I’ve used paypal with no problems for years. The integration is easy, it’s supported by a variety of commerce engines and I have had no problem with sending money internationally with them to family. The pricing seems very fair, usually as low as 5$ for payment processing internationally. I don’t know, I can’t seem to find fault with them, though I’ve heard horror stories from others.

Be very careful with Pay pal especially if using to pay or receive payments from ebay transactions.I have used them for years through ebay sales and never had any problems, nor had I been tried to be scammed before.I sold 275 Lincoln Pennies as a lot package which included 25 1909′;s, not vdb’s just 1909′s.The buyer got them, took the 25 1909′s out, them claimed he received everything but the 1909′s in the package. This guy had totals of sales and buys in the tens of thousands transactions with them through the years, and I had just begin but only had about 60 transactions so his buiseness with them way surpassed mine.However, He had a few bad feedback transactions on his that were very bad and he sold and bought items, but had a few to where he never sent the items he sold, and ebay paid the customer back.On my transactions I had 100% positive feedback on my sales and happy customers, never a complaint.Anyway he filed the complaint saying he got all the coins but the 1909′s and we went through the process of rebutals, appeals etcetera and come to find out, I had to end up letting the guy keep 25 1909 lincoln pennies, had to refund the money and the shipping(twice in fact) for ebay decided the decision in his favor only because he did bulk selling and Ebay made much much more money off of him due to bulk transactions than they did off of me. What this breaks down to is I got scammed, gave 25 free 1909′s away(the first year lincolns were minted) then had to refund the money, and the postage I actually had to refund twice for I had a deal that if someone boguht my coins on the buy it now option, I would refund the postage.I refunded the postage once he purchased them before he even received the items via PAY PAL(which is owned by ebay)…the had to pay for it agian after the complaint war.What it breaks down to is ebay is going to decide in favor of the person that is bringing in more money to them.I had proof of his prior feedback, and where ebay had to refund the buyers of his merchandise he did not send to them, and I had 100% positive on my few transactions.I feel (especially after doing more research on scams like this) that Ebay cares less who has proof, and even proof of my good sales, and proof of this guys previous scams, but ebay is going to decide in favor of who has sold the most and has brought more money to them, and could care less of what proof you have or not.I also asked on the phone to the ebay representative that are they going to just ZAAAPP.the money out of my account, or will they alert me if this is what they did to make sure I had it covered.The representative boldly lied to me on the phone and said they would inform me first, but guess what.Ebay after making their decision(that this other guy made them more money basiically) refunded him money from my pay pal, which had nothing in it, then defaults to directly drawing from my bank account, and wow..Hit me again from overdraft charges.Reasd the fine print when signing up for Pay pal..They have the right to take it from your account without even informing you.I personally cancelled my Pay pal account, my ebay account, and have moved over to Ebid now..Free rates on alot of insertion fees, and many other ungreedy options, unlike Ethief..OOPs I mean ebay.Watch it..If your a person that sells just a few items here and there, and your buyer has more sells than you, they can scam you simply by saying part of the shipment was gone, etctera..You will automatically lose if the total of your sells are lower than the buyers.Ebay considers nothing but dollar signs..You sign up for A pay pal account, You are giving them the right to withdraw from your account without warning you or even letting you know first.

I first used paypal in November 2010 I thought it would be an easy process and that I would get the results I was hoping for, but unfortunitly this was not the case. I had organised to buy 2 tickets to a concert from a woman whom I had met through an add on GumTree. We arranged that she would send me the tickets and I would send her my money through PayPal.

Four months went by after the transition was made and I had still not recieved the tickets, it was a week before the concert and I was very concerned that she had not responded to my e-mails.

I went to enquire on PayPal about reporting fraud, and I was extremley dissapointed that they were unable to help due to the 45 day legal agreement. I was never informed of this agreement, and it was never made clear. I am extremly upset about the lack of support I revieved from PayPal and now I have come to realise that PayPal do not live up to the high standards that they claim.

My expectations were very high and now I will never concider using this site again becasue the lack of support and general misguidence. PayPal have been very dissapointing in their reaction to my case and I would like to warm others not to place their trust in thier hands.

Paypal should make their legal agreements clearer and constantly remind you of the risks you are taking using the site.

I purchased a wedding dress from a website in China inweddingdress.com. I paid with Paypal and after 3 months of waiting a file a complaint with Paypal. They sent me an email after two weeks telling me that unfurtunaly they’ve decided on favor of the seller so I lost my money
I learned my lesson:
1. Never buy anything online from China.
2. Never paid with paypal

