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Paypal

Posted: Fri May 17, 2013 4:32 pm
by Max
Note to the editor: I noticed you use pay pal. Check out 1215.org, Bill Thompson's site. At the bottom he notes that he no longer uses pay pal because they played a dirty trick on him. F.Y.I. RED or BLUE pill; Mr. Editor?

re: Paypal

Posted: Fri May 17, 2013 7:52 pm
by editor
Paypal is listed on this site as an option for payment.

We have been using Paypal for more than ten years. I'm aware that a lot of people have had problems with it, but we have never had a single problem.

I think the biggest source of problems with Paypal has to do with their arbitration. If someone claims they did not get an item they paid for, or is not satisfied and wants a refund, then Paypal will reverse charges, taking funds from the seller's account and placing them into the buyer's account, often without consulting the seller.

This has never happened to us, I think for two reasons:

First, the people who patronize our site are generally Christians or, at least, are intelligent, and reasonable. They know what they are buying, and they have realistic expectations. We deal fairly with them and in return, they are fair with us. No conflict, no problem with Paypal.

Second, as for the digital items in our catalog, such as How to Survive Hospital Costs Without Insurance, we offer an unconditional money-back guarantee within one year of purchase. I don't know anyone else who does that, do you? That is how confident we are that all purchasers will find the information in our book more valuable than the funds they exchanged for it. We've never been asked to give a refund, by the way. Sure, people could rip us off, but they don't. See the paragraph above.

We've sold a lot of hardcopy books, and that has been our biggest exposure/risk where Paypal comes in. A chargeback on a book we had genuinely shipped could cost us the wholesale price of the book. But that's never happened either. Again, consider the calibre of our patrons.

Paypal is a convenience. For our patrons, much more so than for us.

We have started using Bitcoin, and our Bitcoin address is posted in our catalog. We prefer, and encourage, this method of exchange.

The Department of Homeland Security has been making it difficult for people to exchange dollars for Bitcoins. If anyone knows of an easy way to do this, or even an only mildly difficult way to do it, please let us know. We offered a 50% off sale in April if patrons paid in Bitcoin. Not even one patron took us up on it. Instead, patrons paid full price, saying Bitcoin was too much trouble.

We have a Dwolla account which I'll be posting soon. I got the account in an effort to fund an account with Mt. Gox, but it looks as though DHS has closed that avenue as well.

As for Bill Thompson's site, do you have a link? Any reference to an alleged problem someone had with Paypal doesn't do us much good unless we can read about it.

Re: Paypal

Posted: Fri May 17, 2013 9:35 pm
by Max
Like I said 1215.org is the name of the Web Site. http://www.1215.org/
It was just an F.Y.I.. to help educate yourself about other peoples' experience with Pay Pal (They ARE BANKERS after all)
Listen to the opening sound bite when you check it out. It starts automatically. That's why I said "Read or Blue pill"

Max

Re: Paypal

Posted: Mon May 27, 2013 7:23 pm
by wireworks
I have been using PayPal for over 12 years and love it, I have had a few problems come up with it, but all were solved in my favor.

Once I had $500.00 vanish from my account. Called PayPal and explained it to them, they pulled up my account and saw where someone had hacked my account and transferred the money to their bank. I questioned why they would do a transfer before varifying the new account and the lady told me it was PayPals policy to do that. She immedately put the money back in my account (a bank wouldn't have done it) and sent me a card to use to access my account that has a changing code that you have to enter to open the account. No problems since.

I've had a few customers try to get refunds either saying they never received the item or wanting to return items that are non returnable (engraved or personalized items). The last one I had was the most interesting. I used the principals of "How to Survive Hospital Costs Without Insurance" with them (kept showing good faith and they kept showing bad faith) and I won.

Some things that I have learned over the years to make PayPal work for you:

When someone files a complaint against you PayPal does not just give them the $ back. Yes they will pull it out of your account and hold it until the complaint is solved and then will either put it back in your account or issue a refund to the customer depending on their decision. But even before that, they try to get the merchant and customer to solve the problem before PayPal gets involved.

1. If you ship merchandise, be sure that you ship it to the PayPal verified address and use a tracking number. If you prove that you shipped it to the verified address and it did arrive, you will not be charged back.

2. If you have a customer with a complaint, don't talk to them through email. Make them file a claim and only email back and forth through PayPals complaint department and show good faith. If you or the customer decide that you can't solve the problem yourselves, either of you can esclate it to PayPal and they will use the emails that are sent through the complaint to make a decision. If you are in the right, this is to your advantage. If you are trying to do something wrong, it will work against you.

3. I sell eBooks that the customer can download onto their computer, however they have to have a password to open the eBook. The password is what they have to purchase and I email it to them (no shipping). I've had a few claim that they did not receive the password. Usually this is because it went to their spam folder and they don't know how to find it. If they insist on a refund (which is not available), I force them to file a complaint with PayPal and I'll explain to them through PayPals complaint dept. that no refund is available, the password was sent and probably in their spam folder and then give them the password and PayPal can see that they did receive it and problem solved.

If I had to choose between PayPal and a merchant account for credit cards, I would choose PayPal. Credit card companies usually always side with the customer no matter how much documentation the merchant provides. It's simple, the customer usually owes them $ and a the merchant doesn't.

Example: I once had a lady (who owned her own business) order two id bracelets for her and her husband with their first and last names engraved on the front and their anniversary date engraved on the back. The bracelets were shipped to her business address which was also the billing address for the credit card. She filed a claim saying she did not place the order and that someone was using her card. I provided a copy of the order, tracking number verifying that it was delivered to her place of business along with a cover letter explaining everything and at the end of the cover letter I explained that it was hard for me to believe that someone used her card to order two bracelets engraved with her and her husbands name on them and their anniversary date on the back and have them shipped to her business which was the billing address of the credit card. They gave her the money back and she also got to keep the bracelets. That would not have happened with PayPal.