About 3 or 4 years ago PayPal added the option to buy cryptocurrency, which I thought I’d try. (Dumb idea 🙄)
Part of the sign up process was glitched. I retried and clicked submit one too many times, I guess. Now I’ve been unable to use PayPal for years. They blocked me because THEIR SITE was broken, but the web page essentially accuses me of being a criminal and asks for my bank records. No way in hell.
This was just for me to pay others. I can only imagine how awful PayPal is if you are a vendor.
Fuck PayPal.
Someone in Norway has the same name as me, and they made a PayPal account. They accidentally used my email during signup and I got some weird emails in Norwegian. So I called PayPal. I asked them to change the email. “You can’t, because it’s not your account, you just admitted”. Uh, ok. Can you close the account? “It’s not your account”. Can you contact the account owner and tell them to fix it? “We don’t have their email”. Can I use account recovery and close it? “Then you would be breaking into someone else’s account”.
So what should I do? PayPal put a notice on the account in case they log in, and told me to just ignore the emails. I was baffled. Just ignore the emails? Stop sending them then! But there really isn’t anything I can do. I tried account recovery anyway, but it didn’t work.
They never logged in I think. They probably made another account with the correct details and never thought about this one. So I’ve been getting the “our terms and conditions have changed” email once or twice a year and ignoring them. They’re still in Norwegian.
I just looked it up, this has been going on since 2015. Maybe I should contact PayPal again and tell them how ridiculous they’ve been.
Report them to the CFPB. They’re forced to have an actual human review and respond.
I just wanted to share the story.
Oh, gotcha. Yeah they are shitheads. It honestly should be illegal to make an account for someone using an unverified email.
It may not be your account, but it is your email.
Dumb of them that they didn’t just remove the email address.
Same thing happened to me. Someone created an account with an email alias i never use. After calling Paypal and getting the same answer you received. I was finally able to use the forgot password feature to log in and close the account.
What is the use case for PayPal in the US? Here in Brazil we pay everything with credit card or bank transfer with a QR code. People can transfer money to you from any bank 24/7 instantaneously with just your email or phone number without any fees. Is that different in the US?
The banking system in the US is a legacy mess. Transfers still take business days to go through and making your bank account # and routing information available is actually a security concern, honestly I don’t even know why that’s still a thing.
Products like PayPal and Plaid try to provide something that is slightly more usable, but with this underlying obsolescence their functionality is very limited.
When paying for services, credit cards are still the way to do it. For P2P payments, people use PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and others. Nothing even close to a unified system like Pix in Brazil.
There is Zelle, which is instant bank to bank. It’s fairly widely available from one’s financial institution, and it doesn’t cost anything, but it’s not terribly well known yet for some reason
Zelle works pretty good, the main problem is the security limits.
Let’s say you hire somebody to build a shed for $5,000.
You can’t just pay him $5,000. The first day maybe you can pay him $1,000, then the next day you can pay him another $1,500, then you’ve reached the 30-day maximum for a new contact so you have to wait till day 31 to pay him the other $2,500. After that if you want another shed you can pay the $5,000 instantly.They named it after gazelle, which is a herd prey animal. That causes it to slip away from attention when it’s mentioned.
If they’d called in Bonko or something it would stand out in people’s memories more. Bonko, bright orange icon, it would spread by wildfire. Nobody would forget that name.
There are no hard consonants in the word. Synaesthetically, it’s a blue-purple word. Cool, muted. It’s a word that, even before the “gazelle” reference, is hiding there. Your mind slips over it without friction. It enters and leaves your mouth and your mind like a fish passing under the sparkling water, nearly unnoticed.
Terrible brand name. I mean, it does convey a little more safety than “Bonko” but the whole point with the unsafe sounding name is it causes the person to consciously ask “How safe is it?” and if you can answer that immediately with “Safer than Ft Knox” then it becomes part of the brand consciously.
Zelle is non-threatening, but that’s not the same thing as safe when it comes to business or finances.
What’s a good safe, energetic, competent, orange word for this service? Hmm. Bonus points if it’s intuitively self-descriptive.
How about “Paytag”. It’s yellow but whatever. Still might not be better than Bonko.
I want some of whatever you’re on
Bonko me $20 and I’ll send you some
Trango
There you fuckin go, that’s perfect!
Except it could be forgotten after just being heard once.
It’s a beautiful word. Gorgeously orange. With just a hint of collapsing chocolate cake.
Trango 👈👈
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It is until you end up having to blacklist zelle because your banking information was used to defraud someone. I actually had my account broken into, funds deposited from zelle and then all available funds removed from my account in the space of about an hour. Went to pay for something the day after and had to call my bank’s fraud department. They tried the same thing with a second account of mine but it was flagged immediately when they tried to use the same login credentials (they weren’t remotely the same). So no zelle for me. It’s permanently disabled by both my banks for security reasons.
