Comments on: an online shopping question for you

By: cat

cat — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 23:18:34 +0000

I am sure I am late on this but, must say that PayPal ought to be a "no-go". I have had my PayPal account hacked into twice, leaving me to deal with unauthorized charges. I have removed my credit card from my PayPal account all together. It is serious! I have a merchant account-it's so much easier, I can take credit cards for sales and call them in at my leisure on my cell phone, it's simple and easy. Low fees if you decide to take only visa and mastercard. I repeat, stay away from PayPal. Thanks for asking.

By: a Cagey Bee

a Cagey Bee — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:57:43 +0000

Wow! Very interesting comments. I like using Paypal funded by my credit card because I have 2 layers of fraud protection should there be a problem. After being burned on an eBay purchase years ago, I was happy that I could dispute the transaction through Paypal first & if they couldn't resolve it, then talk to my credit card company.

I've never tried Google checkout (& am honestly surprised that so many people have even heard of it!), but I'll definitely be adding it for my shop.

Thanks!

By: darleen

darleen — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:48:15 +0000

Very interesting reading the comments made here. I assumed (and yes I know what happens when you assume, LOL) that buyers preferred PayPal. It's got me to thinking that maybe I should eliminate them from my website. I do offer Google Checkout as well, but very interesting comments.

By: Marcie

Marcie — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:40:50 +0000

I had a bad experience with paypal as well. They claimed there was fraudulent activity on my account and put my account on hold indefinitely. Nevermind the fact that there was $125 in credit that they would not give me. I will never use them again.

By: Ln

Ln — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:49:26 +0000

It looks like you've already decided, but I thought I'd add my opinion. I prefer using a credit card directly over paypal, not because of security so much as the hassle factor-- I forget my paypal password, they have some credit card on file as default that was replaced by the credit card company 6 months ago... So for me to go through the trouble of sending a paypal payment I need to REALLY want what they're selling, and it needs to not be available on a website that takes credit cards directly. I like google checkout a lot more than paypal, if you don't want to pay for a merchant services account to take credit cards directly. I'd recommend having a physical address on the website too, it just makes me feel more comfortable with who I'm dealing with.

By: Erin

Erin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:59:04 +0000

I'm in the same boat as Wendy -- I don't have an account, I just click the Paypal button and enter my credit card info. I guess I'll go click the "other" radio button and submit now.

By: Meagan Mountford

Meagan Mountford — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:45:42 +0000

Looks like you already made your decision, but just to add emphasis...I had the same question when I opened my shop as I felt offering more than paypal puts the shop in a different league (or at least, to appear so.) I set up my shopping cart to take CC numbers/info, then I got the Virtual Terminal through paypal ($30 a month). So I ring all transactions manually, but it's manageable and allows me to accept credit cards at craft fairs as well and gives customers an option. Eventually, I will better investigate Merchant Services through my business checking account. They should be able to match or better paypal's offer (at least according to PNC, my biz bank). Good luck!

By: kelley

kelley — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:44:17 +0000

there are a lot of phishing e-mails out there that look like they're from paypal. like #1, i've gotten "fraudulent activity" e-mails, but they were fraudulent themselves. be careful out there!

By: megan

megan — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:46:17 +0000

Thank you to everybody who left a comment, these are really helpful and we're definitely going to offer something in addition to Paypal. Extra big thanks to Emira and Making It Lovely for sharing their expertise!

By: Kelly

Kelly — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:59:07 +0000

I too had my paypal accout hacked by someone. I can't believe the horrible customer service they had. I never did get through on the phone (they expect us to sit there for hours on long distance? i don't think so). I was lucky enough to catch the hacking as it was happening. I went into my account and was able to change the password. But that was after being kicked out numerous times because there was someone else in it, and having to figure out how to change it from chinese back to english. Two days later they sent me an email saying that my account had been compromised (no really?) and it was put on hold. I had to verify my account by mail because they wouldn't accept a cell phone as a real phone (i don't have a landline). I eventually did get my money back but it left a real sour taste in my mouth. They sent me a survey after it was over asking me how their service was during my 'unfortunate incident'. I certainly had a lot of things to say. Long story short, I'm never using paypal again.

By: BethR

BethR — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:24:04 +0000

i love paypal and have been using it for years, but my husband refuses to use it because he tried it about a year ago and had something happen where something like $800 was removed from his bank acount by paypal for charges he hadn't authorized. it was a huge effort to get in contact with them and get it corrected. and then it happened again right after that!

By: Carissa

Carissa — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:25:32 +0000

My husband and I have each had our PayPal accounts hacked on 2 separate occasions, so I avoid it like the plague. We were able to get all the charges reversed, but PayPal's customer service is not all that helpful or easy to deal with. Having only PayPal as payment option has actually deterred me from buying from certain places. If you are able to offer credit card then I say do it, but Google Checkout also sounds like a good option.

By: g.

g. — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 07:41:22 +0000

I use PayPal b/c I trust it more than credit card processors I've never heard of but it doesn't mean I fully trust PayPal. I definitely prefer Google Checkout over any other payment option.

By: Clare

Clare — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 07:07:06 +0000

It depends!

If it's a small organisation, then I would prefer paypal if they are handling the credit cards themselves (given that I lack confidence in the ability of a lot of organisations to securely process card details), but prefer credit card if they back the processing off to somebody like WorldPay.

If they choose to accept and process credit card payments directly, it's well worth looking into what level of PCI DSS compliance they would need to achieve, which depends on the number of transactions and amount of money that they are processing.

In the interests of full disclosure, I do IT security for a living, and so am probably more paranoid than average!

By: genia

genia — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:34:46 +0000

Our first website only accepted PayPal, what a nightmare. They do not have a separate billing and shipping address for customers to fill in so when people want to ship the item to someone else it comes back as Unconfirmed.

So then for security purposes you then have to get in touch with that customer to find out if they really did make that purchase.

We also found that people were getting the impression (because of the layout at the PayPal site)that you had to have a PayPal account to order so we were losing sales.

I would definitely get a secondary payment system.

I hope this helps.