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From the perspective of a consumer, this might be penny wise, pound foolish. When I buy a product from a company I am not familiar with, I look for the PayPal

From the perspective of a consumer, this might be penny wise, pound foolish. When I buy a product from a company I am not familiar with, I look for the PayPal button. This is especially true if the product is some type of subscription. There is no way I am buying a subscription to something other than through PayPal. As a buyer, I know PayPal has my back, and that I can see and easily cancel any subscription. So, if you go with the alternatives, be aware there are likely millions of consumers like me who you are missing out on from the start.

purerandomness 8y ago
Interesting. For me, it's the opposite. I think of PayPal as evil, deceptive (think of the currecy conversion opt-out mechanism) and how many content creators got hurt by PayPal freezig their accounts. I'm relieved when I see a company found another way and doesn't make me use PayPal when paying.
- Trias11 8y ago
  Consumers love PayPal because it’s more friendly to buyer (than to seller). Thus supporting PayPal is beneficial to vendor. For vendor it makes sense to exercise caution: not leaving large balance on PayPal account, attach only intermediary bank account to PayPal to prevent PayPal tapping into your funds at will and have reserved accept payment method in case PayPal gets awry on you
- omnimus 8y ago
  They push conversion so hard. If you sell something in eur/usd while your origin country uses different currency paypal will allow you to send money only to bank account of that currency and country you are based in. They say it is required by law. Of course when you make the transfer they inform you that that bank account is not in eur/usd and that they have converted it for you. And their conversion rates were like 4% worse than my banks which is about 4% worse than something like transferwise/revolut. Cutting down ~8% thats after paypal fees is not fun. I switched.
vezycash 8y ago
A service that allows one to create single use credit card numbers would have helped. The only one I know of is US only. Payoneer the strongest paypal alternative is currently behaving like PayPal. It closes accounts on a whim without recourse and support is Google-like.
- yhoiseth 8y ago
  Revolut also offers this: https://blog.revolut.com/introducing-disposable-virtual-cards/ https://blog.revolut.com/introducing-disposable-virtual-card...
  - zxcvbn4038 8y ago
    Revolut always sounds so interesting, but I’ve been on their waiting list for a year and a half, 70k people in front of me and 35k people behind me, I’ve not seen either figure change in months. I don’t know if I fell through a crack or if they stopped accepting people to the wait list or if something else is going on. It does sound like there are people actually using the service .
    - yhoiseth 8y ago
      Huh. That's strange – in my home country (Norway), they've been struggling with lower growth than expected. [1] Personally, I stopped using their service due to not enough of a value-add compared to my main bank (Sbanken) and Revolut's questionable HR practices. [2] Which country are you in? [1] https://shifter.no/bankfenomenet-revolut-sliter-i-kampen-mot-norske-banker-na-tar-underdogen-et-uvanlig-grep-for-a-fa-fart-pa-veksten/ https://shifter.no/bankfenomenet-revolut-sliter-i-kampen-mot... [2] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-fintech-politics-storonsky https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-...
    - omnimus 8y ago
      They started to give me free invites (you have to pay something for delivery of the card) so now many people around me have it. It spreads like fire. I love the service unfortunately i've read some very bad articles about their ethics/company culture and that their investlrs are russian gansters. But who knows.
chrischen 8y ago
Most people considering these alternatives may not have dealt with credit card chargebacks—which are a completely opaque process with extremely long processing times, and a fee, even if you win. That being said, from a consumer perspective chargebacks are easier to obtain than paypal disputes, if the transaction is small. For a lot of small dollar amount chargebacks merchants don’t even bother.
- Trias11 8y ago
  As a consumer I totally love chargebacks. Very easy to deal with fraudulent vendors and discourage shady business practices. That said merchants definitely hate that because it’s lose-lose for them even if they win (mandatory $25-$40 fee they pay regardless)
  - Trias11 8y ago
    That said - merchants can retaliate back to consumers by banning them or reducing their ratings especially in industries where merchant provides essential services. Consumer can of course re-retaliate back to merchant via social media hell. So, on a final note, it's better to try to resolve things in a friendly manner, unless there is a clear fraud on one side.
    - chrischen 8y ago
      Blacklisting only works if you’re a big company, and in these cases the game is stacked against the consumer... the only recourse would be class action. Social media hell is only really effective if you are notable. Otherwise the most damage you really do is simply not being a net promoter. Resolving in a friendly manner and designing the user experience around easy customer service should be the standard. Anything less and really the merchant is committing fraud. The reasons why I hate credit cards both as a consumer and a merchant are: 1) legacy tech that improves at a snail’s pace. They literally profit off of fraud, because fraud liability generally falls on merchants but they make money off of increased transactions (due to less friction). 2) they stopped innovating and a clear sign of that is the heavy push towards loyalty points in order to retain users. Not to mention anticompetitive practices barring merchants on passing on credit card fees (for which they have a 6+ billion dollar class action over). 3) opaque processes over disputes and chargebacks and long 45+ day feedback times 4) they helped cause financial crisis by overextending credit
temporaryacc62 8y ago
Paypal also uses redirect to their own domain ensuring you don't give your CC to just anyone. This is the biggest selling point to me. Services asking for a credit card number directly on the site may or may not be using Sprite, or a similar legitimate service, and may or may not contain malicious code that captures your input regardless. I really have no way of knowing.
- omnimus 8y ago
  I have to use Sprite next time when i make my new sass.
analog31 8y ago
My very small side-business uses PP, and it has been frictionless for 12 years. When I started up, I imagined the customer thinking: "Would I rather give my credit card info to PP or to this guy working in his basement who probably has no grasp of data security?" With that said, there are people out there who have, for whatever reason, vowed to never use PP. Maybe they had a bad experience. Most people who want a PP alternative seem satisfied to send me a money order. If my business were to grow beyond $15k/y, I would think about adding a secondary payment service. On my end, PP is my accounting system. I use the PP credit card to pay for all of my supplies. At tax time, I download a huge spreadsheet of every transaction, and mung it into my year-end numbers. Dealing with chargebacks, frauds, and disputes... my view is that the idea of being able to get a refund, no questions asked, has been established as a consumer expectation by the large physical and online retailers such as Home Depot and Target. Those companies can afford to "eat" a few bad transactions. It's harder for the rest of us. If someone has very low sales volume, or is moving big ticket items, a single chargeback or dispute can be painful. Anybody who's thinking of setting up shop online, should think about how they can maintain a cash cushion to absorb the issues that can arise. Eating a few bad deals has to be just part of your budget.
username223 8y ago
> As a buyer, I know PayPal has my back, and that I can see and easily cancel any subscription. I avoid negative option billing like the plague. There are too many companies who force you to do something ridiculous to cancel it, like calling a "customer retention specialist" between the hours of 10 and 4 and being put on hold for 20 minutes. If I have to subscribe, I want to know that I can turn the money spigot off easily and online.

