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Yahoo Shuts Down Their PayPal Competitor
LostCluster writes "MSNBC and ZDnet are both reporting that Yahoo and HSBC have announced a shutdown plan for their PayDirect service which was their rival to PayPal. Since CitiBank abandoned their c2it service last year, PayPal now seems to be a monopoly by default." There are other players in this field, though, like bidpay and worldpay.
But they were using BidPay, so Yahoo will never see the money now.
PayPal should do that if they'd like to pick up some more customers. Yahoo should so that since they're nigging out on people.
BLING BLING. Meet the architecture that's changing everything.
...the American public cry out that the Dollar is a monopoly, and that Pounds and Yen should be allowed as well.
--Muzz
If a company won't take my credit card, I don't purchase their merchandise, period.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
This was a decent service and was in some ways a superior "eshopping cart" service. Many small websites or discount hardware websites use Yahoo stores and used the PayDirect service...I wonder if Paypal will, indeed, take it's place.
A consortium of Canadian banks (BMO, CIBC, RBC, ScotiaBank, and TD) offer "email money transfers" through CertaPay. My wife and I use it for almost everything we used to do through PayPal because -- unlike PayPal -- it's free for both the sender and receiver (as long as you have a banking plan that gives you a number of free transactions per month).
How appropriate. You fight like a cow.
In areas like this a monopoly is actually needed. If one e-business uses one service, other ones using other services as well it just gets too cluttered.
I still can't believe how clumsy the eBay to Paypal interface is a year after the merger. Can't they make it seemless so that my customers don't have to sign in twice to make a payment?? They certainly have made enough in fees to improve the system.
This is just more hyperbolic editorial blather on the part of timothy. If you can name a couple of significant competitors off of the top of your head, then it's not a monopoly. It would be a monopoly if it were impossible to use anything but PayPal, but it's not. We all have a choice. If we hate PayPal that much maybe we should launch a boycott of them and all tangentially related companies. Then we can use the superior alternatives instead of letting PP become the next Microsoft.
He corrected the submitter by naming several competitors. He could've gone further by removing the submitter's comment entirely, though.
No matter what I do I can't even figure out from the context what it's supposed to mean. I can't think of any words that it might be a typo of either.
Wasn't there one also called e-gold that purchases actual gold to back its electronic currency? Of course, if you had a lot of money in it and somebody discovered how to turn lead into gold, well then you'd be ruined. So its kind of a risky holding.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
In the UK we still have NoChex, which is a very similar kind of thing...
I'm not surprised, the c1it service was much more fun.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
Not every exchange online is between companies, it's often between private individuals, and Paypal makes it much easier for someone to accept credit card payments.
That said, I'm quite leery about Paypal and recognize the general lack of recourse and such, but it is a service that many people find useful.
I wonder if I should shut down the "PayPa1" service I started. (Ends in a number 1... bet you didn't see that right off. hehehehe.)
A prediction: So often when an idea comes around, one player emerges as disproportionately successful, and in that early charge it's very difficult to achieve competitive diversity. Paypal was a market leader in an emerging market. But we've seen this happen time and time again, especially in technology: just when we think Paypal's monopoly has become a fait accompli will be the time when people become most open to competition. I figure that only once we start to get *really* annoyed with Paypal (as sure we are already) and frustrated by the lack of options, will those competitors start to look so very attractive.
Worldpay is not really a competitor to the main paypal market, since iirc it costs GBP100ish (USD 180) a significant amount (to an average part time ebay seller) to set up, plus an annual yearly fee, plus they take so much per transaction. Nochex is a competitor, but it was limited to UK customers only last time I checked it out.
No matter what I do I can't even figure out from the context what it's supposed to mean. I can't think of any words that it might be a typo of either.
Perhaps he was thinking of reneged?
I hope somebody will step up and prove me wrong, but after some extensive searching, I can't come up with any better alternatives than PayPal. For simply and cheaply accepting credit card payments.
Killer features: no sign up cost, no monthly (yearly, whatever) fee, low transaction costs, works around the world, accepts all major credit cards, as well as other payment methods.
