Different ways to pay ...

SkyForum posted 5th of February 2010 in Community Voice. 13 comments.

I wanted to make this post because I have some very strong feelings about PayPal. PayPal is not the best solution for purchasing things online for a lot of reasons, most notably, the fact that they are not a bank of any kind and as such, are not held to the same standards or regulations that a regular bank would be. There have been many stories (in the tens of thousands) of people's PayPal accounts being frozen for months and months and in some cases, people completely losing many thousands of dollars to the PayPal system with no recourse whatsoever.

I have a friend who used to sell items on eBay and used the PayPal system. Without going into details or naming names, I will tell you they froze his assets (over $2000) for 6 months. He never did get any real explanation as to why. The current consensus is PayPal moves SO MUCH money that they regularly find ways to sit on yours and collect the interest. He no longer uses PayPal for obvious reasons and his comment now is that anyone selling things on the internet should ONLY be dealing with a merchant account from a real bank for processing credit cards. That's the only way you are afforded any protection on the internet and from companies like PayPal.

I noticed that my Dolphin 7 has PayPal built into it and it's a very easy thing to get setup. In fact, in my opinion, it's far too easy. Nothing good ever comes easy. I would very much like to see an alternative to PayPal created for Dolphin as I believe Dolphin is doing a disservice to it's membership by having PayPal as the only way to do financial transactions within it's community setup.

You know the old saying, Where's there's smoke, there is most certainly fire. If you don't think this is a real issue just Google 'PayPal Complaints'. You will find page after page after website of tens of thousands of complaints and stories. Even if most of them are bogus or inflated, the sheer volume of them should give you cause for concern.

 
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mydatery
I came across an issue with paypal also. An individual came to me to purchase something and I instructed him to use Paypl, even sent him an invoice. Unfortunately, we've had to search for another alternative because Paypal refuses to allow him to pay me. It has nothing to do with what he is purchasing from me, instead it has to do with the fact that he owns Adult Oriented Sites and thus Paypal has decided that he should not be allowed to by anything using there service. WTF! Where does Paypal see more get off telling a merchant who is in good standing with them who they can sell to? This has nothing to do with what is being sold, nothing with who the seller is, only that the buyer has adult oriented sites and thus Paypal has blackballed him.

Why can't we get them to ban attorneys from buying stuff? Now that would be useful to the world.
mydatery
Next up: Paypal can limit the amount you can withdraw from an account, even after you have verified your bank account, until you verify your Debit Card or Social Security Number. WTF? I can't buy more than a certain amount of items or withdraw my own money without giving up my SSN? Not a good thing Paypal. I'd say it has to do with terrorism, but they give the out of using a debit card to verify your ID. Like that proves your not a terrorist.

Now if we could just get paypal to verify that see more Attorneys are ethical.
mydatery
This 200 Character limit sucks. In the end, you can see how your members can use a second payment source, other than Paypal. If you get a member that paypal doesn't like on your site, you can't sell to them if you only have paypal. If you get a member who doesn't want to give up their SSN then you are limiting the amount they can buy from your site.

CC Processing varies from bank to bank, you can't really integrate one until you know who the gateway bank is, as you need certain items from them see more to make it work. However, we have SWREG, CCBill, Moneybookers, PPPay and so many others out there. In the end, it's a smart move to have multiple payment venues available to your members so they can conduct business with you without any unneccesary hold ups.
killerhaai
Paypal has be a regulair bank from 2009 in europe they have their europe headquaters in Paris.
Its a european law that they don't may accept transitions from adult sites and pokersites also. Thats the information I have.
killerhaai
Paypal has be a regulair bank rights from 2009 in europe they have their europe headquaters in Paris.
Its a european law that they don't may accept transitions from adult sites and pokersites also. Thats the information I have.
SkyForum
I don't think this is correct. Can you post your source so we can check it?
deano92964
What about google checkout. I have not looked into this yet, and i don't know how reliable they are, but they seem to be gaining some ground on paypal.
cbassthefish
Google Checkout do not allow their services on adult websites like PayPal. Although as an alternative to PayPal, as Deano said, they are gaining ground.
elcentcom
paypal sucks at times, I had my account blocked for 6 months without a reason given. I still use it, because some of my clients insist to pay with PP. Moneybookers is becoming more and more feasible. They are not only a third the fees of PP but also 2 times faster when withdrawing money to your bank account. Exchange rates are better than in the banks, PP can't even get close to.Unfortunately many in the US are not allowed to join MB, maybe it depends on the State's laws. MB runs under European law. see more I think MB should be included as payment options. Over 15 million account holders and rapidly rising.
DPC
Swreg rips off big time i will not use it ever again........ they charge a left kidney plus 2 toes in rates the thieving sods. CCBill lets you do adult contet but only into 1 member level unless things have changed no good it you have 5 payment options. 2Checkout.com do not alow adult content or preadult content. Authorize.Net was crud too. Have had probs with paypal but seems when it comes to money everyone is for themselves
My 2 Cents
WOW finally I come across a group of people who hate PayPal as much as I do! They did the same thing to me - blocked for 6 months and stole $12,000 from our account! Bring on Google Checkout! Love it - never had a problem!
SkyForum
Jesus. It seems the online paymnet options are limited at best. Maybe a straight up merchant account with your bank (so you get the money, not PayPal) is the best option. I have found several credit card processing operations that provide an online payment page for internet sales.

I am not a big fan of credit anyway. I have never actually had a real credit card and have found many alternative ways to live my life without it. On the other hand, the world currently revolves around the idea of play see more now, pay later and in order for me to prosper I am forced into accomodating those that do. My company generates about $100,000 in receipts each month with a very large portion coming from credit cards so even though I do not personally use credit, I need to look at the best possible ways to accomodate them..
SkyForum
All of the credit card processing that is done with my company is done online. We don't have any swipe terminals in our offices. The merchant account I have setup through a company called Sage Payments provides me with all the tools I need to successfully do this without the fear of a chargeback. Essentially, I am already posting payments to my accounts over the internet anyway.

Having said that, I have never setup an 'online' store before. I see in my Dolphin that the only optiion that is pre-programmed see more into the software is PayPal. My thought is to figure a way so Dolphin can set itself up so we can incorporate our own merchant accounts so the payments we recieve for our sales are not handed off to a third party. When I sell something, I want my money now, not 2 weeks or even 6 months (and sometimes never) down the road. No competent business can operate that way.

I have no idea how to accomplish this task but it seems to me that all banking transactions involving credit cards are essentially the same. It shouldn't be that big of a leap to create a generic & secure credit card processing page that collects all the data necessary to process the payment through our own banks and somehow make that page part of the store system and make it fully configurable so our members and ourselves can meet the needs of our individual institutions. I am sure most banks would love nothing better than to get PayPal out of their hair.
 
 
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