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Why would anyone still use PayPal after so many cases of accounts being banned and funds being frozen for no reason, and all the other terrible stuff they've do
by Kwpolska 1mo ago
Why would anyone still use PayPal after so many cases of accounts being banned and funds being frozen for no reason, and all the other terrible stuff they've done?
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- rciorba 1mo agoCritical mass? I had to start using it after moving to Germany, because everyone else expects you to use it. One of the ladies at daycare is leaving? Here's a paypal link to chip in for a good-bye present. Split a take-out order with a German friend, but he paid? Here's his paypal to send him your share. It's just assumed that everyone has paypal over here...
- iammrpayments 1mo agoThought they use Sepa
- netsharc 1mo agoSEPA uses your IBAN (account number), and one can also enter this account number for payment, implicitly allowing the store to withdraw money from it...
- fuzzy2 1mo agoWell yes. But just in case this wasn't clear: this is a crime, and you will get your money back in most cases. It's on the merchant to ensure a Direct Debit Mandate is actually valid.
- master-lincoln 1mo agoI do not think it is possible to withdraw money having only an IBAN. It would need a SEPA direct debit mandate for my bank to accept the transfer request.
- crote 1mo agoIBANs aren't secret, they have the same level of confidentiality as your address or birth date. One-off SEPA Direct Debit is virtually unheard of, recurring payments are a bit more common but usually involve a €0,01 payment to prove ownership of the account. The transactions are also trivial to undo, and can only be initiated by companies. So no, "IBAN fraud" isn't a thing in practice. You can safely share your IBAN with your friends for instant free wire transfers.
- c7b 1mo agoYou must be referring to SEPA Direct Debit, which would be very risky to use to siphon funds. There's an 8 week no-questions-asked refund policy, 13 months for unauthorized transactions, if the payment fails (eg due to insufficient balance), the payee is charged a non-refundable cancelation fee. [0] And that's all separate from any legal troubles for fraudulent charges. I don't know why Germans use PayPal over SEPA, but I'd be surprised if SEPA Direct Debit was the reason. [0] https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-direct-debit https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-direc...
- skinfaxi 1mo agoThat sounds like the same info on a check, which people hand out freely. I'm probably misunderstanding.
- rciorba 1mo agoSepa is how my kid's daycare debits me each month, or how I transfer money to other accounts (most bills are direct-debit, but sometimes I get a one-off invoice and I have to transfer the money myself). But for the small person-to-person type thing, paypal is the defacto here (sadly).
- mr_mitm 1mo agoI wish. The small inconvenience of putting in an IBAN and a matching name instead of just an email address is already enough for many people to default to paypal. Just happened to me again yesterday, the guy preferred to bring cash next time we see each other instead of just receiving my info via text.
- carlosjobim 1mo ago"The guy" probably let you know in a polite way that you were behaving immaturely. You're not supposed to ask your friends for money to split bills etc. The way grown ups do it is "I pay this time, you pay next time".
- socksy 1mo agoThis is not how German culture works.
- mr_mitm 1mo agoNo, he didn't. He offered to cover a case of beer for after our game at the park, but he didn't have a car, so he asked me to bring it and he'll pay for it. Afterwards he came to me (I never brought up the topic of money) and asked for my Paypal details. How am I in the wrong here? The whole "I pay this time you pay next time" is already covered by "everybody brings a case once in a while", but if the guys without cars just ask someone else to pay for it when it's their turn it won't add up. If you're going to make assumptions, perhaps start with those that don't paint me in a bad light.
- carlosjobim 1mo agoYou weren't in the wrong, he was. He shouldn't have asked somebody to pay for something and bring it if he didn't have the money at hand to cover for it. PayPal isn't real money in this case. If this was a long time friend, I'd let it slide. It's just a case of beer, and in Germany beer is dirt cheap. If this was a new acquaintance, I'd let it slide and take note that it's not a person to make friends with. > If you're going to make assumptions, perhaps start with those that don't paint me in a bad light. Good point. But all of this isn't a problem of payment systems, but of people's behaviour.
