your identity by seperating you from the purchase. Instead of directly using your credit card to buy the item, you use your card to set up an account with Paypal and then use that account to buy the thing you want, more or less anonymously from what I understand of it.

This is a link to paypal's security site if anyone feels they need more info before opining

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/security-main-outside

 

[evilqueen]

As far as anonymity goes, you still need to provide your name and shipping address. And if your shipping address is different from your verified address (the one to which your credit card is billed) the seller can opt to decline your payment, though that's never happened to me.

The biggest benefit PayPal offers me as a buyer is that I can pay by credit card without having to give the seller my credit card info. So I can make immediate payment to any seller w/o worrying how he might use my info. And the seller can ship immediately w/o worrying if my check will clear. I vote yes for PayPal.

 

[Myriads]

One can also set it up to withdraw directly from a bank account just like a debit card does. It's a killer web ap when it comes to making on line payments to individuals.

Myriads

 

[ktickler]

I use both PayPal and BillPoint.

Nothing bad to say about either one of them. I think they are excellent tools and easy to use. They are also safe and versatile regarding the forms of payment.

Bye,

Knight Tickler

 

[Oblesklk]

Guess I'll chime in here with some words of caution.

So far my experience with Paypal has been very positive on all accounts. In fact, it is very likely I will use it in an upcoming, undisclosed tickling venture I am undertaking in the next few months, as a means to accept CC.

So what's the word of warning? Look at them from a company standpoint. Their current cash flow situation throws up red flags everywhere. They have elected to go public, despite the recent debacle that pure web based companies experienced in the late 1990s. Their election to do so may be problematic. And they've yet to make one dime since their presence started. And to top it all off, I don't believe they're covered by the FDIC (someone want to prove me wrong on that?). So if you have a bunch of cash tied up in your paypal account at any given point in time and they decide to go belly up, then you may have problems ever seeing your money again.

Overall, I'm fairly pleased with Paypal as a company. Lately they've really tightened up controls and seem to have grasped how bad their financial situation could be if they're not careful. Being the net's #1 payment service doesn't mean much when your vendors want cash, and you have none

So my advise would be if you decide to use them, make sure you REGULARLY sweep your paypal account into your operational account, since they dismantled the "auto-sweep" feature for corps last summer (Hmmm, I wonder why).

 

[BigJim]

Already use it Jeff, and would use it if you enabled it on the Magic Touch web-site.