When you use PayPal

[alo100]

"As to the topic at hand... Online shopping dangerous? No more dangerous, than giving your credit card to a waiter, clerk, hotel check in - ANYONE at all, who can write all of your numbers down, and go nuts. Using pay pal dangerous?"

I've heard that waiters at the restaurant has taken the customer's number and sell it to somebody else, but it is fixed by contacting the credit card company.

It's different in the sense that when you authorized another middle guy to handle the deal instead, the credit card company would notify you that it is your authourization, a real one, to another party to act as a middle guy, the credit card company's responsibility is not there anymore. So I have seen both situations.

In short: I do not agree with your statement.

The reason why I posted it here is, I have seen divers, experienced or new divers got cheated, and when I talked to the police offcier, he also told me cases like this, not just divers of course. Plus, when I talked to the local UPS staffs, they have also experienced it.

By saying all of this, I am not saying that only sellers can cheat; as the system is not perfect both sides can suffer.

 

[cpe111]

"As to the topic at hand... Online shopping dangerous? No more dangerous, than giving your credit card to a waiter, clerk, hotel check in - ANYONE at all, who can write all of your numbers down, and go nuts. Using pay pal dangerous?"



In short: I do not agree with your statement.

.

A recent survey carried by 9news (I think) - it was aired about a week ago - stated that you were more likely to be the subject of fraud whilst shopping at the mall than shopping on the internet.

 

[alo100]

I used to go online shopping just as anybody else, and thought that it would only happen to other people, so whenever people shared with their experience, I just naturally neglect, not applicable to me...

I didn't read any survey, and I don't have any number to talk about. In spite of how frequent it happened, I think one time experience is always too much, it doesn't work.
But I've heard from the others, including the story from an officer and the ups guys.

 

[Cacia]

great thread. I always try to use American Express for all transactions and they have resolved any dispute or dissatifiaction I have ever had with a vendor with replacing my money.Usually it never comes to this because I very nicely say "hey it is nothing personal, but I plan to dispute this with American Express"...and pow!..they usually reverse their position. I think the dipute paperwork must be a real pain for them. Many people don't realize that on-line banking resolves disputes as well. My car insurance company cancelled my insurance saying they never got the payment. I sent them a photocopy of the transaction. Still, they would not reinstate my coverage even until it was researched. I was livid. The bank took it on and had my problem fixed in an hour. This advantage outweighs all the other perks combined in my view. i don't waste too much time explaining anything anymore..just turn it over to the pros.

 

[Jcsgt]

One way to minimize potential for online fraud by a seller is to research that seller as much as you can prior to authorizing any transaction. Just because somebody has an online business does not mean they are truly legitimate. This isn't to say that you won't be a victim anyway, but the chances are far less.

 

[Jeff Toorish]

Actually, E-bay owns PayPal, not the other way around.

And the point made earlier about the bulk of online fraud being against merchants is exactly correct. In fact, the credit card companies are accomplices. When they advertise that you will never have to pay for anything you didn't order, they are signaling unscurpulous cardholders that they can dispute charges and "chargeback" with impunity.

Jeff

 

[alo100]

Actually, E-bay owns PayPal, not the other way around.

Agree, this is what I've said.

And the point made earlier about the bulk of online fraud being against merchants is exactly correct. In fact, the credit card companies are accomplices. When they advertise that you will never have to pay for anything you didn't order, they are signaling unscurpulous cardholders that they can dispute charges and "chargeback" with impunity.

Jeff

When buy/sell system has a lot of loop holes, different kinds of problems arise in multi-directions.
When I talked to Pxxpal representatives, it's not like they don't know about it, they have dispute cases piled up. Unlike the eBay credit card section, Pxxpal did not allocate (not part of the business model) or does not have enough resource to help completely resolve the condition.

 

[shark.byte.usa]

Actually, E-bay owns PayPal, not the other way around.

And the point made earlier about the bulk of online fraud being against merchants is exactly correct. In fact, the credit card companies are accomplices. When they advertise that you will never have to pay for anything you didn't order, they are signaling unscurpulous cardholders that they can dispute charges and "chargeback" with impunity.

Jeff

100% agree!!

I don't like to pay for any high dollar amt [> $200] with Paypal, I'd rather use my cc and skip the middleman, so if any dispute arises I'm dealing with MY provider not the merchants [PayPal only makes money from merchants/sellers], that being said, unfortunately on a site like eBay it is rarely an option and I'd much prefer paying with PayPal over a MO or Cashiers Check where you have almost no recourse should a dispute arise.

 

[alo100]

100% agree!!
unfortunately on a site like eBay it is rarely an option and I'd much prefer paying with PayPal over a MO or Cashiers Check where you have almost no recourse should a dispute arise.

Some sellers on eBay are like what you're saying, PayPal is the only option. Well for myself, I realized the drawback on using PayPal and I've stopped using it. If the online seller only leave me an option with PayPal, I'd be dealing with the manufacturer directly (thinks for scubaboard) or I'd find another seller with no PayPal, or LDS or Oversea DS.

PayPal does not work, period. We don't need to use other senarios to compare with it.

 

[alo100]

I can see it from your point of view.

One of the draw-back of using PayPal which does not happen when we use credit card is:
PayPal is and eBay are affiliated (eBay owns Paypal) and is setup in two different states, when any transaction go through these two companies, if nothing happen, great, if there is any dispute happened, can of worms.

Back in California where eBay is, if you want to get help from small claim court, you would realize that they don't deal with Paypal because it is located in another state. In other words, small claim court has a restricted power which does not allow them to handle situation like this. As a matter of fact, when I filed the case, the officer told me about what they could do to help, and basically he told me that the files against online selling was in bulk.

Aside from that, a lot of transactions started at eBay, PayPal does not share the data base, so during any dispute all the conversation between buyers and sellers are unknown to Paypal. As a matter of fact, according to PayPal, although they would not give up on trying to help the buyers (or buyers in the vice versa case) but the staff also implied that some of the cases were 2 years old and there are limited resource to handle all of these ($1000 purchase would not involve a lawyer).

Policy-wise, if anyone try it, you will realize that, the so called "refund" policy is constantly changing, the bottom line for the calculation involved is, even the other side is at fault, it's hard to get the max refund from eBay/Paypal. i.e. $1000 purchase does not mean $1000 refund by Paypal/eBay. Compare this to your credit card protection.


The difference for your credit card company is, you are the customer of their company, not the seller.

I am not posting this to tell if PayPal/eBay is helping sellers or buyers, as a middle guy, the companies are helping themselves. If the system is not made good enough to protect buyer/seller, it's a big problem.