Enworld Subscription question
- Thread starter Theroc
- Start date
Yes, because someone who won't link it to a federally protected bank account will attach it to a credit card...
Credit card transactions tend to have far more protections for the consumer than bank account transactions. Typically, if there is an issue with a transaction, consumer credit legislation adds an extra layer of protection regarding credit card transactions, detailing the obligations and liabilities of the card provider as well as the supplier of the faulty goods/service/whatever. If youc an't obtain a refund from the supplier, you can often get one from the credit card company. This is not the case with transactions made using your own money (eg. a direct bank transaction) where your only recourse is action against the product/service supplier to recover your money.
It's pretty easy to instigate a chargeback on a credit card. It ain't so easy to get money back from a supplier who is being evasive or reluctant to do so.
In addition to this, PayPal itself has a layer of protection (their dispute system) whch weighs very heavily in favour of the buyer.
Using a combination of PayPal and a credit card, you have so much recourse that you'd have to try pretty hard to get ripped off!
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IronWolf
blank
I would much rather have my credit card exposed than my personal bank account information to online transactions. I know my credit card has stellar fraud protection. They are super easy to initiate a charge back while things are disputed should the need ever arise.
And if anything does slip through the cracks in the whole fraud prevention arena they were only able to charge something that shouldn't be on my card, not take my bank account balance unexpectedly below where is should causing one of my day-to-day bills to bounce causing fees to be weighed from the bank and from the place I was paying the bill too.
Meanwhile I have plenty of time to sort out the fraudulent charge on the credit card without the stress of more bills bouncing that were supposed to be getting paid from my personal bank account.
Merkuri
Explorer
PayPal's protection is kinda iffy. If you read the fine print you'll see that even if they find in your favor they can only refund the money if the person you sent money to still has money in his PayPal account. If he's the type of person that withdraws his PayPal money as soon as he gets it then you're out of luck. I know this because I've attempted to get my money back on a PayPal transaction before.
But I will second (third?) the arguments that credit card companies provide a lot of protection to their card holders. That's the reason I do 95% of my shopping with my credit card (then I pay off the entire balance each month).
However, I don't think PayPal will let you sign up for a recurring payment, like the one for this site, if you don't have your account linked to a bank account. I don't know the reasoning behind it, but I think the idea is that they want to be sure they'll be able to reliably pull that recurring payment out of your linked account if they need to, and credit cards don't have the same reliability as bank accounts (according to their line of reasoning).
Kinda. But that only works the once. If you're a seller of a single item, you might get away with it; if you're like me and sell over a thousand transactions every month, it won't work.
Basically, if you want any kind of regular or repeat business using PayPal, as a seller you can't do that.
If the seller's funding source fails when PayPal attempts to refund the customer, that funding source is cut off by PayPal. Without that funding source, the seller's PayPal account ceases to be functional for most transactions.
So, say I had 1000 subscribers. I could choose to screw one guy over for $3. But to do that, I'd have to invalidate my funding source (bank account) so that he couldn't get a refund, at which point it would be cut off by PayPal. I'd immediately be unable to receive my $3 from the other 999 subscribers. For the sake of $3 I'd lose nearly $3000 - that month; rinse and repeat. Not to mention the PITA factor of emptying my bank account and moving my wordly wealth to another account.
So it's highly in my interests to ensure that in such situations, the customer gets his refund.
Now, of course that's open to abuse - the customer can do that whenever he likes, and PayPal puts the onus on me - the seller - the prove that I supplied the product or service (which is very difficult for me to do). PayPal has a procedure in place for people who do that a lot. As do I.
As with all transactions, you need to look at who you're doing business with. Is this person in a position to cash and burn? Or does this person need to maintain the PayPal cash flow? If the former - be cautious. If the latter - you're safe, unless the seller's insane.
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