"Horrible. All their advertisements are fake - try to use the buyer protection and you'll see how difficult it is to make things right. They decide solely based on who gives them more money.
Fees for sellers are very high. Seeling on eBay means you'll pay eBay fee plus PayPal fee (they are the same company).
Where are V.Me and Serve to compete with this poor business? We need more players."
"Wow, I am shocked at all the poor reviews for Paypal. Maybe I am just lucky, but Paypal has served me well for many years. I do a lot of buying and selling and I use the Paypal Debit Card for virtually everything. I have a mail theft issue where I live and occasionally I will not receive something I have paid for--meaning between delivery and me checking the mail, someone get to the mail before me and steals my mail. Starting mid November (pre holiday season) I just have all my mail held and pick it up every 10 days or so. Anyway, Paypal has always reversed the charges for me and credited my Debit Card back. I have never had my account frozen (knock on wood). I love the service and hope it continues!!
Caveat: The invoice number is my last transaction since I cant leave it blank. I have used Paypal for over 8 years."
"Had the worst experience with Paypal. trying to get a refund from them takes forever and when requesting the customer service to issue a fax to credit card to help facilitate refund, they responded with they cannot do that. How hard is it to send a fax!!!!!! They just lost my personal and business accounts! Not prepaared to pay someone to aggreviate me...AS IF!!!"
"Paypal just saved me about $2k. Placed an order with Abe's of Maine for washer and dryer and later found they had gone into bankrupcy, not shipping or issuing refunds. Luckly I had used PayPal and they promptly credit my card. second time PayPal has saved me from loosing money from online vendors. Have learned my lesson and will not buy big ticket items online without funding thru PayPal"
"Several years ago I opened an account with PayPal. I used them several times with no problems since the product I purchased was delivered and as advertised. Them I ordered a product using PayPal since PayPal stated that they would help me with any purchase I had problems with and would help correspond with the seller with me. The item I ordered was never shipped but my credit card was charged full price. After repeated attempts trying to get the seller to communicate, I notified PayPal to assist me. Their solution was for me to try again to get the seller to correspond with me and that if that failed they would contact the seller on my behalf. Again I attempted to correspond with the seller and when that failed I notified PayPal. They claimed they tried to get the seller to correspond with them but the seller refused to communicate with them even. Their suggestion was to choose to use their arbitration to settle the problem so I filed a claim with their arbitrator by email. Immediately I received a email response that stated that they do not handle this type of complaint and that they were closing my complaint on that basis and there was no way to contest their decision. I immediately closed my PayPal account and will not to this day use them. If a seller insist on using PayPal, I just go to a different seller. I feel their claims to help settle accounts are bogus and misleading."
"I never thought I would feel the need to post a review of Paypal. After reading "reviews" here I feel ethically compelled to add my experience and thoughts. 1st, I am a critic of Paypal but I also form my opinions based on as much quality fact and fair mindedness as I am capable. 2nd, having experience with Paypal as a seller and as a buyer, I see Paypal from two entirely different points of view, that of the seller and the buyer.
As a former online seller, I did not like Paypal much, after eBay bought Paypal and applied it to eBay. Paypal markets it services to the range of sellers, from small to very high volume. A third distinction is Paypal and eBay marketplace and eBay and online sellers. As a small used electronics eBay seller, Paypal was the primary reason I stopped selling on eBay.
Why? It seemed to me that eBay used Paypal to monopolize and narrow payment instruments. As a seller, I was left no choice but to use Paypal as the way to receive payments. There are two problems with this. 1) Paypal fees are expensive for smaller sellers. There are other cheaper alternatives which eBay prohibited in favor of its Paypal 2) Paypal Arbitration on eBay is really eBay arbitration and too many times it ruled against small sellers when it should not and ruled for large sellers when it should not. Paypal became CEO Meg Ryan's tool for narrowing eBay to mostly high volume sellers and stores. If eBay wants to be a store marketplace then it should outright become one and not advertise it is one thing when really it is another. Such deception is the mark of incompetence and the mark of a dishonest & thus bad business.
From a buyer's point of view Paypal is a problem because the only arbitration between sellers and buyers is eBay and eBay's Paypal and it is not arbitration at all. When there is built in conflict of interest, arbitration cannot exist. Out the gate, eBay marketplace arbitration is A CONFLICT OF INTEREST. It is an oxymoron. Its comparable to a court Judge acting as Judge in cases involving family members and friends. That is not a fair or neutral courtroom. A fan for Home team cannot serve as the game referee.
The same is true for eBay arbitration and eBay-Paypal arbitration. Scam buyers get over on small sellers as the arbitration leans toward the buyers. When the seller is a high volume profitable customer of eBay, arbitration leans toward the seller against the small buyer.
Despite this, I highly recommend buying online using Paypal whenever possible. Its free for the buyer. Use Paypa but do it after first knowing the score.
