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UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=PayPal


:amen::amen::amen:

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

I imagine a lot of forum members are nodding their heads :)

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

Paypal = You are going to "Pay" "Pal"...

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Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

All those definitions are outdated. It's not that bad guys...

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

I disagree.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

Compares your alternatives and you'll get where I'm coming from :rolleyes:

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

:pound:

It's not so bad when you suss out why they do what they do, and figure out ways to overcome 21 day holds etc. - thereafter using their service becomes a breeze.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

It's easy to blame PayPal for being the way they are.

If you look closer though, and understand a little bit about banking law, as well as financial regulations, it would be a bit more clear why they do what they do.

Everyone blames PayPal for holds. Actually, this isn't PayPal's fault- blame Visa/Mastercard and FED regulations for that. There is a 180 day "chargeback" window imposed by VISA and MasterCard (cardmember associations) and they can vary with Discover/AMEX as well. When certain criteria/milestones are reached, then you'll get a limitation asking for docs. A good example would be when you hit 200 AND $20,000 in annual sales, you will get the TIN/EIN request. That is an IRS/Treasury requirement, not PayPal's idea. In fact, it's an industry standard practice because of the IRS rules.

PayPal needs to protect themselves from the rules imposed on them. In fact, they are more concerned about NOT running afoul of compliance/banking regulations, such as 18 USC § 1960 than they would be about fraud or financial losses. They could lose their license, be sued, or worse. PayPal has an entire department devoted to compliance issues, and they take this part extremely seriously.

The reason PayPal makes certain ID requests and limits accounts is mostly so they can comply with banking laws/regulations. There is KYC (Know-Your-Customer), AML (Anti-Money-Laundering) rules, and also the Patriot Act, FinCEN, CTR Reports, and an endless host of others.

PayPal is a Money Transmitter Under federal law in the USA, they need to be licensed. In the UK/EU, or rest of the world, they also have to apply those local regulations as well.

To further add to the confusion, each state has it's own host of rules governing money transmitters, such as California's Money Transmission Act (MTA).

Before you blame PayPal for your woes, look at the financial landscape from the inside. it's very different in that case.

Since PayPal has approx. 250+ Million registered accounts, a lot of what they do is automated. It must be because they simply can't employ the tens of thousands of people to even manage a tiny sampling of those accounts. This "automation" can make PayPal a bitch to work with sometimes, mainly because their security bots (algorithms) are changing constantly and adapting to the current trends of account usage, fraud, and financial environment.

So, a lot of the "crap" you deal with on PayPal is actually the fault of the government and banking law. The US Treasury & FED have a lot to do with that, too, especially more of a mess with the Dodd-Frank Act. It's a complex area, and not something that can be explained to the layman in 5 minutes.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

Once you "get it" with PayPal, it's not so bad. You'll just have to adjust your business model accordingly, because the others are a whole lot worse.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

Oh, no question. PayPal is a TON easier to work with compared to the others once you know it's quirks.

Actually my personal experience has been a bit more positive dealing with them, even when it comes to handling disputes. On an aged, established account with decent history, you would be surpised how much abuse/cases your account can take before it's limited.

I had more than a couple accounts that had an extremely high refund rate (more than 50%) and never had a problem so long as I kept the balance from going into the negative and not having lots of chargebacks open.

Compare this to credit card (merchant) processors. Some of are so skittish, they would cancel you even after just one chargeback/dispute.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

I think we've grown a custom to PayPal, hence why we say the others are worse.

But if you use others payment processors as much as PayPal, you'll also figure out loopholes and it will become as easy to operate with.

Each come with their own obstacles to overcome. But of course, there are some that aren't worth the hassle as there are constant hurdles.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

It's a love/hate relationship with PayPal.

It's still a dominate player in the online payments space.. even though new payment processors are popping up everyday, it still competes very well and we need it. Also PayPal is smart and they buy these smaller companies: Venmo, Braintree and recent iZettle.

Everyone I know uses Venmo.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

The saying 'Hate the game not the player' is pretty true with PayPal really. They to a large extent have to do what they have to do due to rules imposed on them

They are still way way better than traditional card processors.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

I wonder what other credit card processors charge for each transaction fee.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

Like it or not, PayPal is a household name. Nearly everyone has an account with them. They've been in the game since the early days. In fact, I had a account back in the late 1990's when they were Confinity (X.com). I have another business account from 2000 as well in my own name. Those two accounts are very strong, and have seen six figures through them over all these years. I even once put a deposit on a car several years back and was able to send 10k + 2k (12,000 total since PP limits 10k per transaction)
Yes, it worked and never had a problem.

I think many people blame PayPal for stuff that's actually their own fault. If they look closely at the situation, maybe they will understand WHY they got into the pickle they are in.
That's just my opinion.

PayPal's reputation used to be a lot worse several years ago than it is today. There are a ton of sites such as paypalsucks.com, paypalwarning.com, screw-paypal.com, etc) There are also endless blogs full of negative stuff online, not to mention on Youtube. They've also gotten sued a number of times, too.

I just think they are a lot better to deal with than the alternatives. Once you have worked with them and understand how they operate, they are not so bad.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

I like the fact that you can pretty much be stealth with them. Whereas the other payment processors, I would imagine it would be a lot more complicated. I've seen the stuff they ask for and it's like wtf?

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

It depends on what kind of processor you use (offshore costs a lot more) but with my Auth.net/TSYS gateway/merchant account combo I pay almost exactly the same in transaction fees as I do with Paypal. Paypal is what, something like 2.9% + $.30? I think the average on my merchant account is 3%.

Paypal wants more of the brick-and-mortar payment processing market so they're actually really competitive when it comes to pricing structure.

Re: UrbanDictionary: How people define PayPal
 

Right. Real merchant accounts want your SSN, EIN, product invoices, previous transaction history, supplier information, etc before you can even accept a payment.

Reason being is because you have a LOT more control over payments, you could easily rip someone off, and they want to be sure you can be trusted and you're not just going to use your merchant account for carding or some stupid crap.