I recently added the option to receive credit card payments from my customers via PayPal. Has anyone here ever had any problems with PayPal? I've heard they can hold on to your money for a while sometimes.

I have never had a problem sending or receiving money
through Paypal

Bill,

You'd better check it out more thoroughly. I remember PayPal making an announcement that they would NOT permit the use of their service for firearms-related transactions.

George

I do alot of ebay business, never have any problem sending or receiving payments or getting the money transferred to my bank account. Better check the fees carefully though, they nickel and dime you to death.

Cant be any worse than a standard Visa setup........or is it?

If they have to send money to Banks in the wilderness areas of Washington ( NE part of the state) where the banks are not on internet service and the only way of information is by Pony Express, then it costs $42 per transaction and part of the horse feed, including having them being shod.

I run an on-line store plus several ebay auctions a day for ruger related gun parts. I have had problems with them killing auctions for what they thought were law violations, but these problems were quickly resolved. As for holding money, paypal transactions usually take 3 to 4 business days to get from paypal to your bank, but the holding of your funds for weeks or months usually only happens if you are cheating people and get caught (via chargebacks, etc.) or sell porn, and then it is paypays actions that hold up your funds.

I used Pay Pal only once to buy a small education related product and our credit card was billed $500 twice for a total of $1000 over the price of the goods.

This resulted in some distress for me and them. The final chapter on that is we got the $1000 back into our credit card after many months and Pay Pal lost a class action lawsuit.

We got a $50 settlement out of that.

I read that PayPal has new owners now.

Bill,

Here is the section of the User Agreement I was referring to: "Acceptable Use Policy"

George

Beware. If you ship to ANY address, other than the "confirmed" address for the buyer, PayPal can and will charge you back regardless if you can prove they received your product.

I shipped a rifle barrel to a fellow about six months ago, have a signed receipt from UPS where HE signed for it, and an email thanking me for the product. A little less than 60 days later, I get a chargeback notification from PayPal, asking for all the details of the transaction.

I explained what the product was(mistake), who signed for it, when, and forwarded scanned copies of all the documents. Not good enough, since I didn't ship to the "confirmed" address, I was out my money. With no recourse, other than taking them to court.

Interestingly enough, I called the fellow...who claimed he never initiated it. I think the website is www.paypalsucks.com where there are several people that claim gun related transactions on PayPal are regularly "tried on", like I was to discourage the use.

Be careful....

I dont sell guns. Just gunstocks.

1) the true purpose of paypal's "verification" process is to give them legal access to the funds in your bank account. If you get in a dispute over a paypal transaction, they may seize the money in your bank account. Hasn't happened to me, but I've heard stories. Protect yourself by keeping your real bank accounts seperate from the "verified" account, and keep a minimum balance in the verified account.

2) now there are some employees at paypal who have access to your bank account information. Do you trust them? Last year, someone in Romania tapped into my bank account to the tune of $1800. I can't prove anything, but paypal employees are the most likely culprit.

To be fair to paypal, the same things can be said of most credit card merchants.

I wouldn't worry about the firearms issue.

I had so many troubles that I quit using them. All my ebay purchases have accepted a Money Order, so that's what I use.

Mike

My wife and I sell all our old stuff on ebay, clothes, gun parts, toys, shoes etc. I have only been screwed once when I sent an item out before I got paid. The person said they really needed the parts for a motorcycle and needed to pay with a money order. So on good faith I sent out the exhaust 2 years later still no money.

As stated above only ship to the certified address.

I have a paypal account and I am going to close it after reading their "Acceptable Use Policy". Bill, as you know, I also do not sell rifles, only stocks but I will not support any company that treats law abiding gun owners as criminals. AOL did the same thing with gun owners and closed my web site because they thought I was selling guns. The had a list that included selling firearms and everything else on the list was illegal.

It is a much lower threshold for a tiny biz to take paypal.