Only two disadvantages I can identify: buyers need to create an account (unless paying to an US business), and PayPal's...reputation.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Reneged - sure I believe that, or even "niggardly". Both seem to be unrelated to the American "N" word, but they're close enough that I DO despair over them.
This is one of those words that we could easily remove from the lexicon if we could get over the absolutist position that ALL free speech is a good thing.
It simply is NOT.
Stuff that matters.
Paypal was going through some stability problems doesn't equate it to Microsoft which is a monopoly.
But really there's a ton of merchant accounts put there.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Why didn't Yahoo or CitiBank sell their PayPal competitors to someone interested in the business? After the severe PayPal problems this Summer, like successful (though settled) class-action lawsuits and days-long outages, the market looks ripe for competition for the abusive PayPal monopoly. Without even those token competitors, the PayPal monopoly is not only stronger, but more complacent about abusing the market.
--
make install -not war
Rather than suggest the word should be removed, it simply seems better to moderate and ignore. Free speech still rules in importance, except when deemed a direct public menace - screaming "fire" in a movie theatre, etc.
I'd much rather get services like that from a legitimate commercial bank than some flakey service like PayPal.
Realistically, you don't want to send money to a "merchant" that can't qualify for a Visa/MC merchant account. I've run mail-order software sales out of my house, and I had a real merchant account from a major bank (not a reseller), a business license, a fictitious name filing, and a Dun and Bradstreet rating. All those things are easy to get. Someone who doesn't have them is probably doing something wrong.
In addition, there is http://www.moneybookers.com/ that also allows online money transfer and is based in UK and supports more countries than PayPal
What sucks is that both services want you to have a user ID before using them.
There is also Western Union that does online transfers but it is only for USA I think and their charges are high IMO.
While being geeks with t1+ connections, lets seek hsbc's history eh?
There is another very significant problem with Pay Pal. Pay Pal censors what you can buy and sell and has stated a policy that they will "fine" buyers or purchasers of "adult" items $500. The definition of whether an item meets PayPal's standards is decided solely by PayPal and its official censors, who will even go so far as to read through romance novels/erotic fiction to see whether they pass muster.
While PayPal may not yet be a monopoly, it could be. Right now PayPal is the 800 pound Gorilla of online payments. They have millions of dollars of float from customer accounts, issue a PayPal bank card and yet aren't regulated as a bank. They also will freeze a customer's account, including the funds, at the drop of a hat.
If PayPal is left unchecked as on line commerce continues to grow, it will threaten our ability to buy products without censorship and it will put our finances at risk in an un-regulated bank.
http://paypalsucks.com/ They once withheld funds from me for over a month, and when I finally spoke to a real person at my expense, they would not help.
Read some horror stories from customers at PayPalSucks.com. Apparently PayPal can keep the balance in your account locked for 180 days if they deem your website "inappropriate." I don't trust them at all.
PayPal does not support many countries. My country, which is a member of EU, is not accepted by PayPal for money withdrawal. That's not good and PayPal should consider providing more support in EU, since most of their competitors do support my country.
This is one of those words that we could easily remove from the lexicon if we could get over the absolutist position that ALL free speech is a good thing.
It is interesting how some words for some reason have a negative connotation attached to them, while others, although with the same meaning, do not. For example, the "N"-word has its roots in the word "negro" - the Spanish word for "black". I personally believe that "black" is a pefectly acceptable, descriptive word, just as "white" is. But once a word has a negative context associated with it, it becomes forever unsavory, despite the benign etymology of the word.
Seems that PayPal doesn't like gay sites. Not pr0n, just gay-relationship sites.
c ontent_id=4060
"Publisher says photo of bare-chested men prompted retaliation"
http://www.washblade.com/print.cfm?
Thank god for money orders.
...but they no longer accept Mastercard credit/debit cards. It's a shame, because I actually preferred them to Paypal.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
https://www.yowcow.com - I'm suprised nobody mentioned this, but it seems secure, works just as easily as paypal and they only charge a flat fee (I think .50) unlike PP, which charges a %. Worth checking out.
is they are only a "holding company" and to actually get "ewgold" you have to go through one of their money changers. Then you have to do it AGAIN to get money back out. Because it is "gold" few of these folks bother with credit cards, and most that do actually allow you to (for example) use your Visa to buy egold charge an additional fee on top of the 4-7% they already get.
