4 ms·

But then you risk becoming another horror story of Paypal if things go wrong.

by lowboy 14y ago

dangrossman 14y ago
Statistically, things do not often go wrong with PayPal. The number of "horror stories" is extremely low for a payment service with hundreds of millions of accounts and $145 billion in payment volume. Regardless, the idea here is to be quick and dirty to accept occasional payments. There's no risk there since you can immediately withdraw the payment. If your account gets closed, who cares. You don't need a Stripe account, a Heroku app, and devops knowledge when copying and pasting a PayPal button or telling someone to send money to your e-mail would suffice.
- kamaal 14y ago
  In my last company a VP once told us, when you do a good job- customers don't feel a need to tell you about it. They just assume things are going right and let it run that way. But when you do something wrong they generally want to make it clear. That is what is happening with PayPal here. No one feels the need to write something good about them when everything is going right(Even if that is happening all the time). One genuinely dissatisfied customer can bring you a lot of bad name(Even if sometimes that is purely an exception).
  - ed209 14y ago
    The PayPal horror stories are just the problems that people shout about and that go viral. In fact the problems with PayPal are much more wide spread. I'd say that PayPal got lazy because no one has challenged them. As a result they still have an underinvested product that is painful to use. I've used paypal as a merchant/developer on many products and on my latest project I actually decided not to bother charging customers until Stripe arrived in the UK (which it now has). It's not that people don't feel the need to write something good about PayPal, it's that there's very little good to write about PayPal. (not to detract from what PayPal originally did, which was monumental at the time, but they rested on their laurels)
- lowboy 14y ago
  Yes, they might be relatively low, but the way they handle account freezes just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I understand wanting to prevent fraud, but it seems like they catch a lot of innocent people and force them to prove that the money was obtained legitimately. Guilty until proven innocent.
  - sabat 14y ago
    Exactly: as a businessperson, are you really going to take the risk (even if small) that Paypal will, effectively, steal your money?
yen223 14y ago
Paypal is infinitely better than Stripe for me, simply because Stripe doesn't work outside US/Canada.
munimkazia 14y ago
Right now, as an Indian user, Stripe is just something I read about in HN. Paypal is a service which I can use and it works quite well. Nothing against Stripe though. They are still young, and expanding in other countries requires a lot of complicated regulatory work.
saravk 14y ago
I'd be interested in reading about some of the horror stories that developers selling digital goods (paid subscriptions, digital downloads etc) have had with Paypal. Any pointers? As a developer outside US, Paypal is pretty much the only option available to my startup (selling paid subscriptions to a blogging platform). But it would be good to hear about some issues developers have had with Paypal so that i could try to avoid them.
- lowboy 14y ago
  http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/21/technology/paypal-frozen-funds/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/21/technology/paypal-frozen-fun... http://conferencesburnedbypaypal.tumblr.com/ http://conferencesburnedbypaypal.tumblr.com/ http://elliotjaystocks.com/blog/good-riddance-paypal/ http://elliotjaystocks.com/blog/good-riddance-paypal/ http://open-source-scotland.com/2012/news/oss2012-is-hereby-cancelled/ http://open-source-scotland.com/2012/news/oss2012-is-hereby-... http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/2013/01/paypal-guilty-until-proven-innocent-account-freeze/ http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/2013/01/paypal-guilty-until-prov... http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103385-PayPal-Freezes-750K-in-MineCraft-Devs-Account http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103385-PayPal-Free...
  - saravk 14y ago
    Thanks for the links.

But then you risk becoming another horror story of Paypal if things go wrong.

by lowboy 14y ago

But then you risk becoming another horror story of Paypal if things go wrong.

Statistically, things do not often go wrong with PayPal. The number of "horror stories" is extremely low for a payment service with hundreds of millions of accounts and $145 billion in payment volume. Regardless, the idea here is to be quick and dirty to accept occasional payments. There's no risk there since you can immediately withdraw the payment. If your account gets closed, who cares. You don't need a Stripe account, a Heroku app, and devops knowledge when copying and pasting a PayPal button or telling someone to send money to your e-mail would suffice.

kamaal 14y ago
In my last company a VP once told us, when you do a good job- customers don't feel a need to tell you about it. They just assume things are going right and let it run that way. But when you do something wrong they generally want to make it clear. That is what is happening with PayPal here. No one feels the need to write something good about them when everything is going right(Even if that is happening all the time). One genuinely dissatisfied customer can bring you a lot of bad name(Even if sometimes that is purely an exception).
- ed209 14y ago
  The PayPal horror stories are just the problems that people shout about and that go viral. In fact the problems with PayPal are much more wide spread. I'd say that PayPal got lazy because no one has challenged them. As a result they still have an underinvested product that is painful to use. I've used paypal as a merchant/developer on many products and on my latest project I actually decided not to bother charging customers until Stripe arrived in the UK (which it now has). It's not that people don't feel the need to write something good about PayPal, it's that there's very little good to write about PayPal. (not to detract from what PayPal originally did, which was monumental at the time, but they rested on their laurels)
lowboy 14y ago
Yes, they might be relatively low, but the way they handle account freezes just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I understand wanting to prevent fraud, but it seems like they catch a lot of innocent people and force them to prove that the money was obtained legitimately. Guilty until proven innocent.
- sabat 14y ago
  Exactly: as a businessperson, are you really going to take the risk (even if small) that Paypal will, effectively, steal your money?

yen223 14y ago

Paypal is infinitely better than Stripe for me, simply because Stripe doesn't work outside US/Canada.

munimkazia 14y ago

Right now, as an Indian user, Stripe is just something I read about in HN. Paypal is a service which I can use and it works quite well. Nothing against Stripe though. They are still young, and expanding in other countries requires a lot of complicated regulatory work.

saravk 14y ago

I'd be interested in reading about some of the horror stories that developers selling digital goods (paid subscriptions, digital downloads etc) have had with Paypal. Any pointers? As a developer outside US, Paypal is pretty much the only option available to my startup (selling paid subscriptions to a blogging platform). But it would be good to hear about some issues developers have had with Paypal so that i could try to avoid them.

lowboy 14y ago
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/21/technology/paypal-frozen-funds/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/21/technology/paypal-frozen-fun... http://conferencesburnedbypaypal.tumblr.com/ http://conferencesburnedbypaypal.tumblr.com/ http://elliotjaystocks.com/blog/good-riddance-paypal/ http://elliotjaystocks.com/blog/good-riddance-paypal/ http://open-source-scotland.com/2012/news/oss2012-is-hereby-cancelled/ http://open-source-scotland.com/2012/news/oss2012-is-hereby-... http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/2013/01/paypal-guilty-until-proven-innocent-account-freeze/ http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/2013/01/paypal-guilty-until-prov... http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103385-PayPal-Freezes-750K-in-MineCraft-Devs-Account http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103385-PayPal-Free...
- saravk 14y ago
  Thanks for the links.