As the title suggests, I seek your opinion re using Paypal.

I recently used them to pay for a gift voucher. I input my visa card details and then they asked for my bank account details. Before I confirm the bank account details I wanted to ask on this forum if you have ever had any bad experiences or security issues with this company?

If their database is hacked and there is fraud on my visa card then my bank will ultimately refund the money. But giving them my bank account is another story

Thanks for your opinions

Millions upon millions upon millions of people use PayPal accounts. I've had one for I can't remember how many years...have made hundreds of payments using Paypal and transferred money a few times--never a problem. Providing a bank account is all part of the verification process to help confirm who you say you are, plus it can serve as a source of payment, but you can also add credit/debit account numbers. I always use my credit cards for the PayPal payment source as I just prefer managing my finances this way, plus most of my credit cards give cash back.

Ditto as Pib above, no problems.

Extremely convenient. For buyer. For seller (on ebay) not, fees high and slow withdrawal process. And if you want to withdraw from PP account to bank, it takes about 5 working days. I think you US citizen, because only for US PP using Direct Debit from/to accounts. All others can use only CC or Debit card and nothing more.

I use completely separated account from Kasikorn Bank to withdraw and Thai credit card for payment.

they are GOOD as long as things go well.

they are utter CRAP once things go wrong.

my case (very recent case):

bought TWO items on ebay from same seller worth 150$.

received ONLY ONE ...

I emailed seller 3x but got NO response.

opened PAYPAL CLAIM which was favored in my advantage BUT...

but...

in order to get a refund for the 150 $ I had to send back the received item by registered mail.

price 47$

that's trhe correct item, right, the item i paid for ...

so.... in order to get a refund of 150$ i must actually PAY 47$... ergo i lose 47$ because some seller <deleted>*CKs up.

emailed with paypal 10x. never received a proper reply to my case, only standard/generic emails...

"send back" "send us tracking" etc....

I recently bought a SIM card deal through Paypal. A week later the SIM card provider went bust. I called Paypal. 6 days later I got my money back.

Yea, I've done hundreds of buys off Ebay using Paypal as the payment method. Luckily I've only had to file claims with PayPal three times over the years regarding items that didn't arrive and the seller was unresponsive...each time I got a full refund within a week of filing the claim with Ebay which was super easy to file...if you can pick your nose, you can file a PayPal claim. Knock on wood (my head).

General experience Good.

A note: better if not Paypal do the conversion, if needed, between currencies. bank offers way batter exchange. (irrelevant if you pay items in your account currency)

Good for buyers , bad for sellers especially when things go wrong ,, then they are uncontactable ,

i sold a special diagnostic unit to a guy in Australia from UK he received the goods with a parcel receipted signature and actually registered the product , then told Paypal he had not received it and paypal gave him the money back ,, i had to call the police in to resolve the situation as paypal could not give a toss . the guy was prosecuted and fined in australia but 4 years later paypal still have not refunded my money even after i sued in the UK courts . problem is paypal have no legal juristiction to pin down for recovery of money.

Edited April 5, 201412 yr by liddelljohn

pay pal SUCKS. thats all

pay pal SUCKS. thats all

I agree entirely that they are ok until things go wrong, then they are one of the most inefficient and obtuse organisations in the world. There are other ways of dealing with financial transactions and after a two year fight with them I will never use them again. As an aside, I still get lots of spam messages purporting to come from Paypal re an account I closed 4 years ago.

i have not used them a lot I must admit, But I once transferred 200 Euros to a paypal account of someone in Spain and for the privilege they charged me 38 Euros......never again.

they are GOOD as long as things go well.

they are utter CRAP once things go wrong.

my case (very recent case):

bought TWO items on ebay from same seller worth 150$.

received ONLY ONE ...

I emailed seller 3x but got NO response.

opened PAYPAL CLAIM which was favored in my advantage BUT...

but...

in order to get a refund for the 150 $ I had to send back the received item by registered mail.

price 47$

that's trhe correct item, right, the item i paid for ...

so.... in order to get a refund of 150$ i must actually PAY 47$... ergo i lose 47$ because some seller <deleted>*CKs up.

emailed with paypal 10x. never received a proper reply to my case, only standard/generic emails...

"send back" "send us tracking" etc....

While PayPal and Ebay are joined at the hip, the OP is asking about PayPal, and you are talking about Ebay. Not same-same.

I have had a Paypal account for many years. I have no worries using them.

I do have 2 criticisms, one current and one from the past:

My current criticism is that Paypal is relatively expensive when converting currency payments. You pay a hefty fee for the convenience.

My 'old' experience is that if for some reason you have your account frozen and you are outside your country of account registration it is very difficult to restore before you return. This happened several years ago (twice) so whether procedures have changed I do not know.

i have had no problems giving them financial details but few months ago i used Pay Pal to pay for a car hire in BKK . The company disputed that they had received e payment saying and talking to them was like talking to brick wall . My gf spoke to them in better Thai than i could but no they had not received payment even tho i had the receipt and confirmation. So i emailed the UK based Car Hire broker a few times and received no replies so i contacted Pay Pal and they emailed me back saying they could not help me as it was a service i had purchased and they will only chase up disputes about goods. My money dissapeared either with the car hire company or the broker but my point is that Pay Pal will not help you if you have a dispute about a "service".

The very last time i will use either three of these companies ever again .

they are GOOD as long as things go well.

they are utter CRAP once things go wrong.

my case (very recent case):

bought TWO items on ebay from same seller worth 150$.

received ONLY ONE ...