Zelle blacklisted me for similar reasons as this guy lol
Aussie here. One reason I use PayPal is for subscriptions (streaming services etc) to avoid the headache of updating credit card details in multiple places when I change bank, credit card renews, etc. just change it in PayPal once and every subscription keeps working.
Why’d I never think of this?!
Why would any one use bank details that can’t be cancelled for online services? Pay pal is worse. Will hold your money ransom. Being able to cancel payment method is very important, best is unique payment method for each service.
Except that you can …
Edit: I get you. You mean multiple cards within PayPal itself per vendor. Yeah, that seems like similar effort but at least you can see everything in one portal. I have a single card linked with just enough limit to cover subscriptions and the odd internet purchase.
Good luck with that. Its got no guarantee of working and can be ignored and it does.
Paypal is cancerous middleman. You do not need and on those rare occasions where you want to risk the transaction, never link it to your bank account. Use disposable prepaid services.
Agree, where I live for recurring subscriptions most people use “digital credit cards” that you generate on your banking app and they have short expiration dates or you can cancel them and generate a new one anytime you want. That’s good because there are so many services that make it a pain in the ass to cancel a subscription so you just delete the card from existence.
Exactly!
I’m looking squarely at Adobe and other companys who fraudulently represent services, because nothing is a product any more and extorting money by charging rent or stealing IP is the new white collar crime.
It’s used for Internet purchases, so you don’t have to give your billing information some random site that might get hacked.
PayPal passes most billing information to the store where you purchased from. Card info is excluded, but in most cases PCI compliance checks ensure that card info is stored securely (or not at all).
In my experience, their consumer protection is great.
PayPal has been absolutely instrumental for me in issuing refunds with obstinate vendors. Once or twice they’ve issued me a refund after being refused a return/refund when an Aliexpress vendor either sent the wrong item or nothing at all.
I even got them to secure me a refund against the Australian government after they refused to issue a refund after directing me to apply for a tourist visa with the wrong visa process.
I even got them to secure me a refund against the Australian government after they refused to issue a refund after directing me to apply for a tourist visa with the wrong visa process.
I love this result. It’s really damn hard to protect yourself from government failure, especially in cases where you are owed money. It’s awesome that you not only got your money back, but also got to play the “fuck you, if you take my lunch money you can fight my big brother” card.
I felt the same way. I was VERY happy with that outcome. I won’t say PayPal earned my LOYALTY with that, because loyalty to ANY company is stupidity, but at the very least they earned my respect for the time being. Of course, I reserve the right to revoke it at any time.
🤣🤣🤣
Here in the US our banks are draconian. We just struggle through it I guess 🤷♂️
What is the use case for PayPal in the US?
It gives businesses a very easy to way to set up monthly payments, one-time donations, accept forms of payments other than e-transfer (which many people don’t want to use), allows for international purchases without being penalized, and more.
Other options are available, but they are neither easy/cheap/convenient for the business or any better for the customer.
I see. From that list the international purchases is a good reason to use PayPal in Brazil. I only have an account there because like 6 years ago I needed to pay for a TOEFL certification and without an international card the only way was PayPal so it worked pretty nicely. Never had to use it after that tho. Hope you guys get a better alternative so PayPal can die a horrible death.
Yes its different. Sending money electronically is a mess of apps and limits and fees.
Brazil is younger
Aren’t they regulated in some way or other? I had problems with them in Europe (travel a lot for work, including some African and Central Asian countries) and they blocked me when I tried to buy something while in Nigeria. Fair play, common scam hotspot.
But no matter what I did to prove my identity after returning, they wouldn’t unblock my account. So instead I sent a complaint to the CSSF (the FED of Luxembourg, where they got their European banking license) and within days I had the head of compliance from their HQ in Ireland on the phone telling me that my account was open again and practically begging me to drop the complaint.
Not in the US. The number of people who trust PayPal absolutely amazes me.
PayPal is not a bank. Regardless of what they write on their site, they aren’t regulated as a bank or insured as a bank.
They have the legal authority to close your account and take your money for any reason. There are countless horror stories of people trying to get PayPal to release their funds only to find out they have no legal recourse.
I only got my $500 back from them because I knew someone who knew someone who used to be a PayPal exec lol. Fuck those scummy bastards.
I haven’t used PayPal in over 10 years. Why don’t you just leave the service?
Because it’s convenient for paying online (one login instead of having to search my debit card and also, if I got scammed, there’d be another layer of protection for me) and it’s convenient for sending money to friends when we order pizza together or sth like that. What’s the alternative?
