Paying Online

[driftah]

I'm just wondering what is the safest way to pay someone online for an item? I know paypal is the safest.. I've never had any problems with that.. Is there any other online site that is also safe? How about westernunion? Are they any good to go through? Help me out.. thanks

[Al_S14]

depends on teh situation. is it an ebay deal? if so then paypal is safest since you can buy full money back protection for only like 5 bucks or so ... cant remember hwo much but its cheap as hell .from what i know with western union you cant get your money back once you sent it. id go with paypal over anything altho there is this www.paypalsucks.com but i still use it and happy
this friggin halarious
http://paypalsucks.org/graphics/PPS-Cartoon1.gif

[projectRDM]

If you think paypal is the safest, you've got a lot to learn. Keep using them though if you like, just don't be surprised when money starts vanishing one day for no reason.

[Al_S14]

what do you recomend? id hate to loose any money in teh future...

[projectRDM]

Drive to the person's house with cash in hand, gun in the other.

Seriously, there's really no safe way to pay online. I found out awhile back that you can stop payment on a Money Order, even up to two months after it's cashed. Some fool in Illinois owes me $310 because of that deal.

[SimpleS14]

How do you go about stopping a money order?

[theicecreamdan]

I'm just wondering what is the safest way to pay someone online for an item? I know paypal is the safest..

you answered yourself...

[projectRDM]

How do you go about stopping a money order?

I'm still wondering that myself.

The guy paid me with a MO from a convenience store, and not to sound racist but his name was Middle Eastern so it's possible he worked there and had some sort of way of tricking the machine. All I know is I deposited it, waited for it to clear, then sent the parts. Three weeks later I pull out a piece of cash to buy a car and notice I'm short some money. Three hours of phone calls put me back to the issuing bank, who reported a stop payment was placed and a check was reissued to the buyer. The money was of course pulled back out of my account. Surprisingly the names did not match between the buyer and the receiver of the check (both were of an ethnic decent), turns out the guy created a false Ebay account to pull the scam, keeping his real account clean. The bank didn't even dispute the names not matching.
I saved his address though and next time I'm up North I plan to stop by. I hear there's new ways to commit arson that's virtually undetectable. Funny thing is after I called him on it, he threatened me by saying something about 'Allah will rain down on you'. I notified Ebay since it violated their rules about religious remarks or slander, they never said a word back.
So now I only accept MOs drawn on a National bank or through the Post Office, and I wait 10 business days before shipping anything out after it's deposited. Even then there's still no gaurantee the money is good.

[mr_240sx]

ive read that stuff from paypal sucks..... but if you keep your payments for small stuff then there is no problem... they only play around with peoples accounts that have lots of big money going in and out. ive been using paypal for about 2 years and have nothing but good things to say about it! also i know autornd uses it with lots of other big companies, so if it wasnt safe im sure they wouldnt use it right?

[projectRDM]

ive read that stuff from paypal sucks..... but if you keep your payments for small stuff then there is no problem... they only play around with peoples accounts that have lots of big money going in and out. ive been using paypal for about 2 years and have nothing but good things to say about it! also i know autornd uses it with lots of other big companies, so if it wasnt safe im sure they wouldnt use it right?