Paypal is WAY cheaper than egold. Which is to be expected, since (contrary to the idiotic blather elsewhere in this thread) paypal isn't particularly "anonymous" nor "friendly to criminals" - whereas egold is VERY accomodating to the needs of those with something to hide, which one pays extra for.
Free Flat Screen HERE!
There are also other large competitors, with revenues rivaling that of even paypals, NetTeller Claims to be the largest, bigger then paypal, And as almost every online casino and poker parlor(ALOT of big revenue) accepts them as the default payment method, as well as many many adult sites, both markets which due to fraudlent activity, paypal isnt willing to touch (dosent allow its accounts to be used for such)...
Also, paypal makes very little profit margin on each transaction, The average client of net teller is gambling or using an adult site, both of which they want immediate access and immediate funds trasnfer, netteller charges 8% for immediate access to those funds, which is slightly larger then paypals fees.
While I suppose paypal might not consider them direct compeition, becuase they both cover
Also, there are independant and other company run sites like www.firepay.com, www.stormpay.com, ikobo.com, one of which was started by a friend of mine, I had even considered it when I was marketing merchant accounts....
While nobody will be able to beat out paypals brand nameing, providing compeition isnt the problem, although the companies that do mostly do so for goods and services paypal dosent cover so In that aspect, they arnt paypals competition, but in general money transfer business aspect, they compete very well by providing those services paypal won't, giving them that edge....
I dunno ranting on way too much, but yeah neteller's big too and firepay and others get alot of business from yeah what isaid before....
Citibank simply lacked the knowledge to successfully stimulate their service's userbase.
Proper manipulation of customers is key when attempting to peak profits and make people come back for more.
Unfortunately CitiBank was to preoccupied with measuring itself against the competition tow orry about the satisfaction of others.
Not to mention the fact that niger (one g) is Latin for black...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I don't understand the problem so many of you have with Paypal. Admittedly I only use it for sending money to other people. I do this because I can dispute any payment I make with my credit card provider, in case the eBay seller tries to rip me off--an option I do not have if I send a cheque.
In Estonia, my native country, banks created a cross-payment system in 1993 (over ten years ago!). Since then it has been possible for anyone with bank account in any Estonian bank to pay anyone else with a bank account. Shortly after that most banks made the system available over the Internet.
It became quite common for me to go out to lunch with my colleagues so that someone would pay the bill, and later everyone else would transfer some money instantaneously to his bank account. When I moved to the US in 1999, I was most puzzled by people having to mess with personal checks for such things, and the inconvenience they had to go through whenever they needed to make payments to anyone (e.g. utility bills).
Things like PayPal, various (paid!) bill payment systems and other things like that are simply hacks built on top of an antiquated banking system and would not be necessary if we had a decent cross-payment system between the banks. So can anyone please enlighten me and tell why we still don't have one??
When men used to be men
PayPal DOES NOT have a monopoly... infact it has a Dying Business Model..
... I would never use paypal now.. The new system uses YOUR OWN BANKS BANKING SYSTEM and only costs a buck... and aolmost al of the major banks use it now..
.. and threw in the towel!!
Up here in Canada all the major banks are now letting you pay other people ONLINE with your debit card!
I myself use it often
US banks are set to follow suit soon..
I think that Yahoo just realized that there is no way that they can compete with a system like that
There is another very significant problem with Pay Pal. Pay Pal censors what you can buy and sell and has stated a policy that they will "fine" buyers or purchasers of "adult" items $500. The definition of whether an item meets PayPal's standards is decided solely by PayPal and its official censors, who will even go so far as to read through romance novels/erotic fiction to see whether they pass muster.
This is hardly unique to Paypal. A huge range of merchant account providers also refuse to accept merchants selling adult items or services due to the high risk associated with that sector and the greater percentage of chargebacks. Paypal is not doing anything underhanded or monopolistic by adopting the same policy. It is a very standard one in the e-commerce biz.
