paypal - DNForum - Domain Sales, Domain Forum, Domain Appraisals, Domain Registrars

**hollayo** · 04-21-2003, 03:26 AM

What is paypal

It is an easy way to send money via the internet... used my many domainers

You can create up to 2 accounts (personal and biz).
I ersonally have 2... the biz one accepts credit cards form paypal users who use it but charge a 2.9% fee and the personal one allows me to recieve $$$ form a paypal balance for no fee.

For more info see paypal.com

**beatz** · 04-21-2003, 08:51 AM

Be aware paypal is ok for small amounts ONLY.

NEVER use it for large transactions though if you haven't transferred larger amounts with them in the past.
Why?

a) Because their system has a built-in warning algorithm that will waive the red flag anytime it thinks something looks suspicious.

Which means you could end up with your account/money being frozen.

It once happened to me although everything on my and the buyer's side was perfectly legit and it was a REAL nightmare for me to get my funds released - i had to fax numerous paper stuff like ID, bank account& CC statements and so on.

Everytime i had faxed them all they said they needed, they came up with a new requirement.

I finally (like after 3 weeks) managed to get hold of my money.

But i know people that never got their money or are waiting for their funds to be released since a YEAR (!) - and all their transactions were perfectly legit, just the system thought something fishy was going on.

Plus in such a situation the paypal phone support is a real pain too - all you hear is like "i'm not responsible".

I even had one support lady tell me " If you don't fax EVERYTHING we ask you to, we'll keep the money."

And i'm sure not the only one with these kind of experiences.

See www.paypalsucks.com and other sites.

b) In case you have a business account, the fees are just too high for big transactions.

Actually i recommend to have a private,free non-business account with them; you cannot accept creditcard payment this way but you won't have to pay any transaction fees as seller.

**Corwin** · 04-21-2003, 09:45 AM

what do you mean by big amount? so i know where is the limit of paypal

any of you tried 2checkout.com?

thank you,

**beatz** · 04-21-2003, 01:14 PM

Well the problem is it's hardly foreseeable what the system thinks is a big amount.

I guess it depends on your past transactions, like if you have had transactions with >5k, then it *shouldn't* be a problem to do transactions like that in the future.

As far as i understand, the system might think something's fishy if

- a payment has been made thats a lot higher than any sum that has occured in yours or the other partys account
- several payments in the 1k region occur within a short period of time compared to the number of transactions in the past.

You see, it's hard to say - even the support staff seem to have no idea when,if,why the system waives the red flag.

In my case, because i had been aware of the possible risk, i even called up support *prior* to transaction to make sure such a freezing thing would not happen, support guy said he would not see a reason why it should happen and - it nevertheless still DID happen.

So my recommendation is don't use paypal for amounts >$1k unless you've done several transaction like that in the past OR have gone through that freezing hell like me once already - because THEN they suddenly hand out your personal support's guy phonenumber and everything.

Since that mess happened and has been resolved, they now treat me like a Platinum AmericanExpress holder there.

Banned: Larry · 04-21-2003, 06:00 PM

Quote:

The reports of problems with PayPal are GREATLY exaggerated. Any company that has millions of customers is going to have a handful of detractors and unhappy people. That's just natural. This story about people being frozen for no reason is nonsense most of the time. Sure - like with anything in life - there ARE indeed a few innocent people that get their account frozen by mistake. However the fact is that most of the frozen accounts DID do something wrong.

Absolutely. I've been using them since the x.com days.

Literally thousands of transactions and hundreds of cash transfers later....they are a fine company to deal with. Many transactions at $2,000 plus.

I've read the many reports about accounts that have been frozen but I have never experienced a problem on any of my accounts (3) and have always received EXCELLENT support from their employees.

I also use 2checkout and paysystems for some of my other sites and apart from some slow pay on the part of 2checkout they all work well.

But...my personal favorite is paypal. I can sell product and access cash NOW with my debit card....doesn't get any better!

Just my .02!

**Domainut** · 04-21-2003, 06:40 PM

It is not nonsense, and I have had it happen to three of my accounts. PayPal has a serious problem, they chargeback accounts, and freeze accounts, generally siding with the customer, no matter what the story. Then it is the sellers problem to get things cleared up, which is hard because they don't like talking on the phone about support. All of this could be easily avoided if paypal were to freeze the monies associated with that particular transaction, but very seldom do.

Just because it did not happen to your account does not mean that it is exaggerated. I currently have over $7,000 tied up by paypal, how can that be an exaggeration?

**NamePopper.com** · 04-21-2003, 06:59 PM

Domainut - note the key words....

---------------------------------
This story about people being frozen for no reason is nonsense most of the time. Sure - like with anything in life - there ARE indeed a few innocent people that get their account frozen by mistake. However the fact is that most of the frozen accounts DID do something wrong.
---------------------------------

Nobody said that there not SOME cases of mistakes being made.

**hollayo** · 04-21-2003, 08:31 PM

ok well use escrow.com if you want to pay their fees for bigger amounts

**DropWizard.com** · 04-23-2003, 01:58 PM

Quote:

there ARE indeed a few innocent people that get their account frozen by mistake. However the fact is that most of the frozen accounts DID do something wrong.

This is not to knock paypal. they indeed can be good to work with. I have had 1000's of transactions with them. Our account is large enough we have had a business manager appointed for us to work with.

Nevertheless they froze my account over $1200 us when buying some furniture. Totally out of the blue. No notice, no phone call. Fortunately I found out before any serious problems arose but it could have been hugely embarrassing to us as a business.

What bothered me the most was the fact that everybody claimed somebody else was doing it. According to paypal mastercard initiated it. According to Mastercard paypal initiated it.

I would not keep any large amounts with them anymore.

If you're running a business make sure you have alternative payment methods that can replace them instantly.