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I haven't seen the developer side of it, but from the consumer POV in Germany, it hardly looks like a wasteland. There are a couple of services like Moneybooker
by morsch 15y ago
I haven't seen the developer side of it, but from the consumer POV in Germany, it hardly looks like a wasteland. There are a couple of services like Moneybookers, ClickandBuy, which are very PayPal-like.
There are also a few services circumventing both money "escrow" (not sure if the term is applicable) and the credit card companies by interfacing directly with your bank deposits, either directly (using your PIN/TAN, which you have to give to them, which seems insane) or through cooperation with the banks.
Fewer people over here have credit cards, which has lead to a different landscape. For many things, simple bank transfers are a viable payment option, too, as they are typically very fast (with ever shortening legal limits to how long they may take).
- weavejester 15y agoI haven't had a great experience with Moneybookers. I asked a question about their business account, and in response they shut down personal account without notice. They eventually changed their mind when I pointed out they'd violated their own terms of service, but it wasn't handled very well.
- morsch 15y agoI didn't like ClickandBuy very much, either. IIRC I used them to pay using credit card, and when I got a refund from the merchant, of course the money ended up in the CnB account. I almost forgot about the money and had to pay some stupid fee to get them to close the account and transfer the money to my bank account. Not more than a few Euros, but I still felt cheated and more than that, it was a hassle. As I said they're similar to PayPal. ;)
- zobzu 15y agoGermany is a special country. In germany you can have direct, instant bank transfers, through internet. And that's free. No fees. So that's like paypal, but faster, more secure, cheaper also. Many use that. I know PostBank makes <1min transfers, as I used to be a customer not long ago, for example.
- jsilence 15y agoIf you are below 50 Ebay-Points they force you to accept Paypal payments. They even have a semi decent parser that does not permit statements like "I don't accept Paypal payments" in the Ebay offer. Even if you manage to mangle a statement like that into your offer, chances are the buyer simply transfers the money via Paypal because he did not read the text. Happend two out of two times. Made me jump out of my skin each time. By now I hate Ebay and Paypal so much, I stopped selling my yardsale-stuff there. Will go to the next flea-market and sell there. Person to person. Waiting for an alternative auctioning platform.
- gnosis 15y agoIt's not an auction site, but Craigslist is a pretty good place to buy and sell used stuff. I've had pretty good luck both buying and selling things through it. Last I checked, the listings were free too (except for real estate).
- jsilence 15y agoUnfortunately we don't have Craigslist in Europe. AFAIK there is no viable alternative to Ebay right now.
- Samuel_Michon 15y agoIt may not be available where you live, but there are lively Craigslists for most of the major cities in Europe: Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Edinburgh, Florence, London, Munich, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Rome, Stockholm, Venice, and others. http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites#EU http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites#EU
- speleding 15y agoA lot new businesses, especially SaaS like services, need recurring payments and only PayPal offers those. For one-off payments there are indeed a lot of alternatives but few are available world-wide.