I have very mixed feelings about Paypal..I guess it is safe to post my story here since this will be on topic.

To start out, I had a Paypal account for over a year. I experienced not even one issue with them, ever. Never had any money missing, never got overcharged, or anything. So by this time I gain full trust in them.

One day I wake up and check my account and magically I had over $2500 in there. Now I am confused as I only had around $68 the day before. So I go ahead and report it to figure out what happened to my account that I have this much(This was me being nice. I could have easily just withdrawn the money from the account.)

After I do so, I am notified that "I" bought a laptop off Ebay and that the money was a return since the item was sold to someone else instead. Now this really confuses me so Paypal allows me and this person who "I" bought the laptop to speak to each other through Paypal. We do and he claims that I live in Africa or something...

So I notify Paypal that this is all false and I'm not sure what to do because it's fraud or at least that's what it looks like. Paypal notifies me that it was 'taken' from my bank account, however cannot display the number or confirm it for me. They then decide that they can "fix" the situation. So they put a lock on my account. This then locked my original funds. So I call them up asking when I can withdraw what I originally had in the account.

From this point they tell me that they need a positive identification. So I am only 15 at the time and can not do so. They let me know that now my account is going to be permanently locked and upon turning 17 I will be allowed to withdraw the funds. By this point I am extremely aggravated because I do not completely comprehend what is going on. They notify me that there is a minimum age to sign up.

Now being that I am not new to the whole contract thing or anything I make up another mock account - without actually completing it, to see where it asks if you are 18 or older. It doesn't. So then I check out the Terms of Services. Wow, this also says nothing about it. Now I'm just confused as to what is going on so I call them again, this time with my mother present. She speaks to them and they notify her that you must be 18 or older to sign up, and that it should be assumed already and therefore there is nothing that we can do.

Once I was 17 they required positive ID and stuff for me to withdraw still, and took about 6 months to send me the funds.

I just kind of feel like I was screwed. I could have withdrawn 2500+ and had no issues with Paypal but due to me being an honest citizen I was penalized and I highly doubt they returned the extra funds to their owner.



Needless to say I once again use paypal, mostly because there is no other choice for a lot of things. It's good for donations, selling items, buying items, etc. Ever since this issue(2 years or so ago) I have had no other issues with paypal either. So I mean, you can take it as you will. I had the issue listed above before, but since then I've returned and have nothing else bad to say. I just hope that I do not go back through another situation like that again.

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Hey Spawn...

I am not very sure of the article to whose link you have posted in your post. But i have experiences of my own which i would like to share.
http://digestnet.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/fighting-phishing/

Check out the above link, where phishing was happening in the name of Paypal. I will not blame paypal for this, as this is common for any site that has some credibility. So, its up to users discretion. Though it is tough to identify such threats, users have to be very careful not to pass on the user names and passwords to third party anonymous websites without knowledge which may lead to so many adverse effects of upto losing your account all together and the worst, losing your money.

So, its always better to be very careful with the activities of yours online and also advice the same to your friends and family, like I am doing here .

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paypal is DEFINATELY not safe! unfortunately, there are very few cheap and affordable means to offer payment online. it's also very convenient. paypal has been around what....10 years? i remember when they were offering everyone 10 free dollars just to open a paypal account and they grew big fast through their affiliate program. they grew so big and so fast that there were so many problems with their service and had just a ton of complaints.

to this day paypal recieves hundreds of complaints. research it online. i had a personal experience that they weren't satisfied with just my banking information and demanded my credit card info which i wouldn't give them. they proceded to freeze my whole account. i couldn't get in it if my life depended on it. i closed my account and never looked back. this was after talking to their representitives over the phone for over 2 hours total.

paypal is not a scam, but i wouldn't trust them. they have too many rules and they require everything personal about you except maybe your blood type.

if someone needs a merchant account, i suggest forking over the $300 or so to set an account up and the additional $30 or so per month to keep it up and running. that's about the cheapest i found about 5 years ago.

paypal is the extreme example of "you get what you pay for" and paypal is CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP

btw- the reason they froze my account was because it was flagged. i asked them why my account was flagged and they said for no reason.....that all accounts get flagged at one time or another for security reasons to verify account holder information. it's very easy to start an account with them but after your acount has been active for a while, watch out. the information you already gave them to open the account(which takes about a week) they will require more sooner or later. it's all bogus to me.

they wanted to bill my credit card for 1 or two dollars and they would refund that directly in to my paypal account. i didn't want to do that and offered a suggestion to them that they can bill my credit card just to verify it if they refund it directly back to my credit card. they refused so i refused paypal's services from then on. i wouldn't have been so upset if i didn't waste hourse setting up my paypal payment buttons and the code that went in to that. what a waste of time.

so in my opinion, paypal is just as disorganized and immature as when they first came online. don't ever trust them....EVER! if you want a cheap and easy way to accept and make payment online, go with them.....just expect problems in the future that you will have to sort out

i also have to say that their exchange rate is a little high as well but that is to be expected if you want a cheap service to get started online easy when merchant accounts are not readily affordable when your just starting out online.

now as far as just making payments online, i would trust them. no reason not to in my opinion....but i wouldn't trust them as a substitute for any merchant account.

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I think pay pal is safe. I use is when ever i can on any site that i buy things from. for the resason i hate giving out my C Number. It doesnt, take to much time to set one up. I use it more than anything i use on the internet. I even got a C Card from them. its nice and its user friendly. I'm just glad that they made something like that people can have trust in. I mean you have to have a lot of trust in someone taking your credit card numbers. But over all i like it and the idea of it. It makes my life easier when it comes to buying things from it. I just wish that major stores accepted it. That would make me happy.

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Pay pal button script for ecommerce site
Paypal.. Safe Or Not?

Replying to zippy77
Maybe I'm just stupid, but when I copy and paste the code for the paypal button for the checkout, it only shows the html, not the button

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