Advice for Paypal users
So, if your a paypal user like me, you may of added your chequeing or saving account for direct withdraws and deposits. Makes sense if you do large online purchases and occasionally sell something as well. They make this “convenience feature” very visible and push it for EVERY transaction. Every time you buy something the default is to use you cash accounts, not your credit card. They tout it as “Safe, Secure and Easy”. Well, I’ve go news for you… it’s not.
The deception, in my opinion, is that they let you pick a backup funding source. This is made out to be a feature for you. It’s actually a feature for the merchant. See, if you don’t have enough money in your account you get NSF’ed. Then, paypal finds out and charges your credit card. Granted, this makes sense, but I feel it also gave a false sense of security to the purchaser. It doesn’t give you anything. If you happen to be at your low cash balance for the month and you get a few recurring charges… the fee’s can add up fast (I guess that depends on you bank… mine is $40 a hit). It gets better!
If you’ve setup paypal payments through a merchant in the past and have a regular amount of business with them they can setup some sort of magical way to remember your preferences and just charge your paypal account like they did last time. This isn’t a “recurring” bill or a “subscription”. It’s some feature I’ve never seen in the paypal API as of yet (and I’ve got it right beside me). So, when I went to renew my domain this month it decided to just go ahead and charge my bank account first… with out asking me. So bank, another $40 charge on my empty bank account. I’m not even sure how I can change this “preference” in paypal. GoDaddy.com doesn’t seem to offer a way to change it either. I guess next time I’ll just opt to use my credit card directly. Which brings me to this.
What incentive is there for a consumer to even offer to pay straight from their account when they have to have a CC to back up the transaction anyways? I don’t see any reason at all to even have my account linked to paypal anymore (after $160 of NSF fees…). I’ll pay straight from my CC for purchases. If I get some extra cash in the account, I’ll use my paypal debit mastercard to take it out.
grampa said,
August 2, 2009 @ 3:57 pm
Hello James;
I figured this out long ago-no reflection you Yourself is intended. I do not use Pay Pal and cancelled my Paypal about two years ago due to the same things that you write of. Shame on them It is all for them and nothing for the customer, whom they obviously do not trust at all in any way. I also shy away from Facebook, Utoob, flickr, etc. not due to my old suspicious age etc, but because every so often, I read about problems with their secuity and recent site hackings. Shame on them, as they seem to not care about the people’s lives whom they have affected. Pay Pal, E-Bay and every merchant that we trust to purchase things from make money from us and they make sure that they get paid first and foremost. The customer(You and eye) do not count in the least.
Then one has to live with the bank telling you that your credit stinks due to NSF charges. Really, their policies made the situation happen. Phooey to them for sure. Banks are not our friends either.
Went to Boston Pizza yesteday and used my MC for the bill. When I got home, I checked out the charges. They had charged $51.32 to my CC when the bill was only 39.18. The real total including tip was $44.18. Well, how then did my CC get billed for $51.32? I called MC and the Pizza place to whine and complain and the Pizza place did return my call. They over charge/approve you on your CC for 30% more than the total to make sure that THEY get their money. Good for them, but not for the customer. What would happen in a large transaction where they overcharged you 30% and there was not enough on your CC to cover this. I am not finished with BP’s or with MC yet about this issue.
In any event, James, good to read you site. Have a good day. I will be enjoying me Nokia E71 soon.
grampa and the Kat, MaggyK