Ever notice why almost all adult sites use only a handful of payment services (CCbill, iBill, Verotel, etc.)? It's because they are the only ones that accept them.
Paypal problems:
p or tedly-penalizes/
s on -on/
http://www.politechbot.com/2004/09/27/paypal-re
and alternatives
http://www.politechbot.com/2004/09/29/jim-david
[rant]They're owned by eBay, so when you sell something, and get via Paypal, eBay is now double dipping.
They get money for the listing, AND money from your money.
If they were a nice company like Google, one or the other would be free if you used both eBay and Paypal on a given sale, but like most greedy coroporations they don't care about making their customers happy, they care about making the maximum amount of money from their customers. [/rant]
Question everything
I utterly fail to see the advantage to me as a buyer
The advantage to me is simplicity. When I buy a $3 book or a $10 phone card online, I couldn't care less about all that reliability stuff (not worth my time to track down a bastard $3 vendor)- but I do care that I only have to enter paypal username/password rather than all of my bloody credit card info, billing address, etc. And only giving that latter info to one place, paypal, rather than every $3 retailer out there is a comfort, too.
For example, the "N"-word has its roots in the word "negro" - the Spanish word for "black".
I've always looked at it that way, but both "reneged" and "niggardly" have negative connotations of revocation and being miserly. That American slaves were forced to be frugal AND probably got caught not fulfilling their 'owners' every demand occasionally(sic), it is also reasonable to think that the origin of the "N-word" came from a bully's(cracker) pun on the phonetic and inferior similarities with "renege" and "niggardly". This bullying is what I loathe so much of - and think the world can do without. Though modern opinion says the words are not related, I find it hard to believe as "niggardly" predates the American South, and slave owners were greedy bastards. A psychological weapon to use on the slaves.
As I told the other respondant, I am probably wrong on my stance, my friends and I don't use the word - so we have effectively censored our environment for the most part, and Darwin will proably take care of it in time anyway.
Stuff that matters.
I personally believe that "black" is a pefectly acceptable, descriptive word, just as "white" is.
-----
I don't know about you, but unless you're a member of KISS, your skin is probably pink, just like mine.
No, the dollar is not. But the Fed does make a profit by issuing all that cash - it is called seigniorage. Might not be a major issue inside the US (though the Fed is not exactly a government institution), but you bet the dominance of the dollar worldwide has very noticeable cash flow implications for the US economy (is one of the major reasons that the dollar is a stable currency in spite of the huge trade deficits of the US).
The listed alternatives aren't. They take somewhere between 100 and 300 Euros/$ in setup fees, which means you've gotta shell that out before you can make any transactions.
For a small site taking donations, that kills the option right there.
The only real alternative I found to paypal is Moneybookers.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
is now paypal is the monopoly of the fucking market, sure, there are little companies out there that do the same thing, but they're virtually invisible
(yowcow comes to mind)
and paypal could buy them out with a whim.
Paypal also has soem unfair policies and need very little reason to lock your account, hell, you can say someone's doing something illegal with their account and paypal will lock the funds without investigation. It's annoying, especially for sites that go on donations and are forced to shut down because of some asshole who decides to get their funds locked. Not only does this shit hurt the site, but the users who donated their hard earned cash. Which was going to be used for something useful, but now it's useless money sitting locked away only benefitting paypal.
It's crap, and I'm pissed because the only major competitor to PayPal is going away, so now we're stuck with these assholes.
Two companies I said I'd hate to see as monopolies are PayPal and UPS. and well now one of those are.
UPS is another story for another day.
Let me get this straight...
These words are similar enough to the word nigger, which is a racial slur. Therefore, words that sound similar to the word nigger should be removed (or, as a followup suggests, moderated out of existence) despite having no association outside of how they are spelled or sounded out to the slur.
So instead of educating people as to the MEANING of the words, having hope people will have the comprehension and ability to self-regulate themselves as to the uses of the wors at issue, learn about their various definitions, their cultural and historical significances, you want to ban them.
