What's your experience with Paypal service?

[ubuntu27]

Hello all Ubunteros and the whole Linux community!
I would like to make a poll about your overall experience with Paypal (https://www.paypal.com/).
I am interested in the opinions of all of you GNU/Linux, FOSS and Open Source users since there may be a chance that your opinions differ positively from others. (Many Linux users are more computer knowledgeable than others)

The thing is that I want to decide whatever or not becoming a Paypal user is a good idea.
There are some projects that I will like to contribute to, but they only accept Paypal.

So basically I will analyze the poll's result and decide if it is convenient.
Your answer and the poll may able to help people who are wondering about the same thing.

If your answer is negative (I don't use Paypal because I don't like it), please state why. it will be more helpful if you tell us your story ;)
Also, if your answer is positive, I will also like to to know why..


Thank you ALL!! :KS

[reyfer]

So far my experience with Paypal has been only positive. I use it to contribute to a lot of FOSS projects, and I have had no problem whatsoever, been using for one and a half years now.

[Enverex]

There aren't really any issues with just becoming a member, but they take a big chunk of funds, don't have the comeback that they claim and have a habit of freezing peoples accounts for no reason. It tends to be the lesser of a few evils though.

[teaker1s]

Paypal is okay if your buying and paying in small amounts,from personal experience paypal sellers account is risky as if you have proof of delivery and the buyer claims to have not received it then paypal don't want to know and will chargeback money leaving you with no money and no goods=small claims court.

Secondly paypal accounts get hacked regularly and I would recommend only using credit card as funding-mine was hacked after it was supposedly closed and my credit card charged.If the credit card company hadn't solved it then paypal wanted nothing to do with it](*,)

[ubuntu27]

Just 13 voters and 3 replies. :( I wish more people could participate.

[RAV TUX]

So far my experience with Paypal has been only positive. I use it to contribute to a lot of FOSS projects, and I have had no problem whatsoever, been using for one and a half years now.

+1

I prefer to pay by Paypal for all online purchases.

[doobit]

I've been using paypal for since the beginning of Paypal and nothing but positive.

[K.Mandla]

I've used it since about 2000, and I only accept ebay payments through Paypal now.

I remember what it was like to sell things without Paypal, and it was a huge hassle. It sometimes took weeks for checks to clear, and buying an item was sometimes a month turnaround.

In general, I find they charge around 4 percent of the item's value, which is comparable to ebay's fee. I don't like that they charge for the money transfer on the shipping payment, but I'll stomach that if it saves me from nonpaying bidders.

[aysiu]

My wife and I don't use Paypal very often, but we signed up very shortly after it came out, and we've had no problems with it. We've used it maybe 5 or 6 times total.

[Drezliok]

Evil.

Basically they turned all of the security over to the computer program, if the program doesn't understand what happened it freezes the account. When you try to unfreeze it you can't because it's very hard to contact a human. The computer program is great for keeping hackers out [unless you have a very weak password and an unsecured access point. Like at work where IT security monitors your movements.


I was going to sell stuff on ebay, but all the trouble I've had I don't want any more then 5 bucks in the account.

They closed my account on me, or rather it's still open but I can't get to it, And I can't get them to let me access it because I don't have the bank account that was tied to it. So I just mad another for buying thing on ebay, but no membership.

[ubuntu27]

Sorry to bump this thread.
I would like to see more people replying to this one. :)

[STREETURCHINE]

i have been using it for about 5 years now ,no problems at all,
all you need is a very strong password,and open paypal from the browser not the link provided,adds up to a safe tranaction

[tubasoldier]

PayPal is horrible. It is amazing how many people sign up for it without actually reading through the user agreement. Your getting locked down like crazy. If you thought credit cards were bad compare the agreement with those to the agreement with Paypal.

There are also more phishing sites for paypal than for any other site.

[Naralas]

I started using PayPal when I was 15 because I couldn't get a credit card. You need to be 18 to use their service, or just smart enough to lie about the year you were born in. They didn't double check anything with my bank, and I used them to purchase anime related things for myself and friends.

