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For me as a customer, having PayPal as payment option increases the propability of purchase. Especially with one-time purchases from small vendors. Reasons: No

For me as a customer, having PayPal as payment option increases the propability of purchase. Especially with one-time purchases from small vendors. Reasons: No risk of credit card info misuse (by vendor), I only need username and password and I get certainly at least some kind of receipt for accounting.

Nextgrid 7y ago
I’m always surprised as to why people are concerned about card details misuse. You are not responsible for card-not-present fraud (without 3D Secure). You can dispute any fraudulent charge with your bank, and I’d bet good money the bank has actually better customer service in that regard compared to PayPal.
- ptero 7y ago
  I agree with you for US customers (and probably most of Western Europe), but situation in many countries in the rest of the world is different. Those consumers may not all be SOL in case of such fraud, but the recovery, if available, is much more involved than a single call / web action it takes in the US. My 2c.
- isoos 7y ago
  Non-US credit or debit card owners are not in that good position wrt. disputes and getting their money back. Most of them charge for disabling the card and sending a new one. Dispute last for months, and are not automatically protecting the customer.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    This is the first time I hear about this for UK. The chargeback rules are set by the network , i.e. MasterCard, Visa (sure Amex as well but they are both issuer , acquirer and network so that’s perhaps an unfair example). Is there a different rule set for MC USA vs MC rest of the world? I worked for a fraud detection company in the UK that existed precisely because chargebacks work so well, here. So this is definitely news to me.
    - atemerev 7y ago
      Yes, there is a world beyond US and UK. Customer support in, say, France is next to nonexistent compared to US and UK standards. Not to mention non-Western countries (where Visa and MasterCard still work, but the quality of service differs dramatically). I am Russian living in Switzerland, who speaks English and shops at Amazon/US. It creates all sorts of fun.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Laws in each country are different. In the US that is not just a network rule it is a law. In many other countries they are just rules that can change at any time. Check with your local country's laws as each are different. I would expect that the network's rules are in large part the intersection of the laws in every country they operate in - one set of rules is easier to track than trying to figure out which countries laws might be in effect (with disastrous consequences if they get it wrong). Don't get me wrong, sometimes the networks rules are stronger than the laws for other reasons. Last I checked in the US the customer was legally out $50 in case of fraud, but all networks reduced it to zero figuring if they were already out potentially a large sum of money they may as well eat the last $50 too for goodwill reasons.
      - colejohnson66 7y ago
        They’re only out $50 for debit accounts. Credit accounts, you’re not liable for anything.
  - toss1 7y ago
    Sad to hear that about Non-US card owners. In the US, I've had just the opposite experience. E.g., with AmEx, I had suspicious charges and before I even finished the description the agent interrupted me and said the charge and my card were both already cancelled and new card w/new numbers was already on the way via FedEx. I'm not quite sure what pattern the agent recognized, but she sure didn't like it and they weren't going to put up with it for a second. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be in their interest to be this vigilant globally...
    - atemerev 7y ago
      There are huge culture differences in different parts of the world, and no such thing as "global companies" -- local offices are staffed with locals. US customer support is probably the best in the world, only Japan could be a valid contender here. The rest of us have to suffer.
      - toss1 7y ago
        Interesting, and perhaps not surprising since a college acquaintance once told me (quite some years ago) that AmEx would only cancel your card in one country at a time. Seems he'd had some trouble in Europe (parents shut off funds or something), and while making his way home before eventually getting it sorted out, discovered that little tidbit.
- iwasakabukiman 7y ago
  Because then you have to go through the hassle of doing all of the paperwork, talking to the bank and getting a new credit card number (which means updating all your services that used the old number). It's a pain in the butt when it happens.
  - quickthrower2 7y ago
    I love a fresh card!
- blunte 7y ago
  As a consumer, I like PayPal because it allows me to shut off a payment stream when I want to. A prime example was when I subscribed to NYTimes, and a few months later wanted to cancel. The only way to cancel was to make a phone call, navigate a phone tree, and wait for an agent. That was absurd, not only because I'm international and find it less convenient to call a US number... but particularly because I signed up and created the subscription online. NYT knew what they were doing by making it difficult for people to cancel. With PayPal in between, I was able to easily just terminate the agreement. NYT could no longer suck money out of my card.
  - Double_a_92 7y ago
    Technically you could still owe them that money... Just because you don't pay it doesn't mean that the contract gracefully ends.
    - jayalpha 7y ago
      You could argue about this. It is also questionable, where the contract was made. New York City? The place where the server is based? The place where the international customer is based? What law should apply? And if a company makes it unreasonable difficult to cancel a subscription then this may be a violation of some laws already. https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cancel-subscriptions-online-california-law-says/ https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cance...
  - kemitche 7y ago
    I know the point of your story was about being able to cancel, and not specifically NYT, but since others might read your anecdote and be turned off of NYT: NYT has since upgraded to allow managing your subscription online, including upgrade/downgrade/cancellation.
- kalleboo 7y ago
  Lots of people (especially in Europe) only have debit cards and no credit cards. And those often have worse consumer protection or in the best case you're still out your money for a long time during the dispute.
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    How is it different from PayPal though? In either case you have to wait for the dispute to clear in your favour before being able to get your money back.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- lholden 7y ago
