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What's the best alternative? It's easy to say "don't use PayPal" but if you're going to say it, you need to do the hard part of suggesting a viable alternative

by 0xEF 1y ago

What's the best alternative? It's easy to say "don't use PayPal" but if you're going to say it, you need to do the hard part of suggesting a viable alternative for eCommerce that has as broad a reach and acceptance as PayPal. Stripe? Almost none of the outlets I do business with use it. Venmo? Same company as PayPal. Back to using credit card numbers? The more we spread those around online, the higher the chance they get stolen and used, probably in refund scams like the one OP describes. People need an alternative with some degree of trust and most consumers, by my reckoning anyway, would prefer a single entity that is accepted everywhere. Right now, that's unfortunately PayPal.

herbst 1y ago
Personally I've had way less issues with stripe, especially in terms of fraud detection. Also not sure what and where business is but in Europe it's common to just use a proxy provider where credit card is just one of many options and you use a central gateway (similar to stripe) You'd have to check your local options. At least one of my local banks offers something more advanced than PayPal. And there are several of these proxy providers in my country. Edit:// if you just want low fee, fast and risk free transactions we all know there is only crypto
- K0balt 1y ago
  Yeah. It’s ridiculous how crypto gets so much hate here, yet there are constant, often heart wrenching posts about the failures and even near-malfeasance of payment processing systems. The paradoxical claims that crypto has no use case except fraud and crime, juxtaposed with the lamentation and gnashing of teeth over the misery of traditional payment systems is enough to provoke an existential examination of the senses. I honestly think it must be mostly sour grapes, since by far, cash and other traditional payment methods facilitate the vast, vast majority of crime and fraud, and cryptocurrency is the only universally accessible, trustless, (nearly) costless, instant, global system for the transfer of value between two parties. It is by far a better system, even with its flaws. Which is why, yes, many criminals use it, just as they use cash. Because it works.
  - asterix_pano 1y ago
    I am also amazed by the resistance to change here as there is a system clearly more efficient and transparent. It's just a matter of time in my opinion. BTW you can remove the (nearly) in "(nearly) costless", some solutions provide 0 fees and no inflation.
    - axelthegerman 1y ago
      By more efficient you mean taking hours to settle? And no inflation as in Bitcoin level volatility and up? I'd love an efficient and cheap option to move funds online - especially for micro payments too. But so far I haven't heard of any crypto option that actually stayed around long enough to prove these things. Happy to be pointed in the right direction here.
      - K0balt 1y ago
        Stablecoins on any number of low cost networks are fine for small payments (I haven’t lost anything, not even $0.01 in 10+years, vs tens of thousands in chargebacks, mostly fraudulent, for credit card processors). I factor in 2.5% total costs for transaction frictions, historically that is a bit over 3x our actual average cost from payer to bank account, but it would easily cover the occasional loss of a day or two of sales in a catastrophe. Pick a top 5 stablecoin that has a good reputation and at least 3 years, on a network with at least that, and settle your accounts daily, or whenever the accumulation represents a significant dent if lost. The approximate aggregate risk-cost of major (top 10) stablecoins is somewhere south of .001% per day, and is better than the aggregate risk-cost of national fiat currencies, which unremarkably collapse or suffer catastrophic inflation and rebasing on a regular basis. There are frequently several undergoing this process at any given time.
        jcalvinowens 1y ago
        > The approximate aggregate risk-cost of major (top 10) stablecoins is somewhere south of .001% per day, and is better than the aggregate risk-cost of national fiat currencies This thinking is dangerous and stupid. Learn from history: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday This "stablecoin" garbage needs to die yesterday: a lot of people are going to lose their shirt when the first one blows up. Fixing exchange rates is folly, yet here we go again...
cess11 1y ago
What's wrong with Trustly, Adyen and others among the ~40 alternatives we maintained integrations with at the casino operator I was working at almost ten years ago?
- 0xEF 1y ago
  Haven't heard of them at all, that's what's wrong. They may be great services, of course, being that I, a single consumer, am not a barometer for the success of a payment platform. But whoever they are, they're not being used by major retailers, distributors or manufacturers that I shop with both personally and professionally.
  - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
    Adyen are everywhere for in-person payments where I live (Ireland). Worldpay/Stripe seem to be the most common providers for ecommerce. More generally, payments are painful so finding a good provider is very, very important.
  - cess11 1y ago
    IIRC Ebay uses Adyen. I think Paypal uses Trustly in some significant markets. I don't know why they didn't show up early in your research, as they are among the most well known and easy to find. Ingrid is lesser known and mostly active in e-commerce in the european markets.

