Comment I left over at the article: I began using Paypal right when they launched, when it was an application for beaming payments over the IR ports of Palm Pi

Comment I left over at the article: I began using Paypal right when they launched, when it was an application for beaming payments over the IR ports of Palm Pilots (remember that?!). I continued to use Paypal after they migrated to web payments and discontinued the Palm support. About four or five years ago I became hugely disillusioned with Paypal and never use it, and refuse to support it at my two ecommerce companies. Why? As a customer: * Supporting Paypal is a signaling mechanism. It says "I am too rinky dink to get a merchant account". * The dispute resolution process drags a third party in. * The account can be frozen. * The appeals process is laborious and indeterminate. * There are too many steps at checkout. * Paypal wants to force me to upgrade to a full verified account. I have to supply too much information. I have to wait for 2 deposits to clear, then report their sizes. * Even for the 1-off "act as a merchant account" process flow, if I try to use a credit card that has previously been registered with Paypal as a full account, Paypal will NOT LET ME do the one-off transaction; I have to come up with a (long forgotten) password to the Paypal account. * There are about 50 more user-interface horrors that I don't recall right now, but I would seriously (seriously!) hit my fingers with a framing hammer before I would use Paypal again. I don't have emotional reactions to most brands. Apple? Eh. Windows? Sort of dislike it. Amazon? Sort of like it. ... Paypal? HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE. As a merchant (http://Smartflix.com http://Smartflix.com and http://HeavyInk.com http://HeavyInk.com), I won't use Paypal because * all of the above * crappy admin interface * crappy interface to delegate rights to other employees * fear of having funds frozen * inability to re-charge a credit card for follow in transactions (unreturned DVDs, late fees, etc.) I wish Paypal nothing but death. --- Travis Corcoran, President http://SmartFlix.com http://SmartFlix.com "What do you want to learn today?"