  I entirely agree that putting money into a PayPal account is a really bad idea, but I'll generally use one of my credit cards through PayPal if needed. The last time I had to deal with card fraud, my bank was extremely reasonable to work with and didn't hesitate at all when disputing the charges. But the process can still be fairly annoying. Having to wait for the card to be replaced, having to move any auto billpay using that card to another, etc. With very few exceptions, if the merchant isn't using a decent external payment platform, you might as well be posting your credit card information on Hacker News. I'd much rather run my card information through PayPal if that is the only option other than entering card information on the merchants dodgy website. Most banks can be decent to deal with, and one can certainly take steps to mitigate the impact of it when it does happen (Like not using your debt card for purchases, ever. Using a different credit card for bill payments vs online purchases vs offline purchases, etc.) But I can understand why people would prefer to avoid card fraud when they have the option to do so.
- jayalpha 7y ago
  "I’m always surprised as to why people are concerned about card details misuse. You are not responsible for card-not-present fraud (without 3D Secure). " I am not surprised. You have obviously never stood in Ethiopia or wherever and have gotten a call from your bank: " This is the fraud department, unfortunately we have to block your card but we send you a new one". Trick question: How many CC do you carry at a given time? Hint: based from experience it should be at LEAST 3.
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    I am using a non-shit bank which will leave Apple Pay active while the physical card is replaced, or decline card-non-present transactions while leaving the card active for in-person transactions. If the bank is bad it’s one thing but then the solution is to choose a better bank, not hack around the problem with a (shady) middleman like PayPal.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Not sure if it would have helped in your case, but when I was going to China for 2 months, I called the bank beforehand and let them know that I'll be in China, and asked to ensure the card would work there.
    - jayalpha 7y ago
      Would not have helped. When I was abroad one guy was enjoying a decent McDonalds meal in the states with a cloned card.
- atemerev 7y ago
  There are debit and prepaid cards, that can be used online, but disputing fraudulent charges is next to impossible. There are non-US banks, where disputing fraud is extremely difficult and takes months, during which your funds remain blocked. There are many cases where a card wouldn't work because it is from a different country, but PayPal works. International consumer finance is a mess. Not everybody who shops on the Internet is a US citizen with a credit card account in a first-rate bank. There are other options.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  It's just a pain when it happens and you have to notice and catch it to begin with. Last time I had my debit card skimmed I had a lot of subscriptions lapse and fail to charge because the old card had been cancelled but I hadn't gotten the new card yet to switch to. I got all the money they'd charged back but it was still a stressful time because I didn't have any other card at the time.
olah_1 7y ago
>For me as a customer, having PayPal as payment option increases the propability of purchase. For me, Paypal looks disgusting. Like it's stuck in 2002. I'd much rather buy if there's Apple Pay via Safari or Gumroad or literally anything else.
Angostura 7y ago
Whereas I, as a consumer never use them because they are scammy.
xoa 7y ago
>Reasons: No risk of credit card info misuse (by vendor), I only need username and password and I get certainly at least some kind of receipt for accounting. It's a shame virtual cards never got more traction through the CC industry. For those who aren't familiar, some banks/cards offer you a tool that let's you set an arbitrary spend and expiration date (+2-12 months usually) and then generate a credit card number (with CVC) with those attributes (Bank of America branded theirs "SafeShop" for one example). Since it's a fully backed card number it'll transparently work on any site a normal CC would, but it cannot be charged more then the small limit (so you can set it just to the checkout price of one item and it's done), it can be trivially cancelled at will (useful for fighting dark pattern subscription services), etc (some of them can bind to merchant too). It's very effective for preventing misuse from online purchases. However for whatever reason it never seems to have spread or evolved really. BoA never added it to their mobile app for example, which seems like the most logical place, but rather kept it as a little Flash tool tucked away in their website. Plenty of banks do not offer it at all, and it never got much PR. It is more work to use and while that could have been reduced through better UIs (mobile again could really help there) it would always have been somewhat more work. Maybe options like Apple Pay/Google Pay will ultimately fill that role, since they're essentially an automated version of the above (tolkenized per-purchase card numbers). It'd be nice if the industry would work harder though on some standards for the hardware ecosystem needed.
- testvox 7y ago
  https://privacy.com/ https://privacy.com/
  - uberswe 7y ago
    Interesting, is there any alternative for the EU market?
    - Hikikomori 7y ago
      Klarna has it, not sure which markets though.
    - 7y ago
maxxxxx 7y ago
Same here. I find it easy to use.
hackermailman 7y ago
Until they arbitrarily ban your consumer account too, they just 'permanently limited' an old account I used on occasion to buy things on ebay without any problems that I haven't touched in a few months. No 3rd party access that I can tell so hilariously banned at random.
jeltz 7y ago
For me as a consumer if Paypal is the only option you will probably have lost me as a customer. I hate navigating through their mess of an UI and I also hate how they do not respect that I want 3D Secure on all credit card transactions (but this is more the fault of my bank which should deny their transactions).
kibwen 7y ago
Conversely, for me as a customer, if a vendor offers no option but PayPal then I refuse to do business there. Ethical considerations aside, I choose not to tie myself to yet another online service just to provide a layer of abstraction over the credit cards and bank accounts I already have.
- jonnycomputer 7y ago
  It is often easier, more convenient, and less expensive, for small retailers to set up a PayPal option than a credit card payment option.
stronglikedan 7y ago
OP isn't saying don't use it. Just don't make it your only option for accepting payment.
djsumdog 7y ago
As a business, PayPal can be helpful that way too. But the point is, it shouldn't be the ONLY processor. Credit card input, via another processor, should always be an option.