by 0xEF 1y ago

herbst 1y ago

Personally I've had way less issues with stripe, especially in terms of fraud detection. Also not sure what and where business is but in Europe it's common to just use a proxy provider where credit card is just one of many options and you use a central gateway (similar to stripe) You'd have to check your local options. At least one of my local banks offers something more advanced than PayPal. And there are several of these proxy providers in my country. Edit:// if you just want low fee, fast and risk free transactions we all know there is only crypto

K0balt 1y ago
Yeah. It’s ridiculous how crypto gets so much hate here, yet there are constant, often heart wrenching posts about the failures and even near-malfeasance of payment processing systems. The paradoxical claims that crypto has no use case except fraud and crime, juxtaposed with the lamentation and gnashing of teeth over the misery of traditional payment systems is enough to provoke an existential examination of the senses. I honestly think it must be mostly sour grapes, since by far, cash and other traditional payment methods facilitate the vast, vast majority of crime and fraud, and cryptocurrency is the only universally accessible, trustless, (nearly) costless, instant, global system for the transfer of value between two parties. It is by far a better system, even with its flaws. Which is why, yes, many criminals use it, just as they use cash. Because it works.
- asterix_pano 1y ago
  I am also amazed by the resistance to change here as there is a system clearly more efficient and transparent. It's just a matter of time in my opinion. BTW you can remove the (nearly) in "(nearly) costless", some solutions provide 0 fees and no inflation.
  - axelthegerman 1y ago
    By more efficient you mean taking hours to settle? And no inflation as in Bitcoin level volatility and up? I'd love an efficient and cheap option to move funds online - especially for micro payments too. But so far I haven't heard of any crypto option that actually stayed around long enough to prove these things. Happy to be pointed in the right direction here.
    - K0balt 1y ago
      Stablecoins on any number of low cost networks are fine for small payments (I haven’t lost anything, not even $0.01 in 10+years, vs tens of thousands in chargebacks, mostly fraudulent, for credit card processors). I factor in 2.5% total costs for transaction frictions, historically that is a bit over 3x our actual average cost from payer to bank account, but it would easily cover the occasional loss of a day or two of sales in a catastrophe. Pick a top 5 stablecoin that has a good reputation and at least 3 years, on a network with at least that, and settle your accounts daily, or whenever the accumulation represents a significant dent if lost. The approximate aggregate risk-cost of major (top 10) stablecoins is somewhere south of .001% per day, and is better than the aggregate risk-cost of national fiat currencies, which unremarkably collapse or suffer catastrophic inflation and rebasing on a regular basis. There are frequently several undergoing this process at any given time.
      - jcalvinowens 1y ago
        > The approximate aggregate risk-cost of major (top 10) stablecoins is somewhere south of .001% per day, and is better than the aggregate risk-cost of national fiat currencies This thinking is dangerous and stupid. Learn from history: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday This "stablecoin" garbage needs to die yesterday: a lot of people are going to lose their shirt when the first one blows up. Fixing exchange rates is folly, yet here we go again...

cess11 1y ago

What's wrong with Trustly, Adyen and others among the ~40 alternatives we maintained integrations with at the casino operator I was working at almost ten years ago?

0xEF 1y ago
Haven't heard of them at all, that's what's wrong. They may be great services, of course, being that I, a single consumer, am not a barometer for the success of a payment platform. But whoever they are, they're not being used by major retailers, distributors or manufacturers that I shop with both personally and professionally.
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago
  Adyen are everywhere for in-person payments where I live (Ireland). Worldpay/Stripe seem to be the most common providers for ecommerce. More generally, payments are painful so finding a good provider is very, very important.
- cess11 1y ago
  IIRC Ebay uses Adyen. I think Paypal uses Trustly in some significant markets. I don't know why they didn't show up early in your research, as they are among the most well known and easy to find. Ingrid is lesser known and mostly active in e-commerce in the european markets.