Paypal Alternatives

[buddha377]

Do any of you know about any paypal alternatives, besides google checkout, that you've used and liked?

If you search paypal problems you'll find sites filled with Paypal horror stories. There are just too many horror stories for me to ever trust it with my business, not to mention a class action lawsuit against them.

Thanks in advance,

Buddha

[jetpacklife]

Google checkout is the best alternative. Otherwise, you're just going to have to do direct credit card processing.

Paypal in general is not as bad as they once were. If you're shipping an actual product, you should use a verifiable shipping method.

I've used them for years with only a few problems. I've processed at least 6 figures through them.

[final_id]

I am leery of PayPal as well. I do my EBay "flea-baying" (love my new vocabulary) with them but I wouldn't expose myself too much to them. They aren't technically a bank. They're an uninsured mutual fund, and when you have X dollars in PayPal you technically have X dollars worth of SHARES in that fund, with each share at a pegged $1 per share. Except that share prices do fluctuate thanks to the markets. You are supposed to be able to cash out of the fund at no risk, but of course the market could crash to the extent that they couldn't cover all their owners if there were a run on cashing out. It's a cheesy, quasi-legal, rather suspicious arrangement, and I wish it were more up-front. But for now, it's the "standard" money-management tool on the internet, for smaller transactions. I think to some extent you "have to" accept PayPal payments from your customers, since so many people will prefer to buy in that manner. The thing you really want, is to be a credit-card vendor, but at minimum cost to yourself. PayPal enables that, these days; but I hope better options start to materialize.

I try to keep my PayPal exposure to a minimum. You have to give them a bank account number at some point in order for them to "verify" you, an account they are electronically certified to deposit OR withdraw from (though of course they're not SUPPOSED to withdraw without your consent). So I have PayPal linked only to a small bank account that I only use for my PayPal connection. I wire-transfer all my PayPal profits out of PayPal and into that bank account whenever they get over about $100, leaving just enough to cover what I'm anticipating -- maybe nothing, maybe no more than that $100 buffer. And then I subsequently wire-transfer AGAIN, all my bank account money into a SECOND bank account, whenever IT reaches about $200. (These wire-transfers are performed entirely on the internet, on a secure web page or two.) Thus, I am exposed for no more than $300: comprised of $100 which could magically disappear if PayPal were to crash; and $200 which PayPal could fraudulently deduct from my bank account should Nazi Terrorists suddenly take over their boardroom.

Of course, limiting my exposure to $300 of micro-management is possible because I'm not transferring wide ranges of cash in large numbers of transactions. I don't have a Muse up and running. (Still working on that!) I would have to allow greater exposure to PayPal risk or fraud, were I using it for more regular customer interaction.

[SilverSurfer]

I have never had any problems with Paypal, including international sales, and none of my friends who sell have ever had any problems with Paypal. I've read those websites, but I can't say I believe those websites when my experience has been 180 degrees different.

After all, do a google search on things like "Tim Ferriss" and scam and you'll find people posting about what a scam the book is. The web doesn't make it believable, does it?

[buddha377]

I am just getting a merchant account and having my programmer use the net billing (netbilling.com) API to code me up something.

As for the net making something true, no it sure doesn't. But the amount of stuff out there on paypal scared me whereas stuff for google checkout, bidpay, ccbill and like don't have organized resistance. Because Paypal does, it gives me pause. :)

In the end I really liked google checkout, but my first muse has a bit of an adult theme, and they won't allow that, so I had to go for the merchant account and just suck it up. :)

Since I plan to crank out multiple muses the merchant account makes sense, plus my partner is a programmer and I have been a linux sys admin for 10 years, so not too much trouble, just a lot of back and forth paperwork.

Thanks for the help guys.

Buddha

[Tremmer]

I'm using something called Payquicker and their pretty good. The account setup process was easy and they don't cost anything to open an account and send money to someone. They seem to have an excellent security method seeings as though your account is insured with the FDIC. When you open an account with them, you actually open up a bank account (Card account). The fees are VEREY minimal for the average user who wants to send/receive payments from some one and them move it to their account. It cost me 1.00 to move 5k and change to my bank account and free to receive all 7 payments where as paypal would have made money on all 7 payments. check'em out payquicker.com

oh ya.. My monthly limit is ten thousand dollars..

[BBruin]

I ditched pay pal altogether and started using a credit card processor directly. I researched it a lot and ended up going with a company from Atlanta that uses a flat fee program and passes the costs from Visa and Master card straight to me instead of inflating the percentage rates like pay pal and google do. Saved me like $900-$1000 the first year. My favorite thing about using a processor directly is that I can call the sales rep that sold me my service on his cell phone if I have a question since they are a smaller company. Look em up, ogflatefee (dot) com, they also have good info on their flat fee processing blog. I'd always recommend them or any other processor over pay pal. So glad to be done with them.