Nextgrid 7y ago

I’m always surprised as to why people are concerned about card details misuse. You are not responsible for card-not-present fraud (without 3D Secure). You can dispute any fraudulent charge with your bank, and I’d bet good money the bank has actually better customer service in that regard compared to PayPal.

ptero 7y ago
I agree with you for US customers (and probably most of Western Europe), but situation in many countries in the rest of the world is different. Those consumers may not all be SOL in case of such fraud, but the recovery, if available, is much more involved than a single call / web action it takes in the US. My 2c.
isoos 7y ago
Non-US credit or debit card owners are not in that good position wrt. disputes and getting their money back. Most of them charge for disabling the card and sending a new one. Dispute last for months, and are not automatically protecting the customer.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  This is the first time I hear about this for UK. The chargeback rules are set by the network , i.e. MasterCard, Visa (sure Amex as well but they are both issuer , acquirer and network so that’s perhaps an unfair example). Is there a different rule set for MC USA vs MC rest of the world? I worked for a fraud detection company in the UK that existed precisely because chargebacks work so well, here. So this is definitely news to me.
  - atemerev 7y ago
    Yes, there is a world beyond US and UK. Customer support in, say, France is next to nonexistent compared to US and UK standards. Not to mention non-Western countries (where Visa and MasterCard still work, but the quality of service differs dramatically). I am Russian living in Switzerland, who speaks English and shops at Amazon/US. It creates all sorts of fun.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Laws in each country are different. In the US that is not just a network rule it is a law. In many other countries they are just rules that can change at any time. Check with your local country's laws as each are different. I would expect that the network's rules are in large part the intersection of the laws in every country they operate in - one set of rules is easier to track than trying to figure out which countries laws might be in effect (with disastrous consequences if they get it wrong). Don't get me wrong, sometimes the networks rules are stronger than the laws for other reasons. Last I checked in the US the customer was legally out $50 in case of fraud, but all networks reduced it to zero figuring if they were already out potentially a large sum of money they may as well eat the last $50 too for goodwill reasons.
    - colejohnson66 7y ago
      They’re only out $50 for debit accounts. Credit accounts, you’re not liable for anything.
- toss1 7y ago
  Sad to hear that about Non-US card owners. In the US, I've had just the opposite experience. E.g., with AmEx, I had suspicious charges and before I even finished the description the agent interrupted me and said the charge and my card were both already cancelled and new card w/new numbers was already on the way via FedEx. I'm not quite sure what pattern the agent recognized, but she sure didn't like it and they weren't going to put up with it for a second. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be in their interest to be this vigilant globally...
  - atemerev 7y ago
    There are huge culture differences in different parts of the world, and no such thing as "global companies" -- local offices are staffed with locals. US customer support is probably the best in the world, only Japan could be a valid contender here. The rest of us have to suffer.
    - toss1 7y ago
      Interesting, and perhaps not surprising since a college acquaintance once told me (quite some years ago) that AmEx would only cancel your card in one country at a time. Seems he'd had some trouble in Europe (parents shut off funds or something), and while making his way home before eventually getting it sorted out, discovered that little tidbit.
iwasakabukiman 7y ago
Because then you have to go through the hassle of doing all of the paperwork, talking to the bank and getting a new credit card number (which means updating all your services that used the old number). It's a pain in the butt when it happens.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  I love a fresh card!
blunte 7y ago
As a consumer, I like PayPal because it allows me to shut off a payment stream when I want to. A prime example was when I subscribed to NYTimes, and a few months later wanted to cancel. The only way to cancel was to make a phone call, navigate a phone tree, and wait for an agent. That was absurd, not only because I'm international and find it less convenient to call a US number... but particularly because I signed up and created the subscription online. NYT knew what they were doing by making it difficult for people to cancel. With PayPal in between, I was able to easily just terminate the agreement. NYT could no longer suck money out of my card.
