pay pal???

This may seem weird but I have never used pay pal for a purchase.I have a few lights I want but the dealer only uses pay pal and I am curiuos as to the safety of it.
I read several articles on the net that many have had various problems with pay pal.
The problems ranged from excessive fees,too much money extracted from the account,customers unable to contact pay pal for questions....ETC:
Is this a fairly safe method of purchase?I see a lot of members using this system and I am sure the bad claims may be exaggerated a little.
Also what kind of fees are involved if I get a pay pal account?I could not get their web site to pull up and did not get much info on a search.
Thanks for any help

PayPal is very convienent, it offers reasonable security for buyers, less for sellers.

If you mainly want to use it for buying and selling the odd item, get a Personal account that has lower fees for taking payments but does not allow credit card payments to your account.

If you are going to sell often you`ll need a Premier or whetever account with larger transaction limits and higher fees.

If you go this, regular seller, route set up a bank account specifically to be linked to your paypal aaccount and clear all balances , regularly, to another account.This is to protect against chargebacks and account freezes that can be much larger than a disputed amount.

As a buyer,always pay by credit card for purchases, if paypal try and wriggle out of dispute resolution, charge the paypal payment back from your credit card compny.

Paypal is relatively safe way of online payments, just remeber PayPal ,eBay etc will NEVER ask you to confirm your password from an email..

HTH
Adam

Good information. I'll second the seperate acct for Paypal, this is what I do. I don't leave money in either my Bank or Paypal acct unecesarily though..

I have never had any problems, but with anything their is opportunity. It's no more unsafe than having a Bank acct, credit card or buying/paying online for anything.

As far as contacting them, rhey have an #800 number and I've never had a problem. I've called them a handful of times.

Paypal is owned by ebay, so their policies continue to improve. I've hard horror stories by some, but with reasonable common sense applied to using an account there shouldn't be problems, although I refuse to use bank accounts to fund my paypal, and only pay with credit cards.

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tkl said:
. . . As far as contacting them, rhey have an #800 number and I've never had a problem. I've called them a handful of times.

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That's good to know. What is their number?

Paul

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PaulW said:
[ QUOTE ]
tkl said:
. . . As far as contacting them, rhey have an #800 number and I've never had a problem. I've called them a handful of times.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's good to know. What is their number?

Paul

[/ QUOTE ] 888-221-1161 I've only had to call them because of a merchant not removing an "authorization charge" after the actual charge cleared.

Also, be careful what credit card you attach to a paypal account -- some of the major issuers (MBNA in particular) treat paypal payments as 'cash-equivalent' transactions, just like getting a cash advance or using your card for cash in a casino -- w/the attendant service fees, etc.

NEVER USE A DEBIT CARD on a paypal account, they don't have the same protections as credit cards & a 'reversal' by paypal could clean out the associated account.

kf

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tkl said:
888-221-1161

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Thanks

Paul