So needless to say, I didn't feel safe with such careless people. Then the words of paypalsucks.com scared me. I could not find any way to make them close my account so I just removed their association with my bank and left them at that.

I said I wasn't satisfied because of the horror-stories I heard, and because I never trusted them. Truthfully, I can't honestly say I had any bad experience with them, other than something that was part my fault where I wasn't aware that why would convert funds automatically. I got a 25 dollar fine from my bank because if insufficient funds because I bought something, knowing I had sufficient Canadian dollars on my account for the exchange, but foolish me: converting funds isn't automatic. Tsk tsk.

That's my experience

[Stew2]

I have been using PayPal for a couple of years now and have never had any kind of problem. I mostly use it for buying and selling on ebay. I know there are lots of phishers out there trying to get your information but if you use a little common sense they are very easy to spot. Same thing goes for ebay. PayPal gets a +1 from me :)

Regards,
Stew2

[teaker1s]

western union or paypal a money tranfer system not bank =bad news if things go wrong

[Cloudy]

My experiences have been nothing but positive; I've been a member of Paypal for closing in on two years now and I have never once had a single hitch. I use it chiefly to donate to projects & websites as well as for ordering clothing and sometimes parts for my PC & laptop. Never once have I had a problem. :popcorn:

[daynah]

Paypal made me so maaaddd!

So my first debit card was given to me by my college as a way to give us our government grant money for our books. I had used it sucessfully to buy books on amazon or something and had even gotten my card set up on paypal. But the card was retarded, and had only one bank branch in texas (I'm in Georgia), so I never put any money on it except for that government grant. Remember, this card always stays at like 2 cents.

So I get a real wachovia debit card, not my little school card. I go into paypal and I put it in and set it as the default. I don't get rid of my old school card, because next semester I'm gonna buy books with it again.

I find an XMen patch on EBay, a two pack. One for me and a matching one for my best friend (oooh I'm a geek alright). $6. A little over priced, but what the hey! I love me some Jean Grey! I order it (it was that insta buy whatever) and tell ebay to use my paypal and call my friend up and tell him he's got an XMen patch!

Paypal mails me a letter and I swear is says... You don't have enough money in your account, so we're going to bill you again.

What kind of logic is that?!

Apparently, I didn't set up paypal right. I didn't set up ALL the defaults (wtfomg how many are there) and it used my school card that says at like 2 cents. Paypal billed me for it, there was no money, so then it tried again, still no money. THEN paypall decided to stop.

How many overage charges did I get for getting billed? TWO.

So I call up the bank, crying and having a fit. They take away the second overage charge, but make me keep the first one because it was me fault for using a product I didn't understand.

Some how, ebay says I've paid for the patches. (remember, 2 cents in my account, though I did end up losing $30 in the end, only like 2 cents of it went to ebay, I don't know why they said I paid, and I couldn't figure out how to pay them. The merchant said he got his money). And I got one XMen patch for $30 something dollars.

Paypal wont let me on their system anymore. But I don't care. I hate them I hate them I hate them. I get my friends to buy me things on ebay with their paypal and I pay them back. I have true paying pals.

[BarfBag]

I've heard horror stories, but I haven't had a problem. From what I've read, it seems the only people that have trouble with it are people who bank at smaller banks.

PayPal was how I got my first "debt card." Now, I have one from my bank. I use the PayPal account for donations and Ebay.

[spinflick]

Used it for a couple of years and so far no problems.

[junctionyeehaw]

My experience with Paypal is a negative one. I sold a watch. The buyer decided he didn't like it after like 2 months. He did a chargeback, and then because i didn't have enough money in my paypal at the time, Paypal took funds out of my checking account, thus overdrawing my account! I hate Paypal (http://www.aboutpaypal.org)!

[lukjad]

I have never bought anything online. I will only do so as a last resort for a few reasons.



1) It could get lost in the mail.
2) Fraud
3) Unable to see condition of product.
4) I don't get to see facial expressions of seller.
5) Don't know the seller. (Who knows where it's been?)
6) Identity theft.