Venmo, Google pay, apple pay
No one I know has venmo. Most people I know wouldn’t even know what venmo is. I’m not even sure it’s available here in Europe. I believe it actually isn’t, can’t find it on the AppStore.
And Google pay and Apple pay are nice and I personally use them but I’m not always on a device that supports them, I’m not always on shops that support them and I know a lot of people who don’t have credit/debit cards, only giro cards, and those usually aren’t supported either. And, at least in Europe, you cannot send money to friends via Apple Pay or Google pay.
In EU, you need to use PayPal at all.bank transferes are instant, banks provide disponible debit cards , you can use Google pay Almost anywhere, which keeps your Privacy. Where is that you NEED to use PayPal in EU?
Instant bank transfers cost me 49ct each and for most people I know it’s similar. PayPal is free. And I already use Apple pay, why would I use Google pay on top?
Does you bank have an option to send money for free? Mine does l. You just download their virtual wallet app and you can send instant transfers for free from that app to anyone that uses the same service. And most banks here offer it. They call it FLIK and it is really convenient.
I can send money for free but only within 2-3 business days or to accounts at the same bank. Instant transfer to different banks costs 49ct
I use PayPal for their dispute feature. Bank transfers using ideal are usually final, while PayPal will charge back most of the time until the dispute is resolved. It gives you a much better position as a consumer to deal with shady companies.
Where I am from everyone used Venmo… I never wanted it, I had PayPal forever due to ebay I think in the 2000’s so why did I need another service that did the exact same thing as PayPal and it’s even owned by the same company! Sadly, I lost that battle and caved. Idk why everyone said let’s use venmo or why it got big, but I’m stuck out of convenience for others now.
Personally, I love Zelle the most since it’s a direct transfer from bank account to bank account and available immediately without the 2 day wait like the other services.
Monero
So, crypto?
Absolutely. It is absolutely the future of finance.
And Twitter is absolutely the future of social media!
See, we can all post statements that are clearly detached from reality and entirely incorrect.
I know one person who owns crypto, no shops that take it and I know of too many people who speculate with it. If it is the future of finance, that future is still fairly far away.
Venmo is owned by PayPal, so that might not solve anything
All data sucking big corporate leeches. I wish giropay would take off more
Ever heard about chargeback? Credit card is supreme in terms of protection against scams.
Bitcoin? Ether?
Really? Crypto? For one, I know almost no online shop that takes crypto, almost no person I’d send money to has crypto and I don’t want to own crypto either since it’s rather unstable…
This doesn’t solve the adoption issue, but you can use “stable coins” like DAI that are pegged to the dollar.
Sounds like an addoption problem for you. The question asked what other alternative there is and cryptocurrencies solve the problem you stated there is no alternative to. Simple as that
They don’t. They could maybe. But I want an easy solution to transfer money to people and pay online. Crypto is not that solution because I cannot pay with it in most online shops and I cannot send money directly to other people. The money has to be exchanged to some arbitrary other currency.
Unless everybody used crypto as their main currency and everybody used the same cryptocurrency at that, it’ll always be an extra step, subject to fluctuations in exchange rate and possibly fees/taxes. As long as that’s not the case, it’s not an alternative. So yes, it’s an adoption problem but one that isn’t realistically solvable any time soon
Price Crypto at the one-year simple moving average, and the volatility stops. I personally use crypto all the time and make my budget using the one-year simple moving average and it completely eliminates the issue with the volatility because that average takes a very long time to move.
Cool, let’s say your average per year is a value of 50?
Meanwhile in the real world; apple costs 1 in january and 100 in december.
But yeah bro that yearly average.
You crypto bros are like a cult.
Better than back when they were saying we’d all be paying for our groceries with Bitcoin in a few years. And every time I pointed out that I wanted my milk to be the same price today as it was yesterday and tomorrow, they got mad.
You have a nice day too.
Price Crypto at the one-year simple moving average, and the volatility stops.
What? No it doesn’t, you’re just shifting the volatility from your pricing to your consumption.
And that’s fine because you will always buy your requirements such as food, water, shelter, and transportation no matter what the price is. But you don’t need that new Xbox right now. It keeps prices steady, which is what people expect from a currency. And the more people who do it this way, the lower the volatility will become because more people are using it.
The elasticity of demand is not static.
Still, I don’t know any non-shady online shop that takes crypto.
Maybe for you, but there are large parts of the world that are relying on crypto such as the African region which for them has been a game changer as an alternative to their unstable currencies.
That is legitimately great. Doesn’t make it a good or even viable PayPal alternative for me, a European, though. Or even a viable alternative for the Euro.
