All you need to do is go to the google merchant forums and help center to see what a joke they were in the beginning. It's a landscape of "why won't you reply" "google froze my account" "worse than paypal" "with google's reputation this should be better" etc. I'm not sure if they've gotten their act together yet, but the damage has definately been done. Free payments or not, the general consensus is that they're not worth the hassle unless you don't care about the money and don't mind when or if you receive. | 