- cloudie78 1mo agoTime to start heralding change you want to see. Offer Wero instead. It’s really simple.
- OroPla 1mo agoAs a German that never has encountered PayPal in the wild and doesn't have a Paypal account either, your narration requires elaboration to be believable.
- dewey 1mo agoI'm not doubting you but I have a hard time believing that, as I see it all the time. Sometimes restaurants even accept it if they don't take card and then ask you to send to their private PayPal account as a fallback. It's even part of many German memes around the German way of always splitting the bills, even if it's just < 5 euros.
- OroPla 1mo agoWhat you are describing sounds like a weird alternative reality. I never heard of always splitting bills, either. But it's not exactly a homogeneous country. To the point everyone jokes that Bavaria isn't even German, for example. Depending on which state you are in, your experience can be vastly different. All the states used to be kinda independent two hundred years ago. Including having different currencies. Unification happened 1871. Bismarck and later Hitler kinda brought the nation together, but after losing two world wars national pride got frowned upon and having the iron curtain cut through the country didn't help in fostering a German identity, either. Reunification was only 36 years ago. Though, about a third to maybe half of the German territory remains lost after losing the wars. Instead we got the EU. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's always funny to see foreigners make fun of German supposed clichés that I never had any exposure to whatsoever, like Lederhosen, which is only a thing in Southern Germany.
- drdexebtjl 1mo ago“I don’t use paypal, here’s cash”
- DemetriousJones 1mo agoI simply use it as an intermediary between my bank and any website I don't fully trust
- fg137 1mo agoI use "virtual card" for those needs. For me, it doesn't justify bringing out PayPal
- dylan604 1mo agoI've had to use it when my bank's purchase limits did not allow for card (virtual or real), but the same purchase was allowed when going through PayPal. It was annoying AF, but was much faster than contacting my bank and getting permission to spend my money.
- iamnothere 1mo agoPrivacy.com is a better option, but some merchants block it.
- k4rli 1mo agoSo both Paypal and Visa/Mastercard get a cut of every transaction. At least with a regular virtual card Paypal isn't getting their cut. Having Paypal as a middleman will make chargeback requests harder as well since they likely need to be negotiated with before the actual card issuing bank.
- vlyan 1mo agobecause global-ish exchange of goods and services for money is a deliberately convoluted experience that only a handful of well-connected entities are allowed to facilitate, which enables each and every one of them to put "we reserve the right to fuck you in the ass for any or no reason" in their ToS.
- dewey 1mo agoEasy to say when you are in a country where you have a lot of options. There's some countries with very bad financial sector where your option is PayPal or Western Union as the local banks don't know how to do international transfers, Remitly doesn't support all countries and Wise also doesn't work. PayPal works, even if they charge fees.
- cloudie78 1mo agoWhich countries have local banks that don’t know how to do international transfers?
- kalleboo 1mo agoMy local banks know how to international transfers but I have to go into a bank office and fill out a paper form. Receiving international transfers they call and ask if I wish to accept it, if I can't answer the phone right then the transfer gets delayed. If the sender does not include my middle name, I have to come into the office and sign an affidavit that this person with this different name is also me. Each time.
- cloudie78 1mo agoThank you for sharing your experience. I don’t know what your local banks are and what country you’re talking about.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- dewey 1mo agoWe were having a lot of problems with that in Honduras, staff in the branch did not know how to do that, fees are extremely high and sometimes the bank system is just offline and you get sent home. There's a reason all these alternatives like Western Union etc. exist for this remittance use case. It was a big reality check for me usually living in Germany and having access to a lot of banks and modern neo-banks.
- qingcharles 1mo agoFor the unbanked, PayPal is like Chime and Cash App. A quick way to be able to deposit incomings and get a debit card where you can spend them.