NEVER connect your Paypal account with anything but a major credit card. If you sell and use Paypal for payments open two accounts: one you use only as a seller and one you use only as a buyer. NEVER COMBINE THE TWO.This way neither eBay or eBay-Paypal can control your buying transactions. Skip arbitration and go right to your credit card company. Know the charge back policy of your Card. We have certain clear rights by law when we use a credit card (not debit but credit card). You do not have these consumer powers ANY OTHER WAY with any other payment method.
As powerful as Paypal maybe at eBay, Paypal is minor fish compared to Visa, MasterCard or Discover.
By the way, with a charge back you can get your entire bill refunded. Yes, shipping and sales tax included. Furthermore, you punish a bad seller when you do a charge back, especially when Paypal is involved. Credit Card companies charge sellers fees for a charge back AND SO DOES PAYPAL when a credit card does a charge back to Paypal!
Using Paypal, you credit card information doesn't fly across Internet and the seller doesn't get your personal account information."
"I have never had any problems with Paypal. I use the site on a regular basis to pay for ebay transactions. I find it very useful for that application"
"I've been using PayPal for more than 10 years as both a buyer and a seller. When eBay bought PayPal I knew it would be a detriment to buyers for both customer service and competition. All the major competitors of the time closed down within 3 years. eBay changed all the rules to their favor so now unless you're a big merchant that can afford separate credit card services, PayPal is the only choice for buyers. And they're raking in fees from sellers since sellers are prohibited from asking for payments not funded by a credit or debit card (which avoided a fee).
As a buyer, I don't mind using PayPal outside of eBay for things such as used car parts from private sellers on forums. What I don't like is when they try to violate PayPal policy by charging a 3% fee to the buyer. Either they don't know it violates policy or they're not smart enough to increase the asking price by 3%.
Over the years I've been cheated by PayPal too many times to mention in detail here. If there were a viable alternative I'd use it. Maybe one day the government will step in and cry antitrust."
"PayPal is not a safe and fast way to get your payment back when you ask for refund. It takes a few weeks that troubles me a lot. My claim was closed without any solution to my problem. I didn't get back my refund. How did they close it so quickly?"
"I HATE THEM!!!! %The horror stories I've heard are all true!!!! Seller paid, check cleared PayPal, but as Seller I have to wait 28 days to 6 weeks to get my money!!!!! Totally skeevy, cheating, dishonest and the suprevisors are RUDEJ RUDE RUDE~!~!~! NEVER AGAIN f*#$)%#* PayPal"
"Paypal took my money and made a full refund to the customer, who have already received the purchased item, even with a shipping code tracking as proof! Paypal sucks!"
"I have sold a commercial item on ebay, I stated that it was a local pick up no shipping no refunds, check the item before you buy. A buyer bought it and made payment for $1200 through Paypal and picked the item. When I looked at my Paypal account that funds was on hold for 21 days. I called customer service informed that it was a local pick up no shipping and item already picked up, they still refused to release my funds for 21 days. There is no governing agency to control this institute. If an item sold on the spot and paid for, they should have no right to hold your funds. If anyone can inform me any government agency that controls Paypal I will file my complaint with them as well. If you are a seller try to avoid Paypal."
"i thought this would be convenient...but they took large funds from my bank account without my knowledge! what happened to the 6-month period to pay your ballance and get cashback? i was overdrafted twice and with no option to turn off the automatic deductions. horrible!"
"I've had numerous problems with PayPal. I'd be writing pages if I were to go into detail. I'll say this though, PayPal is out to protect the buyer, not the seller. If you're selling something, expect them to make you jump through a lot of hoops, and hold you're money when you're done selling. To top it off, they keep a good chunk of it. I had an instance where a buyer said they had not received the item. Despite, having delivery confirmation and having the package insured, PayPal sided with the dishonest buyer, took the money out of my bank (over $1000), and refunded it to the buyer. I'm confident he received his product. PayPal said get the money from from the Post Office for the product (insured), and the Post Office said get the money from PayPal because it was delivered. When you call to speak with someone, they put you on hold for a very long time, and then give you an attitude. I truly avoid using it if I can. It's more a hassle and not worth the trouble. Maybe if you're one of those guys who have an ebay business, it might be worth it, but if you're a guy who sells occasionally, I recommend avoiding PayPal."
"NEVER OPEN A PAYPAL ACCOUNT. Paypal has now joined my list of worst companies in the world. Not only did Paypal repeatedly ship to the wrong address and use the wrong payment method after I specifically told them which one to use but now they refuse to close my account. I had the account for many years to use occasionally on eBay and they have caused nothing but trouble when I actually use it. They won't even let you change your name or delete your old bank account or credit card information. Now they are basically holding my account and financial information hostage to use whenever and however they want against my wishes. I have tried calling customer service multiple times but each time they are nothing but rude to me and flat out refuse to help me. All I want to do is close my account with this fraudulent company. I would never had joined had I known how horrible they are to their customers and I can't believe eBay makes you use them. eBay has now lost my business and I will do my best to warn others about this scam before Paypal takes advantage of them. I am just glad I didn't enter my new bank account information because they probably would be taking unauthorized money out of there too. My advice: Don't even open an account. Don't trust them and certainly don't give them your financial information."