Thinking about not using paypal.

[coreyman]

Do any of you currently not use paypal at all? Did you once use paypal and then stop? Did that cause you to lose any business?

I'm asking because I'm sick of the paypal resolution process - they pretty much 'hide' the resolution that they(paypal) decide on unless you strictly stay on top of it and go look at all the past 15 day resolutions one by one and write them down. I tried to get a report of cases and it just says 'Case Closed'. I looked at a case one time and a customer that SHOULD NOT have got a refund (an abusive customer) ... they gave him a refund >.>

 

[jhadley]

I'm also thinking about ditching Paypal. I spoke to Elavon yesterday and the rates are better, clearing time is faster, they don't push your customers to sign up for an account if they don't want to etc etc.

It would be interesting to hear from those for whom no Paypal is a deal breaker.

 

[Damian]

 I tried to get a report of cases and it just says 'Case Closed'.

Call your rep (you do have a rep, right?) directly and discuss this with them. You can also discuss the kinds of resolutions available; Paypal defaults to giving the customer back their money, which doesn't work for low-margin businesses. If you talk shop with your rep and stress that you're not in it to steal money, you'll be surprised that things now work in your favor.

 

[Lee]

Whilst Paypal is not perfect they are usually quite decent if you get in touch with them by phone and talk through a dispute instead of relying on the system to decide, which is often the case, you may think someone looks at all disputes but they don't, they have a strategy manager in the background that works on probability and likelihood rather than fact.

You need to consider what % of your client base use Paypal.  Whether that be 5% or 50% only you can decide what the impact would be if a significant portion then cancelled their service as a result.  There is a growth in the use of Paypal though, people simply don't want to give online business their card details and in hosting you can't blame people with all the events in the past relating to panel exploits and so on.

If you have a reliance on WHT/LET type business then I doubt you would want to remove Paypal as it's in my experience the biggest payment processor from these type of customers.

 

[SkylarM]

I'd say about 90% of our payments are done via Paypal, with 10% going via Credit/Debit payments using Braintree. We typically end up with far less issues with our paypal based payments than we do with credit card transactions. There is a huge crowd of people that will use paypal like a bank account, and would prefer to use paypal funds to pay for things than to give a provider their card information. 

As Lee mentioned, I always call in for disputes. Get them closed in my favor 98% of the time in 5 minutes or less.

 

[coreyman]

Thanks for all of the advice and no @Damian I do not have a rep.

 

[Damian]

Skylar and Lee summed up what I was trying to say (i r not teh good @ inglesh):

-If you resolve the dispute online, you're going to lose your money.

-If you resolve the dispute by calling PP, there's an extremely good chance you'll keep your money.

 

[datarealm]

We fought adding paypal payments for a long time before caving in (years ago now of course).  Over the past 2-3 years we have had an accelerating number of clients switching from direct card payments over to paypal.  At this point it would be really hard to forgo paypal as an option.  Which of course is a bummer as you said Elavon has far lower fees (we use them and in our comparison shopping they were far and away the lowest cost processor).

Chargebacks and dispute resolution is unfortunately a cost of doing business and will follow you no matter how you accept payments unless you switch to cash only. (Even checks can be cancelled and bounced.)  Run your business professionally, track your client correspondence, and be polite anytime you request assistance from your processor (be it paypal or anyone else).

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

If you are receiving enough chargebacks and disputes for it to be such a major concern.. perhaps it's time to stop assuming the problem is with the clients, and determine instead what you're dropping the ball on to make that many people unhappy.

 

[willie]

As a user (not a seller), I try to avoid Paypal and always want to use a direct credit card if I can, or am happy to pay by money order (guaranteeing that the seller gets the money).  I'm not personally a Bitcoin user but am ok with it in principle.  Why does anyone use Paypal as an alternative bank account, unless they can't get a real one?  And if they can't get a real one, how likely are they to be a solid customer?

 

[TruvisT]

If you are receiving enough chargebacks and disputes for it to be such a major concern.. perhaps it's time to stop assuming the problem is with the clients, and determine instead what you're dropping the ball on to make that many people unhappy.

Lowend VPSes bring in a lot of abuse hoppers as well. Switch to highend market, more money, less stress, no problems... ever.

 

[pcan]

Why does anyone use Paypal as an alternative bank account, unless they can't get a real one? 

