Fun fact: The horror that is PayPal came from the same guy who gave us our hope for the bright future of commercial spaceflight. PayPal has vertically integrated every step required to stiff you. They can do it safely and reliably, but a public mishap like this one may cost them.
More Paypal nonsense
21–30 of 257 posts
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#22These horror stories are so common that I have to ask: why does anyone still use PayPal? I ask this in the most constructive way possible... is there a set of use-cases that PayPal is still the best for? Is it a lack of awareness of alternatives? International availability? Something else?
Because in reality paypal is actually pretty awesome (note: I work for Etsy which uses paypal as a payment processor, so I guess I'm kind of biased). The cost for the business, compared to maintaining your own payments platform at scale, is pretty reasonable, and the failure rate is pretty miniscule when you consider the amount of potential fraud that goes through the platform. Paypal wasn't really designed to handle…
I wrote the software that integrates with WePay. They are a 'real' bank. Works great. ;-) https://github.com/lookfirst/WePay-Java-SDK
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because buyers keep demanding sellers use it. If you're a buyer, it's about the most painless thing out there. I got forced into it by a client once for that very reason. Unfortunately PyPal froze his account with about $20k in it. We switched to a real merchant account and everything went uphill from there.
Is there a current best alternative to PayPal that you would recommend?
I've used Authorize.net + a merchant account at a real bank a few times. It works, every time.
BrainTree is awesome too.
If you're doing subscriptions, http://spreedly.com/ is good.
And Stripe looks cool but I've never used it. (https://stripe.com/)
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#24I've been sitting here for the last five minutes trying to make a point eloquently. I'm having a hard time with it. So I'll just put it like this:
What else can we really expect from a product whose parent is eBay?
This company is a fucking fossil with all the hunger for customer satisfaction of a used tissue.
Is it convenient for users? Yeah. Is it worth gambling your entire business on? Given the lack of accountability these clowns enjoy, I'm going to say probably not. Neither eBay or PayPal has evolved in any meaningful way in the last decade. On the contrary: they've steadily declined in user experience and customer satisfaction. Why trust a business to such a stagnant concern?
On principle, on practicality, for the sake of all of our futures: just say no to PayPal.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#25At the risk of being perceived as the devil's advocate, let me ask a question. I've heard of dozens of stories about Paypal along a similar vein. "They locked my account for unreasonable reason X and now are keeping the money". Most of these stories seem anecdotal. Can someone point to a rigorously documented set of cases where both Paypal and the customer's side of things are reviewed? Over the last few years, all o…
I've yet to see a "PayPal horror story" that didn't fit into one of the "any payment processor in the world would consider this high risk and temporarily or permanently freeze the account" slots.
If this discussion with the customer service rep did occur as written, it's the most ridiculous one I've seen yet, though. It's a major customer service fail even if the original reason for freezing the account was valid.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#26At the risk of being perceived as the devil's advocate, let me ask a question. I've heard of dozens of stories about Paypal along a similar vein. "They locked my account for unreasonable reason X and now are keeping the money". Most of these stories seem anecdotal. Can someone point to a rigorously documented set of cases where both Paypal and the customer's side of things are reviewed? Over the last few years, all o…
I can't. I replied elsewhere in these comments that it happened to a client of mine. I made a lot of money in one weekend doing emergency "I told you so" payment gateway switching for him so he could take reservations.
But it's my recollection they're not a bank, and so they have no real obligation to act like one. So when they do this kind of stuff, I'm not surprised.
And I wouldn't want to be them. They probably deal with fraud and schemes on the scale none of us could possibly imagine.
PayPal - the Mos Eisley of e-commerce.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#27Fun fact: The horror that is PayPal came from the same guy who gave us our hope for the bright future of commercial spaceflight. PayPal has vertically integrated every step required to stiff you. They can do it safely and reliably, but a public mishap like this one may cost them.
I've been on this forum for a long time, and I'd estimate that a new Paypal horror stories surfaces once a month. There's no shortage of them. Every one of those costs them something, no doubt, but not enough for them to knock it off.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#28Fun fact: The horror that is PayPal came from the same guy who gave us our hope for the bright future of commercial spaceflight. PayPal has vertically integrated every step required to stiff you. They can do it safely and reliably, but a public mishap like this one may cost them.
I've been on this forum for a long time, and I'd estimate that a new Paypal horror stories surfaces once a month. There's no shortage of them. Every one of those costs them something, no doubt, but not enough for them to knock it off.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because buyers keep demanding sellers use it. If you're a buyer, it's about the most painless thing out there. I got forced into it by a client once for that very reason. Unfortunately PyPal froze his account with about $20k in it. We switched to a real merchant account and everything went uphill from there.
Is there a current best alternative to PayPal that you would recommend?
Taking credit cards on your own site with a merchant account and gateway. But it'll almost definitely cost you more, you'll invest 10 times the resources into handling and stopping fraud, and some customers won't trust your site with their credit card. The reality is PayPal has a lot of benefits for both sides.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#30Yikes, are you really only allowed to use "donate" buttons if you're a nonprofit? I use them as a "tip jar" on my blog. What's the options for for-profit when you're giving money for nothing in particular?