I'm sure there are more reasons, but these are the ones that came to mind.

[lukjad]

My experience with Paypal is a negative one. I sold a watch. The buyer decided he didn't like it after like 2 months. He did a chargeback, and then because i didn't have enough money in my paypal at the time, Paypal took funds out of my checking account, thus overdrawing my account! I hate Paypal (http://www.aboutpaypal.org)!
Are you sure that aboutpaypal.org is not just an ad site for a rival Pay Pal clone?

[Joshuwa]

After $1900 was stolen from my PayPal account, and the headache that trying to resolve it caused, I cancelled my account and will never open another one.

Little background: I'm very computer-literate, create good passwords, do not visit unknown sites or install anything accidentally. I use secure OS's and secure browsers with additional security plugins. I never use work, school, or other people's computers to handle personal data. There is absolutely nothing more I could have done to prevent this.

What happened was, someone was able to use my PayPal account (which I kept at $0.00, to be even safer...so I thought). The person then, using an account with a zero balance, purchased $700+ of junk on eBay.

After calling PayPal and asking:
1) How did they access my account?
2) WHY was such a negative balance allowed to be spent when there was nothing to spend?
3) Freeze my account so no more damage can be done, please.

I was told the following: "We understand that the items purchased were not delivered to an address currently on file with your account. However, we have no indication of any wrong doing, and cannot stop your account."

So while they do nothing, I am literally watching my account balance go from $0.0 to $-700 to -$1900 over the course of 4 days, each day on the phone with PayPal demanding they step in.

They refused.

I could see that the items were being delivered to a town in another state, PayPal confimed that the transactions were a) not sent to my address and b) not made from my IP, yet they sat back and let it occur.

Then, to top it off, they began to say I now owed them this money, and began measures to acquire from me. They succeeded by contacting my bank.

Now, not only was my PayPal account destroyed, my bank account was now being tapped into. Even more, I don't keep all my money in my checking account, so it too went negative, resulting in a ridiculous amount of overdraft fees.

After contacting the director of the banking chain directly and meeting with them in person, they decided to contact PayPal.

Long story short: Calling PayPal to stop the fraud was useless, they admitted it was not me doing it and then sat back and watched it occur more, only to try and hold me responsible for the losses. It took over a month for my bank to strong-arm them into stopping my account and refunding my money.

I naturally closed my PayPal account, as well as my previous bank account to be on the safe side.

Even though I got my money back a month later, the financial impact those 30 days of having negative accounts, and seemingly owing two institutions nearly $2000, was overbearing.

As always, your experiences will very, but the above is a risk I'm not willing to make again.

[pofigster]

I've used it for a couple years now. I had one account, but when I changed email addresses, I canceled the original account and opened a new one. No problems there. I've never had issues with Paypal for anything and I use it for the majority of my purchases.

[lukjad]

I've used it for a couple years now. I had one account, but when I changed email addresses, I canceled the original account and opened a new one. No problems there. I've never had issues with Paypal for anything and I use it for the majority of my purchases.
The site looks a lot like one of those FUD sites you here about. I don't doubt that PayPal has a few skeletons in it's closet but I just Don't Trust Anyone That Write Like This. It just Becomes Very Annoying. It Feels Like A Sales Pitch. And when there is a link to This Site (http://www.google.ca) at Every Opportunity (http://www.google.ca) I get Suspicious (http://www.google.ca). I mean, Linking (http://www.google.ca) to the Same Site (http://www.google.ca) Over (http://www.google.ca) and Over (http://www.google.ca) again makes me thing That (http://www.google.ca) That (http://www.google.ca) is The (http://www.google.ca) Whole (http://www.google.ca) Purpose (http://www.google.ca) of The (http://www.google.ca) Site (http://www.google.ca). (http://www.google.ca)

[gn2]

Took this thread a year and three months to go from 20 to 21......?

[Midwest-Linux]

Been with them for over a year and haven't had any problems with it.