Lovely. I'm reminded of a story I heard in DC about a DC associate to a council person get heat because he used the word niggardly. Nothing was meant, in context or intent, to be a slur. Yet the members, instead of asking for an explanation, showed their ignorance, stupidity, and intolerance by getting up and walking out, leading to the "perpetrator" being asked to resign. Even when they realized their mistake, they still believed 2 wrongs made a right.
iow, the council people didn't "get it" and hence they marginalized themselves.
Even more, you take the absolutist position that those who have the notion that 'all free speech is a good thing' is bad, and a second absolutist position that all hate speech should be abolished as well.
Frankly, you just come off as someone who has an inferiority complex, unable to grasp the complexities of the world and knowing it.
Nigger in some ways is similar to the word Jap. Jap became a slur during WWII, despite it's obvious roots being short for Japanese, and it remains to this day. Similar to the word Nip, short for Nippon (see SPIN magazine issue). The word nigger's roots came from the various words with the Latin root meaning black. You want those root words and all their offspring rooted out from the Lexicon?
Hell, in some circles, being "white" is used very negatively (eggplant, mainstream, etc.). Should we also root out all words for white as well, e.g. blank?
I guess some people still want people to be stupid and ignorant, like those who still believe herstory is an appropriate adoption to history, utterly ignorant of the history of the very word they wish to butcher.
why can't a public forum also do so without getting flamed for violating free speech? It seems like their is not much reward in allowing that and other words to be spoken or typed.
;)
What do you mean reward? That's _exactly_ the line between freedom and censorship - you don't like the word, fine. But please don't try to tell me what words I should and should not use.
The dynamics of yelling FIRE in a theater are similar to saying the F word in front of children
No they ain't!. The former might result in a panic and thus people actually being hurt. Who you say fuck in front of is a manner of your personal fucking taste.
I guess darwin will take care of it in time anyway.
If only evolution always followed what I think is right...
I am so not giving my credit card information to a site that goes by the moniker "yowcow.com".
Marketing 101, folks. K, thx. bye.
Another alternative is http://www.egold.com/
That is not censorship at all. PayPal, as a private business, has a perfect right to decide what to deal with and what not to deal with. It is no more "censorship" than the New York Times deciding not to print a letter from a "Bill Clinton put tracking radios in my teeth" crank.
"If PayPal is left unchecked as on line commerce continues to grow, it will threaten our ability to buy products without censorship..."
Reading between the lines, it sounds like you are some sort of paranoid porn-addict.
Paypalsucks dot com is funded by the competition.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
maybe google will save the day.
gpay.com anyone?
It's has been and will continue to be my position that people sufficiently illiterate to confuse the words niggardly or reneged with a racial slur are the ones who need to be removed. Changing the language to avoid offending the ignorant is NOT a good thing.
PayPal isn't the only service on the block. Nor is it the first.
Just use Kagi.com
This is one of those words that we could easily remove from the lexicon if we could get over the absolutist position that ALL free speech is a good thing
Or better yet, we could all learn the proper definitions of the words.
Oh wait, that assumes the liability of effort onto the part of the ignorant. You're right, let's outlaw uncommon words that sound vaguely similar to common offensive words. I hearby renege all uncommon words and niggardly parse to you all a cleansed vocabulary.
Oops!
Anyone know why? It seems like such a useful service otherwise, saving a trip to the post office to buy a money order.
I don't know how big or reliable they are, but there is always Storm Pay.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
actually it seems the e-gold creators have already thought of this possiblity and provided for it in their User Agreement:
...
...
4.8. The Fusion Codicil
Issuer reserves the right to stop issuing additional e-gold by ceasing to accept bailment of additional bullion. This extraordinary provision will be triggered only in the event that lower cost or more efficient physical methods of extraction or transmuting the metals that comprise the reserves of the e-gold system result in subsequent non-scarcity of those elements.
It's run out of Australia, and they don't play the stupid Puritan and media games that the United States companies play. Signup is a little more involved, but it ends up being in your own interest since there will be less fuksticks playing games with the system.
Give Yowcow a look-see...
I think you meant e-gold. The name without the hyphen goes to some other site that (currently) redirects to the real e-gold site with a referral code attached to the URL.