I have used PayPal several times, but over the Christmas shopping period I purchased and product using PayPal to pay through as requested by the seller. So I purchased and paid through PayPal. Then the problem. I had the product sent directly to my son for his Christmas Present. After he opened it and tried it on he called me to thank me, but to let me know he called and said thanks but that the outfit did not fit Now was the product of the quality we looked at and tried on before Christmas. So I contacted the manufacturer. They could barly understand me and that’s when I found out that they were a Chinese producer. So I called PayPal and they directed me to the Resolution Center. So I filled out all the info and waited, and waited. More communication transpired and I was finally instructed to send then item back within 10 days, which is what I did and provided USPS tracking information. So I waited and waited and waited. Then on 5/8/11 I sent an email to PayPal asking what was going on. I received a response that stated the claim had been decided and that there was no further action to take place. I emailed them back asking why I was not going to get my refund and the stated that I did not send the product back in the time required and the tracking information was not satisfactory. Now it has been over 2 months since the product was sent back and I have heard nothing from PayPal or the company. PayPal told me that a refund would follow once the product has been returned. Well they have the product I have Lost $125+ and PayPal will not do anything to help. They can Kiss My You Know What! 5 MONTHS WASTED! DO NOT EVER USE PAYPAL if you are expecting assurance that your payment will be protected!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bruce Conine
Houston, TX

I bought something for a simple $5 that was not as described on the web site, which was a CD key for a game that they said was was legit and unused. The key delivered actually was used and I was unable to play the game. The amount of the transaction was no big deal but it seriously made me wonder what would happen if it were a significant amount. They sided with the buyer even though it was clearly fraud and I in turn deleted my account.

GL if you use them for any real amount of money that you don’t want to lose!!!

I do not understand their support is terrible, either they are pushed by management what they need to say or they are clueless about what customer want. They say they can process credit cards without a login, it takes me 5 minutes to understand what they are trying to do. I asked them to see if can cut to chase straight to the credit card payment on paypal. They do not have solution for it. This is BS, now i will need to find another credit card processor will not play around.

PayPal is pushing everyone to give bank account access. I haved used PayPal for years with my credit card and now they insist on access to my bank account. I resent that, but PayPal is so large that it is almost blackmail. Supposedly the access to my bank account was just for verification; however, I am not allowed to delete the bank account access from my PayPal account AND purchases using PayPal default to be paid by my bank account unless I select the credit card. I asked them not to use by bank account as the default payment, but I am not allowed to. Do you know they actually ask for your online banking password as an option to verify your PayPal account? I called them because I was so dumbfounded that any company would ask for your online bank password. They did not see why that was a problem. Security 101!!!

For a small business its amazing!

I have to put my input since there is so much negative responses. I have used paypal for years. Sure I’ve had some trouble with them and sure there are certain things that are not perfect about paypals but what I do know is that had I taken the effort to configure my account propperly a lot of my missfortunes with paypal could have been avoided. I just sucked it up fixed my problems and learned from my mistakes. There have been plenty of times where I got taken advantage of by a company using paypals and their dispute proccess is long but it works. Pretty much they send an email to the merchant for a response take both inputs in the case and make the final determination. If the merchant does not respond within a period of time they automatically refund the money. Well not automatically I had to nudge them but they did it no questions asked. Their customer service is a decent as your average customer service. I have run into a few bad apples but overall my experience over the phone has been good. Their security is solid if you know what you are doing and Paypal provides you with more than enough phishing prevention features. That is what I love most about paypal. To those who are claiming that they FORCE you to put your bank information and FORCE you to give out your bank password. I have one question for you. What are you talking about? I decided to remove my bank information a few months back and I did so with no problems at all. Also for the person comaplaining that she didn’t know that she had 45 days to make a dispute… why did you wait so long? No one is going to spoon feed you tons of information at once this is for you to research if you feel unsafe. They don’t hid this information it is clearly shown if you want to know it. You can’t blame Paypal for your lack of personal responsibility. Seriously I have yet to read a single legitement complaint about Paypal all problems that I have read so far are avoidable if people make an extra effort. Besides one thing you should always, always know regardless is that no matter what when you bank online you are taking a risk either way. That is the nature of the internet. I think Paypal has done a terrific job in making online banking safer.

As a small business owner, I tried using PayPal to process the few credit card transaction I have (most of my clients pay by check). So far I’ve had no luck at all. As best I can determine, after speaking to a PayPal service rep and reading other blogs, PayPal’s internal fraud checks and other rules appear to be so stringent that my 2 attempted transactions were both rejected. There was nothing wrong with my client’s credit card or their financial history; it was all PayPal. I’m now trying to source a more reliable and affordable credit card processor.

I’ve used Paypal for 5 years now and am almost to the $10,000 mark. Now they require my bank info. ?? My account numbers ?? I have great credit rating, no disputes, and they want to make it hard on me now? Any legitimate institution would be more inclined to take care of good customers rather than start requiring personal info.. You would have to be really out of touch with society today to hand over bank info. to any institution online. Paypal has lost credibility, and where they’ve been decent to deal with, unfortunatly their tactics mirror those of scammers.

read the user agreement-all of the information you need to know about how to protect yourself as a buyer or seller is in the legal agreements wich you can find at the bottom of any paypal page, i work in the fraud dept at paypal and i would like to say that i understand being concerned about your money and what will happen to it should an implausible scenario arise but if you really cared about your money then you would simply read the user agreement and follow the guidelines that pertain to what you are doing. just because you did not know about a guideline or rule that we enforce does not mean you should get a pass because you feel the need to yell at someone getting paid 10 bucks an hour-all of the stories ive read i have heard a million times and i can tell you its not because of paypal that the person is at a loss its because people are careless and click, click, click themselves into problems that they expect to be cleaned up without being held responsible-so many big businesses fail because the type of consumer we have.

