http://mice.org/blog/using-paypal-you-may-be-losing-sales/

This was shared with me .... thought I'd just post it here as FYI.

Wow, I don't have a business, yet, but I was thinking that PayPal would be a great interface...maybe not so much...!?!? Thank you VERY much for posting! I have many friends that have art businesses and services that do use PayPal and I am going to share this to them!

It's been quite a while that you've had to have a paypal account to make payments, or so I thought. I don't think this is new, they changed that policy at least a couple of years ago as far as I know.

Hmmm Interesting..I have never had an issue with Paypal as I have only ever bought on Ebay but I was thinking of designing a new website and selling a product (nott cake related) and using Paypal as payment.I may have to look into it further.

Thanks Debi

My friend sells English Bulldogs and will accept deposits in cash or Paypal. She's never had a problem with Paypal. I've never had a problem buying with PayPal. In fact I feel very comfortable using them. I have used my checking account and other credit cards with no problem. My friend always charges a 3% fee if someone pays with PayPal to recoup fees (like American Express). PayPal wouldn't be as popular or as common as it is if this were a common problem. Call me suspicious but even though this person says she's not hawking for the other company, my radar says otherwise.

I was thinking about starting up with Paypal too. Is it that big of a deal if customers have to have a Paypal account? Isn't it for their protection?

Anyone use another system to take online sales with success? Anyone sell on Esty?

Thanks Debi

I've been with PayPal since it started.

I appreciate the security that I see built into it.

I think it makes perfect sense for PayPal to want, and to possibly require, users to have accounts with PayPal. It allows them to secure transactions from both seller and buyer, to have leverage over both buyer and seller, and to be able to resolve disputes in-house.

JMHO
Rae

I use Paypal on my website but always know when someone plans to pay that way. Therefore I expect the payment and would contact them if I didn't receive it. I've had no problems and some customers prefer to pay that way. I like having the option. I can see how it would be a problem for a website that didn't interact with the customer.

I haven't had this particular problem, but I snorted when I read,
"I appreciate the security that I see built into it."

Yeah, the same security that allowed my account to be hacked a few years ago? I had to find their phone number via a different site because they don't list it (at least, the didn't at the time. I don't know about now.). When I called they wouldn't shut down my account even though I was watching my bank account drain minute by minute. My checking is attached to my savings for overdraft purposes and they were already pulling from my savings.

My next call was to my bank. Fat help they were at first. It was Saturday so the person kept telling me they would send it to be investigated. On Monday! I asked for my accounts to be frozen, and they wouldn't do that. I asked them to unlink my checking from my savings, and they wouldn't do that either.


My husband called the bank 15 minutes after I did and managed to get someone to unlink the accounts. Finally! There's nothing like sitting and watching online while some #%&*## takes your money illegally. I had to spend an hour that following Monday on the phone with PayPal forcing them to remove all my information and another half an hour convincing my credit card company (Paypal also had that info) to shut down that account and issue me a new card and account number. My checking and savings account was frozen for 2 weeks. Two weeks- no grocery money, no bill money, no gas money.

I got all the money back, after a month. Still, yeah; that's some crack security over there and the assistance is beyond belief.

Them: You have to log in to your account to deactivate it.
Me: Your site is now in Chinese. I can't.
(repeat at least 2 dozen times until finally...)
Me: Great! You teach me Chinese in the next five minutes and I'll get YOUR job done for you, okay? Thanks for being part of ripping me off. Click.

cupcakeatheart:

I used to use Paypal to take online payments until I got Quickbooks. I now use Intuit's Merchant services to take online payments. Cost money to maintain but worth it.

WOW thanks IndyDebi I DO use paypal! I send clients paypal invoices who find me online and are out of state and want to order a cake for a later date when they will be in town. I have had checks "in the mail" never arrive so I stopped taking checks via the mail a while back. I do not have a credit card machine so paypal opened the door to me being able to take credit cards. I hate to hear about this problem. In fact just today for the first time I had a customer tell me that she was trying to send me a payment and paypal would not accept her card. I wasn't sure what to think, then just now I find this post.

I have had only one problem with this - and it was an order from INDIA no less! I had first thought it was a scam, but it wasn't, and there was no way to get paid through my paypal from her. She ended up having a friend in the US drop off the money for the cake. Hassle, yes, but I guess I can see their point.

I don't have a paypal account, and have never had an issue making a payment through them. I use them all the time for various merchants.

Thanks Dreme! I will definately be checking that out

We use PayPal as our primary way to accept payment. Just like the article that Debi linked, we were having problems too, but didn't know it. You don't know there's a problem until someone tells you. We did have one person tell us, but she'd been a bit of a diva about the entire ordering process and I kind of just chalked up her payment issues to having no available credit on her card and it was being declined. However, since then we're heard from lots of people that had every single card they have declined and they call us in a panic trying to pay because our policy is we won't even put you in our baking rotation unless you pay in advance. I suspected the problem was coming from PayPal but when we called them to find out what was going on we were basically told it's not them and they're unaware of any problems. This certainly explains several of the orders that people placed but never paid for! We tried email and phone follow-ups but because I wasn't aware of the problem I didn't want to harass people who may have changed their minds about their order and didn't have the courtesy to let us know. Very frustrating!!!

I went through a similar situation with a Potential customer who has a Citibank card. Her bank indicated that I charged her a fee, but pay pal stated her bank rejected the card on my virtual terminal account. This was so awful because I couldnt give a customer a cake that cost over $300 when I havent received payment; however, her on-line accountant indicated I did have the payment. I called pay pal and they continue to tell me that her bank declined the card. What a nightmare for me and the potential customer, who was angry and made everyone aware that she was angry. I'm redesigning my website but I haven't updated the new version allowing cutomers to pay for on-line becasue I'm looking for another company. Has anyone used GO Daddy.

Does anyone use Google Checkout? There seem to be far fewer complaints about it than Paypal, the fees are comparable, and I've used it as a buyer myself without any problems.