I started to use paypal for buying VPS services because one of my regular credit card got suspended twice after a payment: the card issuer does flag this kind of transactions as high risk. Paypal is cheaper and more convenient than a prepaid card, and EUR/USD conversion rate is better too.

 

[nunim]

Honestly I can't see running an online business, at least in the English speaking world, that doesn't accept PayPal.  Almost everyone already has a PayPal account these days and there's no way I would trust some LEB provider to process my credit card directly. 

 

[willie]

Honestly I can't see running an online business, at least in the English speaking world, that doesn't accept PayPal.  Almost everyone already has a PayPal account these days and there's no way I would trust some LEB provider to process my credit card directly. 

By direct credit card I guess I misspoke, I just meant I use my credit card directly in the host's invoice page without having to enroll another account with some intermediary like Paypal.  With smaller providers this type of payment is usually handled by a payment handler like Stripe or even Paypal, and the handler is the form target for the card number, so the VPS host never sees the card number.  If it's a bigger company that has a merchant CC account (e.g. Amazon) then I'm generally fine using it.

 

[hellogoodbye]

I try to use Paypal instead of credit card when purchasing online wherever possible. If I don't see it being offered as a form of payment, I usually ask myself: How much do I trust this vendor with my personal information, and is it worth using my credit card for?

I've only used my credit card online a handful of times and usually either at big companies (Amazon, Staples, etc.) or for educational/work reasons (renewing my license, applying for an online course). I also sell off some older possessions - mostly things from past hobbies - on the side so I pretty much always have an existing Paypal balance that I can use for small purchases.

For something like a low end VPS, regardless of how good a rep the company has around these parts I would still prefer to use Paypal. If that's not offered as a payment, I'll simply move on regardless of how good the deal is.

EDIT: Forgot to add this-- before I got a credit card, the only way I could make purchases online was to use Paypal by connecting it with my bank account and either sending e-checks or transferring money from the bank. I'm from Canada and use TD Canada Trust; it didn't have a visa debit card available until the past year or so, which meant their debit cards were only usable in stores and ATMs.

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

Lowend VPSes bring in a lot of abuse hoppers as well. Switch to highend market, more money, less stress, no problems... ever.

It has very little to do with being 'LowEnd', and much more to do with being a 'host-from-a-box' that doesn't do proper QC on new signups.  If you let "Abc Abc" of "123 Fake st" sign up without a second thought, you're going to get abuse no matter what your price point is.

Just to put things into perspective - for years we were the "low-end" (back when that meant low spec, not low quality - who do you think everyone copied the 15$/yr plans from?), and I would *maybe* see 2-3 client-initiated disputes a year.  The pricepoint/market/<other excuse here> isn't the problem - a 'provider' thinking that using WHMCS means he doesn't need to actually audit his business is the problem.

 

[nunim]

... Forgot to add this-- before I got a credit card, the only way I could make purchases online was to use Paypal by connecting it with my bank account and either sending e-checks or transferring money from the bank. I'm from Canada and use TD Canada Trust; it didn't have a visa debit card available until the past year or so, which meant their debit cards were only usable in stores and ATMs.

This is something I've learned since I moved to Canada, aside from the universality of chip & pin, almost all debit cards that I've seen are true debit, not the more common debit/credit that I was used to in The States (as Canadians call it).

 Those handheld card readers that restaurants are quite handy, I'm not sure why they haven't caught in the USA, as restaurants are another place that I don't necessarily trust alone with my CC info.

Back on topic:  If you run an Online business and you're targeting English speaking consumes, you NEED to accept PayPal, not doing so is crazy unless you only deal with businesses. If you don't have a PayPal account, your can always pay with your creditcard via PayPal, at least you know who's processing your information instead of just entering the information into a WHMCS checkout page.

 

[HostXNow]

Probably not a good idea to drop Paypal... they're even being advertised on TV now. 

 

[Tom_WebhostingUK LTD]

I have been using Paypal for many years and haven't faced any issues yet. According to me, it is the most secured and recommended payment gateway to us.

 

[HH-Josh]

As others have said, I don't think anyone dropping PayPal as a payment gateway would be a good idea. I think more and more people are getting used to using PayPal rather than having to use their bank account details - especially in the within hosting industry.