As a seller, I am very upset that my money is being held for 21 days. I pay for shipping upfront because I don’t want to use ebay shipping services (plus packaging supplies). Meanwhile, the purchaser receives and is able to use the
item(s) before I am even able to touch my money. It is not the purchasers fault either because they have already paid. It is PayPal that is the problem by tieing up the money. I have been fortunate not to have been scammed by a buyer or seller as other people have and Ebay/Paypal siding with the cons because they somehow make them more money. But doesn’t mean it will never happen.

Out of nowhere, PayPal froze my account for 21 days. Although buyers have paid for items and items have been delivered, as a “security” that the bought items will not be returned or disputed, PP has frozen my account for 21 days on each trade despite that I have never had an item returned!

I will say this, the bigger paypal got, they are no different from any other banking institution. I regret ever being part of paypal. The ONLY good thing about paypal now is that if someone sends you money and you have a debit card, you are good. Anything else, be prepared for problems! They quickly tell you that it is the easiest and fastest way to send money–Not True! If you need to send money to a bank account, you have to wait 2-4 days for the transaction to go through. Although it is “free” money wise, you pay for it if you are in a bind and someone wants to send you money. They will never outdo Western Union in that case! I pray there will be something done about the horrible customer service that is given by this company’s “outsourced” representatives! And to William, if you are really part of paypal, you just showed what everyone is complaining about paypal! You are a horrible example of customer service! YOU SHOULD NOT BE REPRESENTING A COMPANY SINCE YOU ARE DOING HERE WHAT PEOPLE EXPERIENCE ON THE PHONE! I HOPE AND PRAY I NEVER HAVE TO TALK TO YOU!!!!

I have had nothing but negative experiences with PayPal. All I have tried to do is send two ebay gift cards and tryign to redeem these cards through PayPal was an absolute nightmare. They never would work, and the customer support for PayPal was TERRIBLE!!!!!! I spent 80 mins on the phone with them the other night and was transferred to 4 different people and was told a differnt story by each one of them. Finally I got someone to refund the money from the gift cards after he admitted that information on the website for the gift cards is not accurate and is misleading. Terrible service and a terrible experience.

I have used paypal since 2004 and was a DIE-HARD defender of them. I run a legitimate community website and have SOLELY used them for selling upgraded memberships on my site. For 8 YEARS I have never had ANY problems in my account; not a single buyer complaint, not a single dispute, and not even a single refund issued. Out of nowhere, I get an email from Paypal telling me that my account was being CLOSED due to “one of the following reasons” and then proceeded to list 4 separate reasons in which I was supposed to guess which one applied to me.

Since I could not get more than an auto-responder message from what is clearly a minimum wage teenager with no business/finance background whatsoever and therefore without the intellectual capacity to look at the situation appropriately, I am now kicked out of Paypal for good after 8 years of loyal dedication. Oh and on top of it, they decided to also keep my money (a little over $2,000) and they will be keeping it (i.e. earning interest off it) for 6 MONTHS!! Not even the BANK OF AMERICA freezes funds for 6 months. They like to parade themselves around like a bank and throw around the term “merchant” quite a bit but DO NOT BE FOOLED, they are NO BANK and they are NO MERCHANT and they do NOT have to adhere to the same laws and regulations that other financial institutions do…laws that were put in place to protect us and for good reason.

If I were you, I’d stay FAR away from Paypal. You might think everything is great (like I did) and maybe even have no trouble with them for years (like I did) all the while hearing other people’s horror stories but rest assured, your turn will come and when it does, you will be at the mercy of a 21 year old dim-wit who won’t even have the decency to read your emails let alone the mental ability to handle your situation fairly…Good luck with that one!

I’ve used PayPal for a long time, and never had any problems. It seemed like a very convenient way to pay online.

All was going well until recently, when I paid a merchant who had a locked account on PayPal. PayPal did not pass my payment on to the merchant and, of course, the merchant is not sending me my merchandise (this is a small local vegetable co-op). So I’m stuck without any recourse – merchant didn’t get paid, and PayPal is taking the position that it’s not their problem. The post by Derek Velez has been far from my experience – there is no willingness by PayPal to assist in any way in this dispute.

If the account is locked then they shouldn’t take payment on it – knowing full well that they are just passing the problem on to a consumer. Its fraudulent behavior.

Don’t use them – find an alternative.

I had found Paypal quite efficient until I sold £1,200 of electronic gear recently.Buyers paid up same day and 2 of 3 collected their goods.Paypal then keep MY MONEY FOR OVER 3 WEEKS on the grounds that buyer may change their mind and want a refund. THIS IS TOTALLY OUT OF ORDER -MY money should have been paid TO ME and then it’s my responsibility to keep funds in the unlikely event of a refune,etc. They must be sitting on Millions of pounds at any one time with good interest -all money that belongs to their customers. This is totally wrong and I can’t find any clause in their T & C about this.