Paying by Paypal

[Tobin]

OTOH, I understand that you can't actually get paid by PP without having a bank account linked to PP. This has kept me from selling anything on EBay.

I'm not sure this is accurate. Unless something has changed from when I first signed up, you don't have to have a bank account tied to your PayPal account. You can send and receive money from your PayPal account - it is like its own bank account. Obviously, you would need to put some "seed money" in there, or receive money from someone else before you can spend any money from the account. The only reason you need to have it tied to a bank account is if you want to buy something that costs more than what you have in your PayPal account. It will withdraw it from your bank. Or credit card, or PayPal credit, or whatever method you have chosen for obtaining funds to transfer through PayPal. But you can have a PayPal account that exists on its own, for sending and receiving money, without any ties to your financial institution.

At least, that's how I used it for the first couple of years I had it. I tend to spend more than I receive, so now I have it tied to my bank account. It just withdraws from my checking like any other debit card transaction. But when I get paid, it goes into my PayPal account and sits there. It will only go to my bank account if I manually transfer it from my PayPal account to my bank.

[MikeEdgerton]

Except that I didn't buy the guitar from a total stranger. I bought it from a local, well-respected luthier who many members may be familiar with. I am not worried about him engaging in identity theft as I would about PayPal being hacked.

The point is moot as a total stranger would never accept your personal check, and I wouldn't expect him to. If I buy something off Craigslist, it's always cash.

Also my understanding is that Cafe advertisers are vetted to the extent that you would be able to track down any malfeasance.

Total strangers accept checks everyday in shops across this country. You gave someone your entire bank information and your signature. I'm just pointing out that it's no safer than having a Paypal account, probably less. You assume only one person handles that check, you have no idea how that person handles their finances. There is risk involved. Acting like that is a safer alternative will not make it so. It's a big bad world out there.

[Scott Tichenor]

Mike, Mike. Let it go. Find something else to do.

sincerely,

PayPal business account owner since 1999 who has run over 50,000 transactions without one single issue.

The amount of information about PayPal that is simply wrong, misguided and misinformed is staggering. Some of it is right here in this thread. Sorry, don't have time to discuss, but everyone needs their outlet.

YMMV.

Carry on. If this one gets a bit tepid folks we have Tone-Rite, Blue Chip Picks and tablature vs. standard notation to discuss. Or maybe we can talk about which model of mandolin seems to be appearing more than others on the Classifieds and therefore there must be secret defects and problems with them just waiting to be discovered.

[Dan Co1e]

I'm afraid I'm not connecting the dots. How would such a scam work? Using the friends and family option the buyer wouldn't have any recourse, right?

I forgot to mention an important detail, wasn't the authorized paypal address on the overnight prepaid shipping label.

[DougC]

Should this be an issue for who maintains the mandolin cafe classifieds? Scott, or somebody?

[Ivan Kelsall]

Mike - If anybody's PC is hacked or has a virus / key-logger etc. downloaded,info.can be gained. I store no information on my PC that could be of use to anybody even IF they succeeded. There's no banking / billing / e-mail etc. for anybody to get at. It's a precaution - just in case. I had my Facebook account hacked 18 months or so ago,as did 45,000 other UK users,& i had a virus sent to me via.an e-mail purporting to come from somebody i knew. It took me close to 4 days & required a lot of help from the AVG anti-virus guys to get things back on track. Ever since then i've stored useful info. off my PC,as i say - just in case. As for going to a lot of trouble,it takes less than 30 secs, for my flashdrive to boot up,
Ivan

[Eric C.]

Using PayPal is really no different than....automatic bill pay. Does everyone here that seems to think PayPal is not secure, horrible, etc. still mail checks to their utility, gas, phone, various insurance companies?

I'd trust PayPal way before putting a check (or credit card information) in a mailbox.

One could also include every time you swipe a debit/credit card at a store, that information travels via internet to where ever it goes. I am having a hard time understanding the differences between these examples.

[Eddie Sheehy]

I'm having a hard time figuring out why this thread is still alive... The Mandolin Café Classifieds is the most trustworthy site where I've bought or sold - regardless of payment option.

[Tobin]

Using PayPal is really no different than....automatic bill pay. Does everyone here that seems to think PayPal is not secure, horrible, etc. still mail checks to their utility, gas, phone, various insurance companies?

I'd trust PayPal way before putting a check (or credit card information) in a mailbox.

One could also include every time you swipe a debit/credit card at a store, that information travels via internet to where ever it goes. I am having a hard time understanding the differences between these examples.

I'm not sure if you really meant "automatic bill pay" or just "online bill pay". But PayPal is indeed different than automatic bill pay. And even though I do use PayPal, and only stopped mailing checks to pay my bills in the last few months (I finally relented and starting paying bills through my online banking), I refuse to use automatic bill pay. I will not - WILL NOT - allow some company to take money out of my account automatically, without me explicitly approving each transaction.

With PayPal, I have to take action to pay for something. With regular online bill pay, I go in and manually click to pay bills. That's much different than money being withdrawn from my account without me knowing it (and them just notifying me after the fact), as they do with automatic bill pay. That is where I draw the line on this fancy-schmancy electronic money stuff.

[Eric C.]

I agree with you, though I do have my insurance payments automatically withdrawn. However(!) for some reason I can't wrap my head around direct deposits and insist on getting my pay checks and depositing them manually. Weird huh?

I'm not sure if you really meant "automatic bill pay" or just "online bill pay". But PayPal is indeed different than automatic bill pay. And even though I do use PayPal, and only stopped mailing checks to pay my bills in the last few months (I finally relented and starting paying bills through my online banking), I refuse to use automatic bill pay. I will not - WILL NOT - allow some company to take money out of my account automatically, without me explicitly approving each transaction.

With PayPal, I have to take action to pay for something. With regular online bill pay, I go in and manually click to pay bills. That's much different than money being withdrawn from my account without me knowing it (and them just notifying me after the fact), as they do with automatic bill pay. That is where I draw the line on this fancy-schmancy electronic money stuff.

[DHopkins]

I have been using PayPal since its early years and I've never had a problem, ever. It's not 50,000 like Scott but it's close to a thousand and I plan to continue using it.