purerandomness 8y ago

Interesting. For me, it's the opposite. I think of PayPal as evil, deceptive (think of the currecy conversion opt-out mechanism) and how many content creators got hurt by PayPal freezig their accounts. I'm relieved when I see a company found another way and doesn't make me use PayPal when paying.

Trias11 8y ago
Consumers love PayPal because it’s more friendly to buyer (than to seller). Thus supporting PayPal is beneficial to vendor. For vendor it makes sense to exercise caution: not leaving large balance on PayPal account, attach only intermediary bank account to PayPal to prevent PayPal tapping into your funds at will and have reserved accept payment method in case PayPal gets awry on you
omnimus 8y ago
They push conversion so hard. If you sell something in eur/usd while your origin country uses different currency paypal will allow you to send money only to bank account of that currency and country you are based in. They say it is required by law. Of course when you make the transfer they inform you that that bank account is not in eur/usd and that they have converted it for you. And their conversion rates were like 4% worse than my banks which is about 4% worse than something like transferwise/revolut. Cutting down ~8% thats after paypal fees is not fun. I switched.

vezycash 8y ago

A service that allows one to create single use credit card numbers would have helped. The only one I know of is US only. Payoneer the strongest paypal alternative is currently behaving like PayPal. It closes accounts on a whim without recourse and support is Google-like.

