Paypal - advice needed.

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I was about to sign up to paypal for the first time, when I stumbled on this site over here.

http://www.paypalsucks.com/

Basically, what I read there scared the living sh** out of me. Especially the bit about the spoofing and the phishing.

Now I'm asking myself, is this a good idea or is this a bad idea ?

I need some serious advice.

Thanx

 

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Yeah I read that before I signed up with Paypal. I think it's written by someone who Paypal have revoked their account, judging by the tone.

I've been happily using Paypal for over a year now, mainly for eBay purchases. I never put any money into it, but allow my credit card to be debited when a purchse is made.

Never had a problem with it myself, someone else may have had bad experiences, but then that's true with most things in life.

 

Phishing is rife everywhere, not just PayPal. All you have to remember is not to open (or even preview) any emails that you find suspicious.

I immediately delete anything that I am suspiscious of, including all the ones supposedly from eBay or PayPal.

If you are not convinced of the security, you might want to look at PPPay or NoChex. Both of them are quite good and safe.

The most important thing to consider is not whether PayPal is safe or not (it is quite safe anyway) but whether your machine has been compromised without your knowledge (which is the vast majority of cases in most fraud instances)

 

Thanks, Stoney, Oggler.

So this would be the real paypal site over here, right. Not some phoney, spoofing place ?

https://www.paypal.com/

 

The best way to find out is to put in http://
If it changes to https:// (note the 's') then you should feel pretty safe, but another way is to hold your mouse (hover the cursor) over he links that appear and check the links at the bottom of the screen and if they are to the sam domain, then you know you are in PayPal.

Anyway, if you yourself type in the URL, and as long as your machine has not been compromised to redirect you to another site, you should be OK.

 

I've used paypal for CF premium members since the scheme began and I've also used it for ebay and have not had one problem with the service to date

 

You can also check who dished out the certificate for that site. I checked and it's issued by VeriSign who are a trusted certificate authority.

If it's a home made certificate waiting for authority then I would be careful about using the site.

 

The uk paypal site is www.paypal.co.uk

 

And I can use this to transact business worldwide, yeah ?

 

Sure you can.

 

Their guarantee stinks though. They say they cover you for upto £500, but what they don't say is they will only refund you if tehre is money in the fraudsters PayPal account. They will not pay you if the guy takes your money and runs with no item.

 

: Sorry. I just cant believe the complaints on that site. They have the right to close your account? of course they do, just like certforums can close your account without notice. And you have to wait 180 days for your money? there are plenty of places that do stuff like that, not just PayPal. At the end of the day, the ability to use paypal is a priviledge they extend to you.

And that they dont release their phone number and require tech support to be submitted via their online forms? so what? when did it become a crime for a company to insist on tech support calls via a specific route?

The last one in the main page list is a classic too. 'OMG they charge you for transactions? of course they bloody do! They are a business. you dont make money but not charging!

 

Cheers everyone.

 

I have used PayPal for 6 1/2 years both receiving and sending money and have not had a problem with them yet.

Not very accurate. If there is no money in the sellers account, PayPal will investigate, and if the seller is at fault, PayPal will refund your money, less something like $25. It happened to me, so I can tell you first hand. Someone stiffed me (and about 100 other people) for a processor, and between PayPal and eBay (now the same entity), I received the entire amount back. Took 9 months, which sucked, but I wasn't in dire straits over not having that $180 for a little while.

 

I've used paypal for years without a problem, I pay for my hosting accounts through paypal.

 

And me, used PayPal for over 5 years now on a regular basis, no problems at all.

 

Well, I have used PayPal for over 4 years now and I can forward their email about refunding me when there is money in the seller's account. I got about 35p which was all that was in the seller's account.

The person is back trading now without using PayPal.

 

I got caught out once by a very convincing emial confirming a purchase that I hadn't made from ebay.
There was a link at the bottom to 'dispute this payment'.
When I clicked it, it took me to a very convincing paypal login screen.

I know what to look for - and it still got me. I've seen loads of this sort of thing and usually they are rubbish, with fuzzy logos and spelling errors. But this was spot on.

When I logged in I was asked to confirm all my personal details, and it was only then that I thought 'hang on a sec...'

So I logged into the 'real' paypal and changed my password and, touch wood, haven't suffered for it...

 

I know one thing for certain with things like eBay and PayPal, if you get an email from them and their opening gambit is something like 'Dear eBay Customer' or anything like that, then you can pretty much guranatee it's phoney.

eBay and PayPal will always use your logon name when sending stuff to you (still doesn't give 100% security but it is far more secure than 'Dear Sir/Madam')

 

You also have to file a claim with them, a step over and above just disputing a transaction. I'll try to dig up a link in a bit.

EDIT: It looks like they've changed their process. My transaction happened in the days before PayPal Buyer Protection, which costs extra. I didn't have to pay anything extra for eBay and PayPal to refund my money. Now it looks like it costs extra to get that level of insurance.

Here's the differences between the Buyer Complaint Process and PayPal Buyer Protection: link