This recent post at Politech seems to be on the subject. It has a few alternatives and explains the pros and cons of some of them.
Leonid Mamtchenkov
I mean if I want to accept donations for my site I need an easy service that lets anyone to transfer money quickly. If the service asks them to open an account, they will be lazy to do that, but if they can just write their credit card number and give $5 then they might do that since it isn't too difficult.
You CAN accept credit card payments to your Moneybookers account without the sender having to open an account with Moneybookers! You can even open a merchant account FOR FREE and have the payment system integrated into your site using the Moneybookers SSL payment gateway. It's easy, secure and works like a charm.
Really, it's almost getting to be equivalent to the South Park "Kenny" meme. Every time 4chan comes back, their funds are cut. Last time, out of hatred. This time, by capitalism.
A merchant is anyone capable of receiving electronic or non-electronic funds.
It wouldn't surprise me at some point BofA moves into PayPal territory. My assumption is more players would be there now if there was money to be made.
Mod parent UP!!! Very informative!
Like paypal it only works within North American financial institutions. It is a payment option supported by ebay. Like paypal it is not to be used for online gambling or adult services. And it can't be used to transfer money to another electronic service...
I think that's a great idea ... I have even thought about the fact that it would take someone with a real brand name (like eBay) to make such a service viable.
Great insight there.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Just recently I myself had to go to paypal because I "bought" a 2500 Barton and Nvidia motherboard that turned out to be a very old, very used up 1800 and Nvidia motherboard that would not boot even with my own CPU. He refused to make good on the deal, but a month or so later I got back my money and he got back his box of junk. If that had been an egold puchase I would still be out my $114.00 and I would still have what amounts to a box of sand.
Paypal is, in some ways, like an escrow service. It's more convenient than escrow, and purchasers get some reasonable protection from fraud. Egold, however, is just a money changer - like the ones in the bible that jesus was supposed to have thrown a fit over. I'm not a particularly religious person, but after looking around the egold site and those of its "brokers" I can certainly see the reason for objection even back then. Everything about the "service" - the multitude of shitty sites advertising their "draw rates," the fact it's the approved method of payment for everything from online gambling to pedophile porn - just screams ORGANIZED CRIME.
Anyone else having trouble with Firefox and links lately? I'm using 1.0PR and this ikobo.com website is one of a handful of sites where I go and try to click on the links and nothing happens. None of the links on the page work. I have to keep loading things in a new tab, and then the links on that page don't work either.
I have adblock running but disabling it doesn't seem to make any difference. These aren't those weird links with nothing but a "#" symbol that only IE seems to be able to open. They're perfectly normal links, they just don't work in Firefox.
Anyone else having this problem when you go to ikobo.com? It's incredibly frustrating.
Or maybe he meant what he wrote.
g ging
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ni
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
Amazon could certainly compete with PayPal's 50 million if they got serious about their rates, payment limits and got a real cart system for 3rd parties.
But there is also 2CheckOut, iKobo, NoChex, Epassporte, e-gold, authorize.net, iBill, Kagi, ClickBank, DigiBuy, VeriSign Payflow, Affero, BTClick&Buy, CCAvenue, CCBill, CCNow, ClickBank, DigiBuy, DigitalCandle, FastPay, ImagineNation, InstaBill, Jettis, Kagi, MembershipPlus, Moneybookers, MultiCards, MyPaySystems, PartyKey, Pay-Line, Paymate, Process54, ProPay, Reg.Net, RegNow, RegSoft, Share*It, StormPay, SWREG, V-Share, Verotel, VolPay.
I watched a special on money.. Most people that the guy went to thought it was real money, even though it was just liberty money..
I was interested in this 'money'. So I went to there site. Learned a little about.. Everything that I was learning about it just seemed so Anti-Government. Such as You don't have a to pay taxes.. Know what taxes keep this country going.. If you arn't going to pay taxes (honestly) Then get out. I don't want to pick up your burden because you found a "legal out" while legal isn't ethical.