The consumer has very little recourse with paypal.
With Visa Mastercard, you can always win with the satisfaction guarantee.

So... do you trust the little back yard operation?
Trust is something I believe should be built incrementally.
Don't buy something from a new source for $10k with paypal.

--
Be careful what you pray for, it can happen.

There is one other thing about paypal. One generally has to have it linked to a bank account to get the best functionality. I deliberately keep little money in that linked account(s), so if paypal security or my password is ever comprimised I won't lose too much money.

In case of online theft, I could probably get my money back from the bank, but I am sure it would be an uphill fight.

Bottom line is this, money talks, bullshit walks. I pay with a money order, and accept only money orders or a certified check. No bullshit, no problems. Bogus deals involving MO's can lead to possible mail fraud allegations.

I bought a dozen die sets over a coupld months on Ebay. I would get a cashier's check from the bank in 10 minutes round trip from my house for a gun, but for piddly stuff, the paypal is faster.

Bill, stay away form paypal. I have experience both as a vendor and a customer. Long story short, data being obtained by non authorized sources, which info could have only resided with paypal, overcharges of fees and nonpayment of several sale proceeds.

As a customer I have had unauthorized inquiries on my credit, overcharges and illegal account accessing all courtesy of paypal.

After substantial legal fees (approaching 10k) I ended up about square at the end of the day in regards to legal action, but am out the time and frustration factor, as well as the reworking of several accounts to offer some protection from unauthorized access.

Wow...I am a little freaked out with these horror stories..and here is why..
I do over 2,000 gun part transactions a year via paypal (98% as a seller). I have NEVER had any accounts tampered with. I do get a ton of bogus emails everyday attempting to gain access to my account info and passwords, which I never reply to. Most are sent to my ebay email address and none use my real name.
Of over 2,000 transactions on paypal in the last year I only had trouble with ONE transaction. In that case, it was made with a stolen credit card. Paypal held the funds up (on that item only) for a few days while they investigated. Then released the funds to me (yep, they paid me for an item I sold to someone using a stolen card).
So from my experience, if you keep your vital information known ONLY to yourself, paypal is first rate.
Bob

quote:

Originally posted by ruger22com:
Wow...I am a little freaked out with these horror stories..and here is why..
I do over 2,000 gun part transactions a year via paypal (98% as a seller). I have NEVER had any accounts tampered with. I do get a ton of bogus emails everyday attempting to gain access to my account info and passwords, which I never reply to. Most are sent to my ebay email address and none use my real name.
Of over 2,000 transactions on paypal in the last year I only had trouble with ONE transaction.
So from my experience, if you keep your vital information known ONLY to yourself, paypal is first rate.
Bob

You've been extremely lucky!!! You really need to go read some on Paypalsucks.com. I had an account with them as a small business. Only I used the account and only Paypal had the bank account info.One day I noticed that there had been 3 withdrawals from the account of $1500 each. I hadn't purchased anything. I called Paypal and was given the "story"that someone had hacked into Ebay and gotten my information. I even provided them with the Paypal transaction numbers. The were no help at all to me. A loss like that can cripple a small business. My bank eventually resolved the situation. It was Paypals fault since their story about Ebay was false, very poor security. I will never use them again. They have many problems, why do you think there was a class action lawsuit against them that they lost??If I were you, I would run..........

Run, run, run away, as fast as you can...I've been selling online for several years now...And I now REFUSE to accept Paypal. Fortunately, I've only had minor problems with them, but I know others that have had major problems. I won't get into lengthy details here, but as mentioned, on thing you are doing is giving them access and the ability to withdraw money from your account , at will. If someone protests a charge, they can essentially "freeze" your bank account (Seen it happen).
BEFORE USING PayPal you might wanna check out: PayPalWarning.com, and the Paypal Victims Club on Yahoo!!!!!!!
Note that I (and a bunch of other people that used to use PayPal) are involved in a class-action suit against them.
Hope that this answers your question!