Gratuitas.org sells premium grade coffee for Monero. You can also look at monerica.com. There are absolutely tons of legitimate businesses that accept crypto. Actually, when it comes right down to it, it makes a whole lot of sense to accept crypto because the transaction fees are so damn low that businesses save a ton of money over credit card transactions.
But why should I base my shopping habits around a currency/platform when I could just use one that almost everyone takes. When I want to order off a random online shop, I do not want to think about whether they’ll even take the money I have.
the web page essentially accuses me of being a criminal and asks for my bank records. No way in hell.
Yeah don’t bother doing that. All that will accomplish is them gathering even more information on you, they rarely/never actually unlock your account & let you use it again. You’ve been permanently blacklisted on their service, just move on. And honestly you don’t need Paypal anyway.
Similar stupid thing happened to me too I think about 10-15 years ago, I was using virtual credit card numbers that my credit card company was generating for me & Paypal thought that was suspicious enough to close my account & permanently blacklist me LOL.
Fun fact: I did learn over the years that I can temporarily create new Paypal account(s) as long as I don’t use the same mailing/billing addresses or credit cards/bank accounts. But then it’s just a waiting game, they usually figure it out eventually and close the Paypal account yet again.
Lesson number 1: Never, ever, never, ever, use PayPal. Lesson number 2: Don’t use PayPal.
Got locked out of my PayPal account but I apparently can’t close it.
A couple of years ago I was running a growing loans business on r/loans and the other one. One day, I got scammed. Loaned someone money and when it came to pay day, they reported me to welch out of the deal.
It took 180 days to get the money I had on my account. I tried closing the account and PayPal would not let me. It’s been years and all I get are notices of terms and marketing stuff. I try to unsubscribe and it keeps coming so I mark it as spam but Gmail does not care.
Does anyone know of an alternative to paypal other than stripe ( same shenanigans) , for getting paid for freelance work that is available in Europe or Asia ??
getting paid for freelance work that is available in Europe
Banktransfers are free…
Oh, I wasn’t very specific what I was referring to is selling stuff online, like private store selling pdfs or royalty free music and stuff, cause the only two platforms that I know of are paypal and stripe
iDeal that we have in NL should become a European standard. I believe they’re working on it but it’s slow.
You can use banktransfers to sell stuff. Otherwise I think there are only country specific platforms.
Not really. They have a minuscule fee of around 40cents if I remember right
Depends on the country and the context. For private people in the Netherlands, it’s free. On my business account I pay something like 12 cents, plus 2 bucks per batch (which is why most companies only do payments every so often)…
In the US it very much isn’t free. I realize the original commenter was asking about Europe and Asia, but something to be aware of if you want to visit this country. Here at least, you’re much better off using traveler’s cheques, rather than trying to rely on cash from ATMs and bank transfers.
I have no idea why, but I swear to god that we have the most bass-ackwards banking system in the world. They still use COBOL for fuck’s sake.
Zelle is free. It sucks, but it’s there.
I’ve heard of Revolut.
Maybe Wise? I suppose it depends on your needs as not a whole lot of people use Wise.
No problem, just buy crypto with PayPal.
Amazon blocked my account while trying to purchase a gift card and are now demanding proof of ownership of the gift card they just refused to sell to me???
PayPal sent me an email telling me I couldn’t use their service because I had a VPN. No big deal, I’ll just start using my credit card. A few weeks later PayPal emails me to say we’re all good and I can use them again
Don’t use their services they are a liability to deal with.
Paypal locked my account after years of use for absolutely no reason. I never had a invalid charge, dispute, or any other kind of problem with it, just one day they decided to shut it down. They flatly refused to explain what was going on. With all the decent alternatives out there now there is no longer a reason to use their crappy service.
Love that they believe they’re the only game in town and can demand your bank statement.
Same thing happened to me when I tried to update my phone number and address at the same time.
I never even provided my phone number to Paypal, then one day they started requiring me to use it to verify logins.
Two factor authentication for a financial website sounds like a good idea to me.
A phone number is not a factor of security, doesn’t matter how much every scummy data harvesting company tries to gaslight you into thinking it is, it fundamentally can never be.
Sure, but where did they get my phone number from???
It’s like Facebook locking you out of your account and requiring you to present government ID, which they’ve never seen before and thus cannot use to prove ownership of the account. The request itself is a thinly veiled fish for more valuable information.
That I couldn’t tell you.
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I used PayPal for a little while in the mid 2000’s to pay for stuff online until I found out they could freeze my bank account.
I immediately removed my bank account from PayPal and over time I got a credit card and it was easier to use. I kept it with only my credit card in my account to sometimes but stuff on eBay and that’s the only time I use it
