PayPal - who on Earth said it’s the best online payment solution?

Well, we all use Paypal, because we all hear and read that this is the most secure and practically best online payment processing solution. However, have you ever thought, who actually said it’s the “best”? Of course, paypal.com themselves, or maybe you read it on eBay, the closest paypal partner. In fact, if your paypal account and ebay account are linked in anyway (say, you pay with your paypal when you buy something on eBay) — You are likely to have your paypal account suspended if you had troubles with your eBay account. Fair enough, don’t you think?

While still and all, paypal is such a great way to get paid online, there is a ceaseless stream of stories about how unfairly paypal froze one’s funds, limited the account, or simply took over the money. You might not be aware, but if you dive deep into the Terms and Conditions page, you will learn that:

1. PayPal is authorized to hold your money without explanation,
2. PayPal can freeze your account without reason, practically speaking — take money from your account without your agreement or even knowledge.

All this, doubtlessly, is done for buyers and sellers protection online, to ensure that all the scammers from paypal-supported countries and honest businessmen from paypal-unsupported countries live in peace in the cyber world. Of course I am exaggerating, but it’s close to being truth sometimes.

PayPal is a great tool in theory, but when you are an international account holder, you could be the most honest person on the planet and still face endless difficulties. I will give you an example. You created an account and accepted a payment, now you want to withdraw it. You have to provide your bank details, paypal then will deposit a “test” amount on your account… After at best 1 month you will receive a print from the bank with monthly transfers statements, where you can locate paypal’s payment, come back to paypal’s account online, input this sum and verify your account ownership. After that, you can withdraw money and they will be on your account within 4-5 days. Now that was the easy part! If you are a serious entrepreneur who receives more than $4000 a year, you need to lift your account limit and here is where your real headache will begin. In theory (again), you only need to scan your utility bills (say, electricity bill) and scan your ID or driving license (yes, they want to have your photo in their database) and upload it online. If you live with parents and bills go on their name, or like in my case — mail is delivered to P.O. Box while the physical address provided at paypal is different from the number of your post box, here is where the issue starts. You will find yourself struggling to prove that you are who you say you are (not because of you are a fraudulent business man, but because of when you forwarded all your mail to post office to avoid miscarried letters, you didn’t think paypal will disapprove of this decision). I can go on expanding the depths of Paypal’s (dis)advantages, but let’s round it here and just remember that “Creating PayPal account takes only a few minutes” and “PayPal is the easiest way to get paid online” are bloody wrong assumptions.

So… Today I thought I will wage war against paypal and find an alternative solution, perhaps there is one service out there, which won’t charge such crazy fees and will not require one to scan all the documents and send them just so he or she could use their own money on their own account. So, here is a summery of my  journey…

2Checkout.com - Very nice solution to accept and send payments, if we count out the one-time set-up fee of $49 and the 5.5% commission on each transaction, plus a $0.45 charge per transaction. In other words, the fees might not cover the costs of the convenience. I passed.

MoneyBookers.com - I signed up and figured it could be a very good way to replace paypal as the fees are lower and withdrawal process is easier, but after I signed up and decided to go and harvest a few payments from clients to fill in my account — this is where my quest for cash has ended. No one of who I know has moneybookers account, and even if I send a bill to someone’s email address, he has to create a MoneyBookers account first, in order to make the payment, which basically equals to having a credit card that no one knows about, and no one accepts. You will also find it slightly inconvenient that you cannot close your account, cannot change email nor create a new one so if you made an account you will be stuck with it forever, which is yet another downside to bear in mind and obviously does not particularly encourage clients to register for completing the payment.

Eventually, I found a great solution that cannot fully replace paypal but can become the ultimate solution for online payments (both receiving and sending) — debit credit card. I will expand about that in my upcoming posts, so you would need to subscribe and stay tuned