- Double_a_92 7y ago
  Technically you could still owe them that money... Just because you don't pay it doesn't mean that the contract gracefully ends.
  - jayalpha 7y ago
    You could argue about this. It is also questionable, where the contract was made. New York City? The place where the server is based? The place where the international customer is based? What law should apply? And if a company makes it unreasonable difficult to cancel a subscription then this may be a violation of some laws already. https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cancel-subscriptions-online-california-law-says/ https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cance...
- kemitche 7y ago
  I know the point of your story was about being able to cancel, and not specifically NYT, but since others might read your anecdote and be turned off of NYT: NYT has since upgraded to allow managing your subscription online, including upgrade/downgrade/cancellation.
kalleboo 7y ago
Lots of people (especially in Europe) only have debit cards and no credit cards. And those often have worse consumer protection or in the best case you're still out your money for a long time during the dispute.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  How is it different from PayPal though? In either case you have to wait for the dispute to clear in your favour before being able to get your money back.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
lholden 7y ago
I entirely agree that putting money into a PayPal account is a really bad idea, but I'll generally use one of my credit cards through PayPal if needed. The last time I had to deal with card fraud, my bank was extremely reasonable to work with and didn't hesitate at all when disputing the charges. But the process can still be fairly annoying. Having to wait for the card to be replaced, having to move any auto billpay using that card to another, etc. With very few exceptions, if the merchant isn't using a decent external payment platform, you might as well be posting your credit card information on Hacker News. I'd much rather run my card information through PayPal if that is the only option other than entering card information on the merchants dodgy website. Most banks can be decent to deal with, and one can certainly take steps to mitigate the impact of it when it does happen (Like not using your debt card for purchases, ever. Using a different credit card for bill payments vs online purchases vs offline purchases, etc.) But I can understand why people would prefer to avoid card fraud when they have the option to do so.
jayalpha 7y ago
"I’m always surprised as to why people are concerned about card details misuse. You are not responsible for card-not-present fraud (without 3D Secure). " I am not surprised. You have obviously never stood in Ethiopia or wherever and have gotten a call from your bank: " This is the fraud department, unfortunately we have to block your card but we send you a new one". Trick question: How many CC do you carry at a given time? Hint: based from experience it should be at LEAST 3.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  I am using a non-shit bank which will leave Apple Pay active while the physical card is replaced, or decline card-non-present transactions while leaving the card active for in-person transactions. If the bank is bad it’s one thing but then the solution is to choose a better bank, not hack around the problem with a (shady) middleman like PayPal.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Not sure if it would have helped in your case, but when I was going to China for 2 months, I called the bank beforehand and let them know that I'll be in China, and asked to ensure the card would work there.
  - jayalpha 7y ago
    Would not have helped. When I was abroad one guy was enjoying a decent McDonalds meal in the states with a cloned card.
atemerev 7y ago
There are debit and prepaid cards, that can be used online, but disputing fraudulent charges is next to impossible. There are non-US banks, where disputing fraud is extremely difficult and takes months, during which your funds remain blocked. There are many cases where a card wouldn't work because it is from a different country, but PayPal works. International consumer finance is a mess. Not everybody who shops on the Internet is a US citizen with a credit card account in a first-rate bank. There are other options.
rtkwe 7y ago
It's just a pain when it happens and you have to notice and catch it to begin with. Last time I had my debit card skimmed I had a lot of subscriptions lapse and fail to charge because the old card had been cancelled but I hadn't gotten the new card yet to switch to. I got all the money they'd charged back but it was still a stressful time because I didn't have any other card at the time.

