Is it even worth having a paypal account?

[llamajizz]

About 4 years ago, I sold an xbox360 on ebay, and I was a few days late shipping it out. I explained everything to the guy but he was still a bit pissed. So I shipped it off via USPS priority w/ delivery conf. but about a week later he cried to paypal that he never got it. I loaded the delivery conf number in paypal but I guess a USPS number wasn't good enough for them. They froze my account and would not reply to anything I sent to them other than crap automated messages. The bastard that I sent the 360 to would also not respond to me. I just decided to say screw it.

Jump to about last year, nearly everyone online is still using paypal and I have alot of stuff to sell, so I sign up for a new account. Everything is going fine until today, when I get a notice saying that my account is temporarily frozen until I take care of the $190 I still owe from an xbox that I sent out four years ago. I only have about $30 in my paypal this time but I'm seriously wondering if I should even bother with paypal anymore. It makes things incredibly easy because it's so universal but should I really have to pay $160 to get it back?

 

[ahenkel]

I get the risk of having a paypal account and the people that hate it. I work it like this

1. have a paypal account
2. tie paypal account to prepaid credit card
3. if you need to lift limits tie your account to a free online saving account
4. move your money out of paypal asap once you get paid

Oh and as for your problem, Since that 160 is basically capital you're out. You have to ask your self do you have enough stuff to sell to recover from it. Is it worth the loss.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I only use PP when selling on AT, or other reputable boards. Ebay is scary.

 

[darkxshade]

Is it even worth having a paypal account?

Yes, as a means to pay for goods at retail sites where you don't trust giving your CC info out because they don't look very secure like monoprice. For Ebay and other purposes, no.

 

[ahenkel]

Paypal and Ebay are bad for sellers, but excellent for the buyer.

 

[llamajizz]

I get the risk of having a paypal account and the people that hate it. I work it like this

1. have a paypal account
2. tie paypal account to prepaid credit card
3. if you need to lift limits tie your account to a free online saving account
4. move your money out of paypal asap once you get paid

Oh and as for your problem, Since that 160 is basically capital you're out. You have to ask your self do you have enough stuff to sell to recover from it. Is it worth the loss.

Yeah, I use facecard.com which gives me a prepaid card number and Routing/acct number for the bank verification and that usually has little to no money in it just in case Paypal decides to work their magic and screw me over.

 

[DrPizza]

We have a farm & sell animals. I've found that more and more people looking for animals (goats) want to pay via paypal. So, we now take paypal payments from people online. In the past, deposit was in any form, but final payment was cash or post office money order only. Now, it's cash, PO money order, or paypal only. It's a bit more convenient for us too, because we don't have to screw around with going to the bank to deposit the money, etc.

 

[dabuddha]

I use it to send/receive money from family. I only sell on craigslist now and it's cash only. I love it when people try to write me a personal check for something they're buying and when I tell them that I don't mind following them to the bank so they can just pull out cash, they start sputtering excuses after excuses.