Another Paypal question (1 Viewer)

[Jay H]

Can one, as a seller, limit the buyers to say USA aka domestic users only? There are different fees for buyers outside the US and just wondering if I can make that policy with an account. I'm investigating setting up a paypal account for a non profit I help run so we can take paypal money as opposed to personal checks. Not that I think anybody in this club would be outside the USA but just wondering if paypal can limit the buyer's payment type. On a similar note, can one prohibit the buyer from using a credit card? That would be one way to avoid the surcharge. Jay

 

[mattCR]

Not really. These are some of the reasons why I totally gave up on Paypal.. I ended up switching to Serv, and I haven't looked back since.

 

[Jay H]

Hmm, Serv... how is Serv different, and let me go google what Serv is. I'm/We are not tied to any one service... Jay

 

[mattCR]

Serve is run by American Express.

Basically the exact same thing as paypal.


http://www.serve.com/


But a few key differences:


(1) Convert Credit to Cash (basically free cash advances) easier with SerV

(2) A bit easier tracking and management, their phone App is far superior

(3) If you already carry or process Amex, you can tie the two together easily.

(4) You have the option to setup rules of accept/deny.. this makes weeding out unwanted buys a hell of a lot easier.

(5) Their fee structure is far more straightforward


I gave up on Paypal because they don't do enough to police bogus purchasers, hijacked accounts, etc. Because of the way Serve works, it's a lot harder to do those things. A few years ago, I sent a few things out on paypal, and the moment I shipped, the buyer processed the rejection at paypal, closed their account after refunded, etc.


Paypal just became a giant black pit where I never felt very safe in the way they did their transactions. I know it's super common, but because of that, it just really isn't geared the way I wish it was.. it's a like walmart in that way - sure, it's the big huge monolith that got there first.. but it's wrong as often as it's right.


Serve also has big benefits if you have several people in a family or enterprise that use it..

• Person-to-person money transfers are free
• Transfers to and from subaccounts are free
• Purchasing online and in stores with the Serve card is free
• There are no load fees for funding your account via your checking account
• The first ATM withdrawal each month is free; after that it’s $2.00***

 

[Jay H]

Thanks Matt, I presume somebody with a paypal account can't do an even transfer to a seller with a Serve account?? It looks like #4 would be the most useful for us, if we can deny international money transfers and stuff like credit cards if we are charged a fee, that would be nice... We, as a club, will have to decide whether we want to eat the surcharges for credit cards if we go paypal... It looks like from a 5 minute checking out of their website, there are fees coming in 2012 but that wouldn't affect me since it's not really a personal account. It is for a 501(c)7 Social Group and would just be linked to the bank account for it. I can't find anything on the website that states what fees a seller charges if the buyer uses a credit card? Are there fees? Can the buyer use a credit card? Jay

 

[Stan]

Call me paranoid, but I never signed up with PayPal. Giving somebody else access to my bank account just made me extremely nervois. Takes a little longer, but I've always paid for purchases on ebay with money orders. Places I trust like Amazon, my power company, Dish Network, etc. I'll make direct electronic payments, but PayPal and others have always seemed a little fishy. Haven't tried in years so maybe they are set up better now. I've been burned with shoddy purchases, not going to risk giving those same people access to my bank info.

 

[TravisR]

I'm not a huge fan of PayPal (as far as I'm concerned, they've rigged it so you can't easily use eBay without them) but, in all fairness, I've had way more trouble recieving and sending money orders than I have had with recieving and sending money via PayPal.

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Stan

Call me paranoid, but I never signed up with PayPal. Giving somebody else access to my bank account just made me extremely nervois. Takes a little longer, but I've always paid for purchases on ebay with money orders.

I had the same skepticism, too. But for eBay it was necessary. I think my wife's PayPal account is connected only to a credit card, so we can buy stuff. My PayPal is connected to the checking account so we can withdraw money from PayPal.


Despite my worries, it's been a fine service, no banking problems, and a convenient online payment method with some smaller vendors.

 

[mattCR]

I will say as a seller, paypal became my nightmare. People would buy an item, then the moment it would ship, they'd stop payment/protest with Paypal, and then close the attached accounts. OR, I'd have ebay buyers get caught where they bought something for "someone overseas" who put the money into their paypal account because "the seller won't ship out of country" and the moment the item would ship from them? That person (who I didn't know) would disappear, and a hapless person was conned.


Paypal's fee structure, and there security problems became very significant as a seller, as you're offered no protections at all.. sellers can't leave negative feedback, so we can't even alert other sellers when buyers are shills/fake buyers or potential cons.
I ended up giving up altogether on the Ebay crap and just use Amazon Market. It's far better protected. Feedback is legitimate and can't be gamed.

 

[DaveF]

What were you selling? I've sold about 100 items the past 2 years - household items and small electronics -- and have not seen these shenanigans. Is it related to computer stuff? I've heard selling laptops is a nightmare.


The fee structures are putting me more off eBay; I'm selling less as they're becoming more hostile to the small-timers.

 

[mattCR]

This was at least 8 years ago. The company I worked with shipped these customized device readers (ie, data recovery devices that allowed readback of old, old technology equipment). As well as liquidate out stuff from USSB. We went through thousands of items. And several times a month, we'd run into the "ship to them, they ship on.. whoops, that guy defrauds customer, now they are pissed" or.. "we ship, they cancel/term paypal". most annoying thing ever. I remember once we shipped a pallet of HP4000 laser printers - about $3,500.. and someone got it and agreed to ship it on to france.. that person in France saw it get shipped and then he turned on them. So they ended up out $3,500 with nothing to show for it. Result? They protested paypal. It took us 6 months for us to get the funds back on that one. I don't know, I got sick of ebay quick.

Originally Posted by DaveF

What were you selling? I've sold about 100 items the past 2 years - household items and small electronics -- and have not seen these shenanigans. Is it related to computer stuff? I've heard selling laptops is a nightmare.


The fee structures are putting me more off eBay; I'm selling less as they're becoming more hostile to the small-timers.

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