Your Pay Pal experiences

[NorrinRadd]

I rarely use it, and many key merchants like Amazon don't take PP, so am not likely to continue with it.

They have some necessarily stringent requirements on their services to enter credit card info, which seems counter-intuitive.

I am just wondering how people find PP, useful or not.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Works for me to the tune of over 30K over the past 8 years and almost 600 transactions.

[NorrinRadd]

Do you give them your credit card info?

[sundaymorningstaple]

Yes, two and two bank accounts one each in both Sing and the US. Never had a problem. Cost is a little higher than other methods, but I like the convenience and piece of mind.

[JR8]

I don't like it, but end up having to use it (unexpectedly) perhaps once a year. Each time it's an utter nightmare.

Representative example (this is through the mists of time; and as suggested reflects my confusion):
Go to a website, say a chocolate shop, or wine merchant looking for a gift for a relative. Carefully choose gift and try to check-out.
Expect to pay on a credit card, but get routed to PP and it wants me to login.
I do remember my login (usually) but the whole screen is in a foreign language; the one of the last country in which I registered.
Try to login as best I can, but (I think) it says the password is incorrect or expired. It says in a language I can't really understand that it will e-mail me. Try to get that translated via Google.
[Some time later...] Try to figure if it has e-mailed me, and to which address.
If no obvious e-mails, try to remember the logins for a couple of occasional email addresses I use.
Get their passwords wrong, have to reset them, pw-prompts are sent to my wife's e-mail but she is abroad
...
Maybe a day or two later get to login, but the bankcard I want to use was recently re-issued, have to set up a new card in the system. etc etc

If you use it regularly I expect it can be great. Esp with small merchants that don't take credit cards. But as you see every time I am faced with it, if I have any choice I'll give up and simply find a merchant that doesn't route a payment via it.

[x9200]

Works for me to the tune of over 30K over the past 8 years and almost 600 transactions.

Same here with very similar millage. Two cc, amex and MC. Very convenient and very very good purchase protection for the buyers. Needles to say, saved me some money with online shopping also in SG. If I am not 100% confident as of the seller's qualities I always use PP so in case something goes wrong I can easily recover the money.

[nakatago]

It's alright. I use mainly for online shopping and the occasional give-money-to-someone-as-a-very-small-scale-crowdfunding-effort thing.

There was once where I bought something online and chose to pick it up from the store but they were actually out of stock; I just opted to get my money back and it showed up in my Pay Pal account after the usual banking period. Ditto for something I bought I didn't receive; got my money back with no dramas.

Pay Pal works differently according to the country you're registered in. I've signed up for Pay Pal in one country, moved twice, each time I had to close the account and open a new one in the new country. Since they close your account, you get to use your username again.

[Hidy Ho]

Yes, two and two bank accounts one each in both Sing and the US. Never had a problem. Cost is a little higher than other methods, but I like the convenience and piece of mind.

I also have US and SG PayPals using two separate email addresses. My US account is linked to my CC as well as my US bank account whereas my SG account is linked only to my SG CC.

No issue whatsoever using this.

I disagree with OP statement that *many* key merchants don't take PP. That has not been my experience. Given choice to using PP or inputting my CC info on some online website, I always choose PP. I believe the reason Amazon don't take it is because they have their own system, called Amazon Payments.

Cost comes into play if you are a seller receiving funds. I'm 99% a buyer on PP so there is no cost for me (most of the time).

[NorrinRadd]

Is there a reason to pay by PP instead of a credit card if the merchant takes credit cards?

I personally don't like the idea of linking my card to my PP account, just to do bank transfers.

PP insists on entering credit card info for some transactions.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Best advice? Then don't. The rest of us will probably continue to use it satisfactorily until/unless given a valid reason not to. As said, I've put a lot of mileage on my accounts with nary a problem.

[x9200]

Frankly it sounds rather silly to trust some random merchant or a country based card center, both with often unproven record and not trust PP, that is very long time on the market and with pretty much spotless history. But as SMS said.

[NorrinRadd]

What's with the attitude? I wasn't asking for advice to do or not do, nor do I care what you do or not do.

While I will probably continue use PP for things for which I don't want to or can't use a credit card for, I asked what the purpose is of PP for transactions for which a credit card will do.

Simply, why would you use PP instead of a credit card if the merchant takes credit cards?

I checked the PP exchange rate for a USD transaction against my SGD PP account, it was not particularly favorable.

[x9200]

What's with the attitude? I wasn't asking for advice to do or not do, nor do I care what you do or not do.

If you don't care about the opinions given to you on this forum then why do you ask for any advice in the first place and waste other people time? The reasons why to use PP were clearly stated. If you are not able to comprehend the responses its only your problem but I will go the extra mile and iterate it for you:

- PP provides good buyer protection
- PP is more convenient to use (password based system - no need to key in all the cc info every time)
- PP is a well established agent with good track record what is often not the case for individual merchants (this part is about cc security - I'd rather have the cc details stored in one place I trust, than in few dozens places I trust less)

Shall you have problems understanding the above, go and find someone you pay to explain it to you. Only then you will have some rights to complain about the attitude and make fuss for receiving responses you don't like.

[nakatago]

PP insists on entering credit card info for some transactions.

I reckon it's a legal thing.

[Hidy Ho]

Simply, why would you use PP instead of a credit card if the merchant takes credit cards?

I thought I stated why (as have others) that I don't want to input my CC information all over different place. I think it's more prudent to keep the information to limited number of places. For example, us-based Target company was hacked and credit card information leaked.