olah_1 7y ago

>For me as a customer, having PayPal as payment option increases the propability of purchase. For me, Paypal looks disgusting. Like it's stuck in 2002. I'd much rather buy if there's Apple Pay via Safari or Gumroad or literally anything else.

Angostura 7y ago

Whereas I, as a consumer never use them because they are scammy.

xoa 7y ago

>Reasons: No risk of credit card info misuse (by vendor), I only need username and password and I get certainly at least some kind of receipt for accounting. It's a shame virtual cards never got more traction through the CC industry. For those who aren't familiar, some banks/cards offer you a tool that let's you set an arbitrary spend and expiration date (+2-12 months usually) and then generate a credit card number (with CVC) with those attributes (Bank of America branded theirs "SafeShop" for one example). Since it's a fully backed card number it'll transparently work on any site a normal CC would, but it cannot be charged more then the small limit (so you can set it just to the checkout price of one item and it's done), it can be trivially cancelled at will (useful for fighting dark pattern subscription services), etc (some of them can bind to merchant too). It's very effective for preventing misuse from online purchases. However for whatever reason it never seems to have spread or evolved really. BoA never added it to their mobile app for example, which seems like the most logical place, but rather kept it as a little Flash tool tucked away in their website. Plenty of banks do not offer it at all, and it never got much PR. It is more work to use and while that could have been reduced through better UIs (mobile again could really help there) it would always have been somewhat more work. Maybe options like Apple Pay/Google Pay will ultimately fill that role, since they're essentially an automated version of the above (tolkenized per-purchase card numbers). It'd be nice if the industry would work harder though on some standards for the hardware ecosystem needed.

testvox 7y ago
https://privacy.com/ https://privacy.com/
- uberswe 7y ago
  Interesting, is there any alternative for the EU market?
  - Hikikomori 7y ago
    Klarna has it, not sure which markets though.
  - 7y ago

maxxxxx 7y ago

Same here. I find it easy to use.

hackermailman 7y ago

Until they arbitrarily ban your consumer account too, they just 'permanently limited' an old account I used on occasion to buy things on ebay without any problems that I haven't touched in a few months. No 3rd party access that I can tell so hilariously banned at random.

jeltz 7y ago

For me as a consumer if Paypal is the only option you will probably have lost me as a customer. I hate navigating through their mess of an UI and I also hate how they do not respect that I want 3D Secure on all credit card transactions (but this is more the fault of my bank which should deny their transactions).

kibwen 7y ago

Conversely, for me as a customer, if a vendor offers no option but PayPal then I refuse to do business there. Ethical considerations aside, I choose not to tie myself to yet another online service just to provide a layer of abstraction over the credit cards and bank accounts I already have.

jonnycomputer 7y ago
It is often easier, more convenient, and less expensive, for small retailers to set up a PayPal option than a credit card payment option.

stronglikedan 7y ago

OP isn't saying don't use it. Just don't make it your only option for accepting payment.

djsumdog 7y ago

As a business, PayPal can be helpful that way too. But the point is, it shouldn't be the ONLY processor. Credit card input, via another processor, should always be an option.