yhoiseth 8y ago
Revolut also offers this: https://blog.revolut.com/introducing-disposable-virtual-cards/ https://blog.revolut.com/introducing-disposable-virtual-card...
- zxcvbn4038 8y ago
  Revolut always sounds so interesting, but I’ve been on their waiting list for a year and a half, 70k people in front of me and 35k people behind me, I’ve not seen either figure change in months. I don’t know if I fell through a crack or if they stopped accepting people to the wait list or if something else is going on. It does sound like there are people actually using the service .
  - yhoiseth 8y ago
    Huh. That's strange – in my home country (Norway), they've been struggling with lower growth than expected. [1] Personally, I stopped using their service due to not enough of a value-add compared to my main bank (Sbanken) and Revolut's questionable HR practices. [2] Which country are you in? [1] https://shifter.no/bankfenomenet-revolut-sliter-i-kampen-mot-norske-banker-na-tar-underdogen-et-uvanlig-grep-for-a-fa-fart-pa-veksten/ https://shifter.no/bankfenomenet-revolut-sliter-i-kampen-mot... [2] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-fintech-politics-storonsky https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-...
  - omnimus 8y ago
    They started to give me free invites (you have to pay something for delivery of the card) so now many people around me have it. It spreads like fire. I love the service unfortunately i've read some very bad articles about their ethics/company culture and that their investlrs are russian gansters. But who knows.

chrischen 8y ago

Most people considering these alternatives may not have dealt with credit card chargebacks—which are a completely opaque process with extremely long processing times, and a fee, even if you win. That being said, from a consumer perspective chargebacks are easier to obtain than paypal disputes, if the transaction is small. For a lot of small dollar amount chargebacks merchants don’t even bother.

Trias11 8y ago
As a consumer I totally love chargebacks. Very easy to deal with fraudulent vendors and discourage shady business practices. That said merchants definitely hate that because it’s lose-lose for them even if they win (mandatory $25-$40 fee they pay regardless)
- Trias11 8y ago
  That said - merchants can retaliate back to consumers by banning them or reducing their ratings especially in industries where merchant provides essential services. Consumer can of course re-retaliate back to merchant via social media hell. So, on a final note, it's better to try to resolve things in a friendly manner, unless there is a clear fraud on one side.
  - chrischen 8y ago
    Blacklisting only works if you’re a big company, and in these cases the game is stacked against the consumer... the only recourse would be class action. Social media hell is only really effective if you are notable. Otherwise the most damage you really do is simply not being a net promoter. Resolving in a friendly manner and designing the user experience around easy customer service should be the standard. Anything less and really the merchant is committing fraud. The reasons why I hate credit cards both as a consumer and a merchant are: 1) legacy tech that improves at a snail’s pace. They literally profit off of fraud, because fraud liability generally falls on merchants but they make money off of increased transactions (due to less friction). 2) they stopped innovating and a clear sign of that is the heavy push towards loyalty points in order to retain users. Not to mention anticompetitive practices barring merchants on passing on credit card fees (for which they have a 6+ billion dollar class action over). 3) opaque processes over disputes and chargebacks and long 45+ day feedback times 4) they helped cause financial crisis by overextending credit

temporaryacc62 8y ago

Paypal also uses redirect to their own domain ensuring you don't give your CC to just anyone. This is the biggest selling point to me. Services asking for a credit card number directly on the site may or may not be using Sprite, or a similar legitimate service, and may or may not contain malicious code that captures your input regardless. I really have no way of knowing.

omnimus 8y ago
I have to use Sprite next time when i make my new sass.

analog31 8y ago

My very small side-business uses PP, and it has been frictionless for 12 years. When I started up, I imagined the customer thinking: "Would I rather give my credit card info to PP or to this guy working in his basement who probably has no grasp of data security?" With that said, there are people out there who have, for whatever reason, vowed to never use PP. Maybe they had a bad experience. Most people who want a PP alternative seem satisfied to send me a money order. If my business were to grow beyond $15k/y, I would think about adding a secondary payment service. On my end, PP is my accounting system. I use the PP credit card to pay for all of my supplies. At tax time, I download a huge spreadsheet of every transaction, and mung it into my year-end numbers. Dealing with chargebacks, frauds, and disputes... my view is that the idea of being able to get a refund, no questions asked, has been established as a consumer expectation by the large physical and online retailers such as Home Depot and Target. Those companies can afford to "eat" a few bad transactions. It's harder for the rest of us. If someone has very low sales volume, or is moving big ticket items, a single chargeback or dispute can be painful. Anybody who's thinking of setting up shop online, should think about how they can maintain a cash cushion to absorb the issues that can arise. Eating a few bad deals has to be just part of your budget.

username223 8y ago

> As a buyer, I know PayPal has my back, and that I can see and easily cancel any subscription. I avoid negative option billing like the plague. There are too many companies who force you to do something ridiculous to cancel it, like calling a "customer retention specialist" between the hours of 10 and 4 and being put on hold for 20 minutes. If I have to subscribe, I want to know that I can turn the money spigot off easily and online.