You said it. I never had a problem when I was just moving small amounts around to buy parts.
As soon as I started moving my own products though (and substantial funds) I began to get buried in spam mail, violation warnings, and account holds. I always pulled the money out immediately because the longer it sits the more they draw off of it, and that's complete swindling in my book, and they didn't appreciate that. Once a week I'd get a warning I was approaching my withdrawal limit, made too many withdrawals, or received more than the allowable amount into my account, and several times they put a hold on my account due to 'suspicious activity', in other words I was making bank and they weren't. I wasn't allowed access for periods of up to seven days while they performed an 'investigation' into these activities. Try finding those requirements in their policy, they don't exist because there are no limitations outlined and you're allowed all the movement you want as long as payments do not exceed $1000 on a basic account. It was more of a way for them to force me to upgrade my account because they weren't making their cut. Strong arming someone into paying fees is mafia tactics, and poor business. Plus all the time they promise how low the fees are when you upgrade but they never note that once you do they charge a fee for EVERY transaction, not just credit cards like they suggest. Plus you can't decline payments anymore and if the seller backs out, you still pay a fee. In 23 days after upgrading my account to stop the harrassment I paid out over $300 in fees. Some of it wasn't even warranted because I had two buyers change their mind after paying and request a refund through paypal, they gladly sent the money back and charged me 3% on it anyway, so I paid out of pocket.
Word of advice, NEVER let your money sit in the paypal account for longer than 24 hours. If you have to make a payment, it automatically transfers in from your bank account anyway so there's no need to let it sit there, open for the taking. I used to get people all the time say they had to transfer the funds first so it'd be a week before they could pay, it's all automated so there's no need to put in it manually. Soon as it hits, withdraw it and run. And pray they don't decide they want a bigger piece out of you.

Don't even ask about closing the account either, I'll just say it's about ten pages of "are you sure you want to do this?" followed by a nice list of icons where you can select your reason, but it won't accept anything other than the icon "sastisfied customer". Any other selection you make comes back with an error message, or "we could not proceed". Even in closing they want you to give them a good word.

[omgosh]

Yeah, I dont like paypal anymore. I didnt really have any problems with it until lately...

The dispute system is retarded. I sent someone a dash dimmer switch for like $15 shipped, and it ended up in the wrong state and then just got lost in shipping. Stupid small box. But anyway, the buyer and myself agreed on me just refunding him $10 instead of the full $15 since I had to pay to ship it and all. After all this paypal would NOT let me resume use of my account until I payed someone (probably them) the remaining $5.

So I just said whatever, its only $5, so I sent it, and then they place ANOTHER hold on my account. I could not for the life of me figure out what they wanted me to do from the webpage alone. Even after I called them I couldnt get a direct answer, I had to say it myself before the rep would admit it. The only thing I use it for is to buy and sell parts for the 240, and apparently they wanted me to submit reciepts or shipping info from where I was getting these parts, aka, they thought they were stolen.

After this, I was told to send an email to the dispute dept, and they just told me they couldnt help me without proof of sale for the parts, which I never had and couldnt get, because it was a parts car sitting in the garage. I eventually sent them a picture of the shell in the garage and a picture of the title, but they still refused to help me over the phone and havent responded to any of my emails.

The worst part is that I cant close my account, or even remove my bank account and credit cards from it. I hate knowing that they have all that information at hand, guess I just have to watch my statements.

Its too bad they suck, because EVERYONE uses it now and its so much easier when everyone is on the same page. Hopefully they get better...

Good luck paypalers! lol

[driftah]

So what is the best way to pay someone online?

Money orders seems to be kind of safe.. i guess you can some how get your money back if the seller doesn't send in the item.. but i don't know how that works. Seems like whatever you decide to do when dealing with online sending is scarce.. I just want to know what is recommended.

[Frixco_240]

Sending a money order is definately not the safest because money orders are basically cash. If u dropped it and someone picked it up, they can go cash it and your mone's gone. Cuz think about it, you used cash to buy a money order, and no one will refund you a money order unless they can verify that a money order is not payed yet. Only banks can do dat. I know cuz I work at a bank :down:

[MadScientist]

My first Transaction with PayPal was over $1300... but I used Instant Transfer from My Bank Account. Once recieving money always Tranfer the funds out of PayPal.
PayPal has flaws but so does Credit Cards.

Your best and mostly safest bet is to deal with Businesses whom accept Credit Cards... you can always dispute the transaction and the CC company almost always takes the side of the CC Holder.... However dont try to scam this way because alot of business owners know what the CC Services are looking for (Signature Confirmation of Delivery & Shipped to Billing Address)... if that was done then you have no legs to stand on when disputing.

Worst things I have heard of is people Buying a Part, and getting a Brick... (Sex Pistols quote anyone?)

Peace
Drew