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PayPal has been annoying some of its customers for years.
Instead of making it easy for folks to pay online using their credit cards, the digital payments company directs them to buy stuff with their PayPal balances and checking accounts. The end result has been both profitable for PayPal (because it avoids credit card networks' higher fees) and a pain for shoppers looking to rack up points or frequent flyer miles.
PayPal is finally changing that, thanks to new deals with Visa and Mastercard it signed earlier this year. On Thursday, PayPal took the chance to tout those agreements, saying its US customers will be able set a default way to pay -- whether credit card, debit card or bank account -- starting this month. The change will be implemented globally beginning early next year.
"We want to make it easy for anyone to pay however they want, wherever they want," Joanna Lambert, a PayPal executive focused on consumer products, said in an interview.
This change is another way PayPal is hoping to make its app and website far more intimate pieces of people's financial lives. Right now, PayPal is something its average customer uses only twice a month; it wants that to increase to twice a week. The Visa and Mastercard agreements could help do that by encouraging more people to use PayPal more often and inviting back many customers who were turned off by its current system.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ShadowSystems on Saturday September 17 2016, @12:38PM
Has PayPal been regulated like any other financial institution for my protection?
Because last time I checked they were NOT and any issues I might have with them draining my bank account in error were entirely at the discretion of PayPal.
No recourse to any federal oversight, no way to refute their claims without going to court, no way to get my money back without involving a lawyer.
If my bank screws up & takes money out in error there are various mechanisms in place, through the bank and federal agencies for me to recover my funds.
If my credit card company messes up then again I have multiple avenues for redress.
If PayPal screws up then what can I do about it that does NOT involve "binding arbitration" or PayPal simply telling me tough shit & leaving me penniless?
Because until PayPal is regulated, federally insured, & held to the same laws as an ACTUAL financial institution, there's NO WAY IN HELL I'm willing to do business with them.
You might as well hand your bank account & credit card over to a random stranger & trust them NOT to screw you over.
I avoid PayPal like the plague & use a credit card for online transactions.
At least then if the seller tries anything funny I can claim fraud, demand a refund, & let the seller explain to the credit card company why they shouldn't get hit with the chargeback fees.
Meanwhile I have my money back, know better than to use that seller ever again, & can take my money elsewhere.
Friends don't let friends use PayPal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 17 2016, @06:15PM
Well, they can arbitrarily freeze people's accounts, like they did with Wikileaks and countless others. I think that answers your question.
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Saturday September 17 2016, @10:42PM
Exactly. Paypal enables fraud on anybody's accounts. It happened to me and one of my accounts was drained - I lost over $4k before I noticed. Paypal did not care. It relies on making it easy to hook up an account to purchases, not any concrete proof about who owns the account.
Arseholes.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ShadowSystems on Saturday September 17 2016, @11:16PM
My mom said she needed a PayPal account for making many of her purchases online.
I "forced" her to get a Walmart "GreenDot" refillable credit card & use that as the financial source that PayPal would drain funds from in order to make said purchases.
It didn't matter how many times I patiently tried to explain WHY that I had insisted on this (and other) measures, right up until the first time (of many) that PayPal screwed up & drained the card to a zero balance.
Then it made PERFECT sense to her as she realized that if it had been her *bank account* that had been screwed over, she'd be out a month's pay AND all the overdraft charged to the account by her bank for the sudden lack of funds.
Now she keeps a trivial balance in the card, just enough to cover the purchases she intends to make plus a bit more, essentially "topping up" the card just before making the purchase.
If PayPal tries to fuck her over again, she's only out the cash in the card rather than her entire Bank Account balance, AND since it's a Visa branded card she's got the protections of the brand as well.
Given all the times PayPal has fucked up & drained the card, she sighs, shrugs, & notifies the card issuer to challenge the charge...
I think she may have the number memorized at this point, else she's got it on speed dial.
I'd rather she doesn't use PayPal at all, but at least she's insulated from trajedy when (not if) PayPal fucks up yet again.
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