Be Excellent To Each Other

How does it work?

Mrs A wants to buy some Bradshaws cd's from Ebay from a seller that only accepts paypal. I've told her that this is a silly idea, as it sounds dodgy, but she got a face on over it. Anyway, how does it work? Do you give money to paypal, and the it gets taken from that, or is it just a go between.

Thanks,

D.

At the simplest, you can use Paypal as a card processor, just like any retail store uses one.

You can also set it up so Paypal takes money out of your bank account when you buy stuff. Stores use it because paying paypal a couple of % is cheaper than setting up your own processor.

What Dudley said.
It's far more convenient and easy than messing about with cheques or bank transfers or whatever, so it's an advantage if they take PayPal, really.

thanks.

But Pay Pal can and will freeze your account and permanently take all you money without reason or notice. Just have a look for 'Pay Pal fraud' in Google.

They won't be able to do this if you don't store any money with them of course, or just use them as a card processor in which case you won't even have an account.

Thanks all, mission was aborted due to ebay rubbishness and seeming inability to remove tings that you don't want to buy.

Wow, really? There's typically more than a grand in my paypal account, and I've been using them for donkeys years without any problem..

Ouch, that's loads! Paypal are technically not a bank so do not adhere to banking code rules around dispute resolution. Combined with the fact that their support department seems to be short-staffed and not always speakker de englishe, and you have a recipe for shit happening.

Hmm. I'll maybe try to empty it a bit more often then. Still, I am a "pro ebayer" or something, with a code to get through to a proper help desk if something goes wrong, although I haven't needed to do that.
The one time I emailled them because the payment thing was timing out in firefox, they did respond but weren't much use.

Did you notice recently an email from them saying they were moving their official HQ to Luxemburg?

They didn't do that to be subject to stricter legal rules.

They are OK to use as infrequent payment option but please do not use them as a main source of payment processing for any major ebay selling or online business. I remember 4 -5 years ago that they froze my account for six months because in the first week of December, payments coming in had risen to unusually high levels.

Whey would that be then?

Helpful support staff said "There is nothing you can do, we shall decide when to make the funds available. If we decide not to then than is it".

Needless to say I don't us them anymore.

Perhaps there's another reason you don't use them. They have a nasty habit of refunding unhappy buyers who don't receive their products.

Despite the horror stories Paypal have always been 100% fine for me.

Same here. I don't quite understand the stories in the links though, that was about a dodgy shop ripping people off, how was PP supposed to be to blame :?

@Craig: I don't depend on paypal fortunately, but sorry to hear you had a problem, that would be very annoying I agree.

Apologies, I was being a bit too subtle. The shop in all the links is Craig's.

Er, oh, apologies here too then, I don't know the story. I did think MrCloud was being entirely reasonable with the responses on MSE, and the customers being demanding assholes to some degree. Unfortunately, taken at face value, their comments certainly give a bad reputation.

Much like a few dissatisfied customers give PP a bad rep I suppose

PayPwned?