To Paypal or not to Paypal?

I am a bit frustrated with paypal because I've had an account with them since the beginning (10 years) and they denied me for a paypal debit card. I remember getting an account soon after paypal was available. All my clients pay me through paypal and money is continually going into my account. I'm stuck with paypal for now, but I truly wish there were more options or it would at least be nice if paypal wasn't such a pain and would give me a debit card. They also held my account for 7 days while they were going through the approval process. I had to fax them my ID 10 times and it was a big pain.

I like PayPal, as long as you have a business account and you're paying the $30/month to have access to their API/premium pament options. This allows you to take phone orders and manually process cards, and also you can use PayPal to process website payments with your website visitor not even knowing you're using paypal (no redirects, no paypal account required - basically the exact same as authorize.net or any other payment gateway).

One thing I don't like about them, though, is their reporting and their backend interface. It's very hard to find past transactions and payments and their chargeback dept. isn't the best to work with. Other than that I like them.

I am using Paypal and it helps me a lot.

I have used PayPal for over 5 years. Recently they reclassified my business as a Financial Services company and threatened to freeze my account.

I was albe to show that I wasn't such a company and averted that disaster, but I'm looking for some other pay portal.

I need recurring payments and button functionality.

I opened an account at Gpal.net but it has been 3 weeks since I started the process of verifying my bank account and they have not send the deposits.

Has anyone tried AlertPay?

Thanks,

Gordon

Regardless of the negative sides of Paypal, there are millions of potential buyers who still prefer to use Paypal as the means of purchase.

I remember reading a few top marketers' real reports on the huge percentage of people who purchased his their products using Paypal when they have a choice of paying directly with their own credit cards.

The way I see it, the more protection Paypal gives to buyers, the more likely people will use Paypal to purchase products in order to avoid being scammed. The truth is, even when there are bad apples among buyers, the percentage is still small to be compared to the huge potential of customers eagerly wanting to purchase your products.

If you really don't like Paypal for whatever reason, you can still use 2checkout or Clickbank since they also accept Paypal, so you don't lose customers that way.

There are plenty of choices for merchant account providers if you don't want to use Paypal. If you're crossing a certain threshold in terms of income level, a merchant account makes sense as their fees are typically slightly lower. Just Google "online merchant account" and you'll see that there are many to choose from.

Paul

Go with paypal.

Back in 2004 when I put my first website up I used paypal and no one came, since outside eBay, they were not trusted.

I used a merchant account for years, then I added paypal option and I fould over time people prefer paypal over a merchant option (using your bank)

A few years back I got rid of the merchant and only use paypal and Google Checkout. Paypal does offer customers to pay direct on there credit card (so does Google Checkout). People prefer paypal, I think its a MUST now.

Also it is less of a headache to set up, cheaper and easy to change things around if needed.

Cheers
Mukul

Sadly, PayPal has been in the game for so long and the alternatives are so few that it allows PP to dictate all aspects of the business model (as they have a right to) but at the same time ignore the legitimate concerns of sellers (merchants).

After 10 years with PP, I am now actively looking for viable alternatives. Unfortunately, PP does offer some features that others don't such as the relatively simple integration of HTML code/buttons for website owners without needing them to be HTML experts (which I am not) as well as the seamless integration of order fulfillment by logging in to your PP account, select "print shipping label" for the customer and have it fill in the blanks to where you only select a few shipping options and you're ready to pay for the postage, print the label and shipping list, and log off.

For me, being a small time business owner, it works. What I absolutely despise is the buyer centric approach to resolutions in favor of buyers that clearly did not understand or read all the details and demand refunds. I don't sell porn or mlm or other gray area stuff, I sell appliance related items for kitchen use. My website is clear, easy to read, and covers all the details. But, as to be expected there is always that one customer from hell that either expects the item to read their minds or just wants something for free.

I have only had 3 charge-backs in the 10 years, but I've grown many a gray hair in dealing with them and frozen funds or endless dispute emails to a customer service department that is just plain incompetent and robotic in their dealings with humans.

Now, to make things worse, according to PayPal, effective January 1, 2011 they will start reporting to the US IRS all sales you make totaling $20,000 USD or more per year or any sales per year that exceed 200 transactions. They will also issue you an IRS form 1099 for these sales.

I am by far a Tax Cheat. I pay my taxes quite well, every year, both local and federal, personal and business. But now I have to add yet another level of accountability to ensure that the 1099 that PayPal issues me coincides with the reported income on my tax forms.

While on the surface this sounds like it's not a big deal, think about it: If Joe Blow pays you $100 for a widget, and PayPal records indicate that after their cut they paid you $91, the IRS gets notified that you made $91. In reality you did not because even though you got $91 from PayPal, you had to pay either the Post Office or UPS $11 dollars to ship the widget. How am I going to reconcile that?

In the end, I have to implement some method of breaking out the shipping charges for those transactions in case I get audited so I can prove that I did NOT receive a net $91. It's crazy!

This new PayPal policy should send chills down everyone's necks, especially the Mom & Pop sellers or people selling their trinkets on eBay. Another reason why this is bad is what about those sellers selling their own personal goods, clothes, etc they no longer want? 200 sales or more per year will trigger the IRS 1099. Keep in mind that as a personal sale, you've already paid taxes on whatever you're selling when you bought it new.

Hypothetically... you bought a Cashmere sweater three years ago for $60 and it sat in a drawer. You gained 15lbs and now you list it on eBay for $40 and you sell it. Do that more than 200 times a year with other personal items and guess what... 1099 time! At the end of the year you can receive a 1099 from PayPal for $6,000 worth of sales disguised as "profit" on items you already were taxed on and now your income report to the IRS is artificially $6,000 higher than it should be.

That is the reason I can no longer continue to stay or recommend PayPal or ANY processor that complies with said reporting to the IRS. It's intrusive and totally unjust.

Anyone with an alternative to PayPal, please tell me or PM me. I'm already looking into AlertPay and other offshore processors. Unfortunately, their rates are higher due to the "porn" and "casino" stigma, even though I do not have such a business.

If you ask me, I dont think we have choices today. Paypal is what we need to have if we want to earn online. Because most of online buyers have paypal we must have the same for more convenience. Alertpay is an alternative. Somehow, works just like paypal, but verification is easier and not everybody uses it.