PayPal scares me

Look at the bottom of the persons post you want to thank.
It is the last button on the bottom right.
I've had a paypal account since 2002 and never had a problem.
I've sold ebooks, adsense sites, and started with ebay.

Generally speaking, Paypal is not going to even notice you unless you start generating an alarming number of sales at a fast rate.

I've put hundreds of thousands through mine without a single issue.

What catches their attention is massive amounts of transactions and/or complaints.

I have run tesn if not hundreds of thousands of dollars through my paypal account without any issues at all. Though its not a bad idea to call them and ask them to make a note on your account that you are expecting a spike in sales if you are going to start moving any significant amount of money through them.

I also use authorize.net and having both options is always better but there are a lot of headaches that go along with that and I wouldn't go there unless you were going to move thousands of dollars in sales each month.

Like someone mentioned above, clickbank is a great option for an ebook.

Anni, the only thing you should be worried about is generating revenue.

You are getting caught up into things that will limit you taking action. Stop it young lady.

Hi Anni,

You have every right to be scared even if it's a little overblown. It's not your fault. Paypal has been both a boon and a nightmare for some people so you either have to go over their TOS with a fine-toothed comb, or else, throw your hat in the ring with the rest of us and take your chances.

Just use your best common sense: no adult stuff, no pyramid type schemes, etc, etc...

Personally, I had a horror story with Paypal about 3-4 years ago when they accused me of having a 2-tier affiliate program. After a week of calling and trying just to be heard, I was able to finally show them that the affiliate program to the site in question was a module that had never been activated and no payment had even ever been processed through that site.

But, it put me out of business for 5 days, slowed my momentum and lost me a lot of potential business.

But, I still use them.

All I can say to you now is that if you let that fear make up your mind for you then you will remain on the sidelines with all the others who could have made some really good money by now. I hope you don't let that happen to you.

I say just jump in!,
Eric

Paypal can be a nightmare, but it is very rare. Usually the only time paypal freezes your account is if some one makes a claim against you. Even then, they only freeze that amount.
I once forgot some one payed for a service. They paid me $67. A month later they filed a claim. Paypal froze access to $67 out of my account. I issued a refund, and had my account back in order within seconds.

The only real problem I have seen is with selling websites and having fraudulent claims submitted against you. I sold a site for $200. The buyer paid, I delivered and transferred, they filed a claim, and paypal gave them the money back. So they got the site, domain, and $200.

Since you are selling an ebook, you should be Okay! Paypal is pretty much a necessary evil.

I think you have to have a certain number of posts before the "Thanks" button will show up for you.

have used paypal for both IM and ebay activities with no problems. just make sure that you've verified your ID with them

Thank you all for your insights. I really appreciate the quick replies. Since it is just an ebook I think I will take Thomas's advice and "stop it young lady" LOL

I shall jump in boots and all and give it a go. After all the most sage advice everyone here gives is take action or fail.

Thank you again

PS@Dan...I think you might be right as I still have no thank you button.

Anni,

Here is one more reason you can fear a lot less.

It's funny I can tell by the replies how experienced some people are.

So here's a screen cap of one of my recurring sites and you'll get an
understanding of how many subscriptions are processed just here,
80% of which are through PayPal subscriptions.

http://jimmorris.s3.amazonaws.com/site1.jpg

Now, if that doesn't allay your fear Anni, really nothing will.

And you can always tell someone who has processed a lot of money by the amount of verified buyers they have actually referred...

http://jimmorris.s3.amazonaws.com/paypal.jpg

I will honestly say that there was one time PayPal scared me. And it did cause me to actually go and find myself alternative merchant processing, which I did.

There was a time last year that PayPal finally decided to upgrade their system to allow enterprise-level use so that multiple user accounts could be assigned or one PayPal account so that employees and lower level people could see filtered information according to what the super admin can set.

During this transition, subscription payments went unaccounted for for over nine days.

As someone who is used to clearing $1200-$1900 and sometimes more per day, that can get someone worrying when you're expecting about $16,000 in that amount of time in your account.

What was more troubling was that most lower level customer service people at PayPal didn't even know about the problem when I called in to report the problem, well, it should say was my CFO that contacted PayPal and I was just livid, as you can imagine.

I first went to Worldpay that are run by the Scottish, and God love their spirit, but they're way too many hoops to run through there.

I finally took the dip after about seven years, as you can see from my PayPal seller reputation above, and finally got the corporation's own merchant account even though I heard nightmares about that (now I have 5 merchant accounts for different sites).

Honestly, that is the best thing and I could have ever done for my business.

I know there is one gentleman on this forum that would say the same and he probably has converted a lot of his business over to a merchant account instead too because you can do ONE CLICK upsells if you develop the right technology. ;o)

Anni -- if you only knew the other nightmares of selling information and getting really busy and all the customer service things and people disputing purchases -- it's just all lot of fun can I tell you -- deep sigh.

I remember my first ebook product way back in 2003 when I got back some exciting feedback from some of the top internet marketers, Jim Edwards and Kenrick Cleveland, the master of persuasion...

Starbucks frappuccino iced coffee frozen smoothie recipes hot mocha espresso latte coffee drinks

I think still sells on autopilot to this day and I intend to improve that site with video in the next couple weeks.

Back to the fun and action here

Hi Anni

As with the other guys here I think you will be fine

I'll admit I've heard those horror stories too but I've had a few launch days where a lot has gone through my PayPal account and haven't had any worries.

You should be fine

Good luck with the launch!

how would you ever be successful if you focus on POTENTIAL negatives?

It's like if...you really, really want to go to XYZ on vacation. But then you say:
"I dont go. Because it might rain."

Or you refuse to go outside because there is chance a brick might fall on your head. Something like that

Thanks for your post Jim, I don't think there's been a problem that hasn't been anticipated yet so this clears up any doubts I've had. Good thread, and thank you!

Anni just another marketer here who has put hundred of thousands through paypal with no real hassells.

I have run full blown merchant accounts and run my own systems and it does not matter which payment system you use there is potential for problems.

Having said this remember all these system are providing a service so treat it in a business like manner and you will have no problems. They will not hassell if you provide good service and follow the rules.

Most horror stories, when you look into them, have a reason they got into trouble so run your business well and you will have no problems.

Quentin

Anni,

I have had no issues with Paypal freezing my accounts over the course of 6 years now. There is nothing to worry about except making as much money as you possibly can. You will be just fine.

Anni - you are suffering from analysis paralysis here. Forget about the what-ifs unless your research has shown them to be a show stopper. PayPal is perfectly valid as a payment method. It has dominant market share. You could run into a problem but if you are honest and support customers, you won't likely have problems.

Just take action.