Www.paypalwarning.com .

Paypal is like any other tool. It needs to be used carefully. It is possible to accept payments through and purchase with Paypal quite successfully. We have been doing it for 3 years now. Just be sure to read the fine print and know their rules.

Aiden, I'll add to what Bobbie wrote: I have used PayPal for more than six years (before it was purchased by ebay) and have never had a problem. While I am only one person and my sample size is not statistically significant except to me, I think the majority of people who use PayPal have had no problems. If there was, in fact, a significant number of people who were distressed by PayPal and ceased using it, then we can bet our sweet bippies that ebay would dump or radically change PayPal in a heartbeat.

The paypalwarning site is a collection of horror stories which, I am certain because I have a few such stories myself, are the same stories as may be found at any bank. People make mistakes at banks, get burned, then blame the institution rather than themselves. I'm still upset a little at my own bank for not notifying me of a change of policy which cost me a little money; my own fault says the bank since I didn't check the website for changes (I do not check each of my 6000 bookmarks for changes very often) and I didn't read my postal mail (which I receive only about once per month). Occasionally, the bank is actually wrong and will rectify the situation as will PayPal. Further, although the paypalwarning.com site is certainly educational, it really cannot provide any assistance to those who feel they have been wronged; I believe the main purpose of the site is to permit people to blow off steam. I also suspect a significant number of people who have problems with PayPal also have problems at their own bank.

I trust PayPal enough (as much as I trust any financial institution: as long as they play by their own rules and don't change their rules on me in mid-transaction) that most of my sales auctions are PayPal only and I almost never buy anything unless I can do so by PayPal.

Fred

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Bobby & Fred,I don't have a Paypal account,but I do know someone who has been burnt by Paypal,

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You don't supply any details of this "burning" though.

Odds are he burned himself by not following the TOS.

Aidan, what were the circumstances? Did the seller send his package with Delivery Confirmation? Did he ship to a confirmed US address only? What exactly happened?

Fred,

The Seller Protection Policy states that a seller is only protected if the item is shipped to a confirmed US address with delivery confirmation.

When they started confirming addresses overseas, this understandably angered many overseas buyers who had confirmed addresses as Paypal did not change their Seller Protection Policy to include confirmed international addresses as eligible for Seller Protection.

If a seller ships against the TOS in the Seller Protection Policy and the buyer states that he/she didn't receive it, the buyer will automatically win any dispute. This is how sellers' accounts were being charged back. They don't follow the TOS; the buyer may or may not have received the package and complains to Paypal; Paypal awards the money to the buyer...QED.

In actuality, there was a time in the early days after ebay bought Paypal that they were able to freeze the verified bank accounts attached to Paypal accounts. I think it was about 6 months ago (possibly a lot longer - my memory is just not very good these days) that the rules were changed and Paypal is not permitted to do this any longer.