Another thing I found was that it is a backed currency, Joy so I can trade in my liberty notes for silver.. Tell me how is that going to help me if I need food. As for the dollar being fiat so what so is silver. Silver has no value unless it can be used for something usefull. When you get down to it no many is really value backed unless it is accepted.. So if everyone needs food but all they have is silver.. Silver is useless.. ( Unless it's being used as a conductive)
I will not accept liberty money.. And again I hate how they try to pass it off as "regular money"
As a seller, I use Paypal to sell goods online instead of a regular credit card merchant account.
Why?
1. Paypal this year started allowing non-paypal customers to purchase using their credit cards WITHOUT SETTING UP A PAYPAL ACCOUNT.
2. Paypal offers better fraud protection. The fraud rate percentages of regular merchant accounts and paypal accounts are quantifiable and not simply a matter of opinion.
3. CC merchant accounts have much higher fees. Tons of HIDDEN fees like fixed monthly charges, software "rental" or "interfacing" fees, and more.
4. Paypal's "Buy Now" buttons do not require programming or expensive 3rd-party shopping cart software.
Paypal saves me time and saves me money. And I hope it forces traditional CC merchant account providers to improve their quality (especially security) and their pricing.
Again, my customers DO NOT need a Paypal account to purchase from me because Paypal started accepting regular credit card orders this year.
Paypal no longer requires customers to have a Paypal account in order to make a purchase.
This means you can pay with your visa/mastercard to a seller that only offers Paypal.
I buy from some sellers who sell goods exclusively via Paypal all the time.
But when I do this, I simply use my visa/mastercard ***INSTEAD OF CASH*** from my Paypal account--so Paypal acts as a merchant account to the seller.
This way, if Paypal doesn't resolve any problems to my satisfaction, I can do a visa/mastercard chargepack with my credit card company.
As a buyer, this provides me with 2 layers of defense against fraud. Paypal chargeback and visa/mastercard chargeback.
Again, use your credit card when making purchases via Paypal instead of cash from your account.
"I am the master of the c2it" -Jay
http://www.fsckin.com/
I suppose I should read the whole thread to see if someone else mentioned it, but kagi is another alternative in many cases.
It's not as complete a solution as paypal tries to be, but it does allow people to sell on-line without having to become full on-line vendors.
When it works, it works great.
Its how they handle problems that is the problem.
Here in australia, I can log into my online banking and transfer money directly to any australian bank account with any other bank.
If banks worldwide got together and made that possible for the entire world (just think of all the Bank Fees they would be able to charge for the privilage) it would put an end to crap like Paycrud.
You do make some good points. Your first point in particular is valid, and good for those people who want to minimize the number of sites which potentially store their card in a hackable database. (We're very careful to _never_ write card numbers to disk.)
;), it took more work to get PayPal IPNs working than it did to turn on the appropriate gateway module for our merchant account!
However, I believe your presentation is somewhat biased. Yes, fraud rates _are_ quantifiable. However, not all merchant accounts are created equal -- nor are the settings a merchant chooses to enable on that account.
Likewise, _some_ merchant accounts have higher fees than PayPal. (PayPal used to be much more competititve in this regard.) However, we actually pay more for our PayPal transactions than for our gateway account. AND we have no control over things like AVS / CVV/CV2 verification and the like.
None of the gateway solutions I've implemented have required any expensive custom programming. All of the merchant accounts we have dealt with have offered us their software (for a fee, of course), or have a large number of pre-approved packages they will support. Since our site is based on the OSS osCommerce package (well - very loosely, now
For us it comes down to customer choice. Some customers want to use PayPal (for whatever reason). Some prefer to use their credit card directly (ditto). As long as it doesn't _hugely_ increase our risk exposure - or cost us too much money - we're more than happy to offer additional choices.
But I'd suggest that another look at merchant accounts might demonstrate different conclusions than those you presented. <shrug>
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Great thing about a free country...morons on both sides of the fence can say what's on their mind.
As you have pointed out by posting.
I can corroborate the story. It was actually an aide to the mayor of D.C., Anthony Williams, who is a very smart, educated guy. The sad thing was that Williams didn't have the intestinal fortitude to stand up for his appointee, and he accepted the aide's resignation.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
I agree. People will be outlawing the use of the word "picnic" next. Fucking Liberals.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]