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I just want to be a lone voice for PayPal here. I expect downvotes but want to show a different point of view. - PayPal is not a bank, you don't get the same

by brc 16y ago

I just want to be a lone voice for PayPal here. I expect downvotes but want to show a different point of view. - PayPal is not a bank, you don't get the same level of customer service or regulations. However, you don't pay anything like the sorts of fees that you would with a bank for sending/receiving money, especially as a merchant. Try applying for a merchant, online only, account with a bank as a startup and see how far you get. - PayPal processes a lot of transactions daily, globally, all with accounts that they know very little about. As such, their fraud detection is turned up a lot higher than a regular bank. They're obviously paranoid about any difference in patterns or strange occurences, and the usual response is to stop everything until it can be sorted out. In most cases it does get sorted out but that's after the anger has died down. -Banks and credit card companies make mistakes all the time. My credit card issuer is always sneaking unjustified interest charges. I have to call and reverse them all the time. I've had banks bounce checks for no reason, charge me fees which cause the balance to go below zero, then charge more fees for it. That's stealing as well, but everyone shrugs their shoulders and says 'banks, what can you do'. So my summary is : yes, dancing with PayPal is holding a Tiger by the tail, but there aren't really any alternatives. They can suck, but they're a cheap and reliable service. But don't think that any amount of bank regulation would fix things. If they had the customer service of a bank, they'd have to charge higher fees. With the low fees, you should have low service expectations.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
Another factor here is the "fear of the new". Which is worse, dying in a car accident or dying in a nuclear blast? Well, neither really. But which generates more fear in you? Dying in an accident can easily be a horrific, painful death, but everything else about it is familiar, so we turn down the knob on the fear-o-meter on the idea. Similarly, banks treat their customers like crap all the time. But it's a crap that everybody has grown used to and come to expect. But when PayPal makes a mistake or has bad policies or poor customer service in any instance people will scream to high-heavens on the internet about it until the entire world has heard. For myself, PayPal has treated me better than at least half the banks I've ever had accounts with (especially Bank of America), so I'm inclined to give them a little slack now and again.

by brc 16y ago

InclinedPlane 16y ago

Another factor here is the "fear of the new". Which is worse, dying in a car accident or dying in a nuclear blast? Well, neither really. But which generates more fear in you? Dying in an accident can easily be a horrific, painful death, but everything else about it is familiar, so we turn down the knob on the fear-o-meter on the idea. Similarly, banks treat their customers like crap all the time. But it's a crap that everybody has grown used to and come to expect. But when PayPal makes a mistake or has bad policies or poor customer service in any instance people will scream to high-heavens on the internet about it until the entire world has heard. For myself, PayPal has treated me better than at least half the banks I've ever had accounts with (especially Bank of America), so I'm inclined to give them a little slack now and again.