I emailed seller 3x but got NO response.

opened PAYPAL CLAIM which was favored in my advantage BUT...

but...

in order to get a refund for the 150 $ I had to send back the received item by registered mail.

price 47$

that's trhe correct item, right, the item i paid for ...

so.... in order to get a refund of 150$ i must actually PAY 47$... ergo i lose 47$ because some seller <deleted>*CKs up.

emailed with paypal 10x. never received a proper reply to my case, only standard/generic emails...

"send back" "send us tracking" etc....

While PayPal and Ebay are joined at the hip, the OP is asking about PayPal, and you are talking about Ebay. Not same-same.

sigh. i'm talking paypal. PAY-PAL. whenever there is an issue with a purchase paid with paypal, paypal deals with it NOT ebay.

I think they provide a fine, and secure service.
Member since 2007

I've been using PayPal for over ten years. Hundreds of transactions and never a problem.

General experience Good.

A note: better if not Paypal do the conversion, if needed, between currencies. bank offers way batter exchange. (irrelevant if you pay items in your account currency)

Kasikorn's conversion is really appaling these days.

33.39 last week

33.27 two days ago

I don't know if they've got VAT hidden in there, but it wasn't this bad in the past.

General experience Good.

A note: better if not Paypal do the conversion, if needed, between currencies. bank offers way batter exchange. (irrelevant if you pay items in your account currency)

Kasikorn's conversion is really appaling these days.

33.39 last week

33.27 two days ago

I don't know if they've got VAT hidden in there, but it wasn't this bad in the past.

What currency are you talking about? No VAT is charged on currency exchanges. Here's K-bank current exchange rates for today and I don't see anything close to a 33.27 rate for any currency and most currencies have been fairly stable for the last week. "....in the past..." means how far back in time?

And PayPal's exchange rate will be several percent lower than what the Thai bank gives you....while you may be able to transfer funds without any direct fees when any money conversion must occur you will get the PayPal rate which is low (call it their hidden fee...they make their profit via their lower exchange rate).

Just for a comparison between today's Thai bank average TT Buying Rate used for incoming transfers and PayPal's exchange rate, here are the results:

Thai Bank PayPal

USD 32.41 31.58 (2.56% lower than Thai bank rate)

EURO 44.23 43.23 (2.26% lower than Thai bank rate)

GBP 53.63 52.35 (2.39% lower than Thai bank rate)

AUD 29.82 29.29 (1.78% lower than Thai bank rate)

As shown above the lower PayPal exchange rate "percentage-wise" will vary based on what currency you are converting...it's not a small flat percentage for all currencies. But as a general rule of thumb the PayPal is around 2.5% lower than the Thai bank TT Buying Rate. As just as additional info, the Visa/Mastercard exchange rate (excluding any foreign transaction fee your card-issuing bank may apply) and TT Buying Rate are almost always pretty close to each other give or take a few stang...around plus or minus 0.25 to 0.50 percent.

Summary: the PayPal exchange rate sucks.

thanks for the feedback. It does seem that pay pal sometimes does not look after its 'bread and butter' ie its customers

I used to sell a lot on eBay - over 10,000 transactions.

My take is that they are generally good, but if you get in a dispute they can make some very bad decisions.

Out of 10,000 I've had perhaps 10 transactions with big problems. Notable cases include a buyer that sent back an empty box by recorded delivery, which was supposed to contain an apparently 'faulty' iphone, that I filmed the opening of since I did not trust them, and still losing the case because they had bizarrely taken the step of reporting me for not sending them the item in the first place (which raises the question of how they were able to discover it was faulty, and how they managed to post it back to me) - basically a crime report whether investigated or not leads to the possesor of the report winning the PayPal case. The buyer then went on to do the same with at least one other seller, I know since they contacted me having read my feedback on the buyer.

Another occurence was for something I bought, a missing item, seller was completely unresponsive and PayPal (after almost 3 months) opted to rule in the sellers favour despite the seller not communicating with them either - the order contained a single item that they considered not covered under the PayPal terms. I did eventually get this money back, but it took a lot of complaining and threatening of a credit card chargeback to get the decision reversed. Went through 2 reviews and escalations before they changed their mind.

Another situation was a buyer that purchased something listed with a 7 day delivery and then complained after 2 working days, the item had been sent so it could not be reverted immediately (they could return however) yet a few weeks later they raised a claim against me saying they did not recognise the transaction. Despite the fact they had ordered via PayPal, were a 'verified' buyer, and had communicated with me regarding the order via eBay systems, they ruled in the buyers favour.

The worst one which nearly got me was an order for a $600 electronic item that was pretty obvious fraud, yet had passed through all their systems - I did not send it and issued a refund, weeks later I received an email from PayPal advising me not to send it - I would have lost that money had I not been actively inspecting the order details.

Edited April 6, 201412 yr by rwdrwdrwd

The big problem with Paypal in my opinion is the very high fees. You lose a lot on currency conversions if someone pays you in a different currency, and not only that, ON TOP OF THAT you have Paypal's standard service fees, and then, to make matters even worse, if your Paypal account is in e.g. UK pounds and you got paid in dollars, you will have a dollar balance on your account, and to withdraw the dollars to your bank account (in pounds) you have to convert the dollar balance yet again. They do it this way just so that they can sting you for excessive fees.

I recommend you use Moneybookers instead, if possible. Fees are much lower than Paypal.

Only good experiences with PayPal - paying with it, getting paid with it, withdrawing money to my Thai bank etc.

get the CEO's e mail off web, Google ceo email address he is on there. Used it a few time when account has been frozen for no reason. Sorted ASAP.

they are GOOD as long as things go well.

they are utter CRAP once things go wrong.

my case (very recent case):

bought TWO items on ebay from same seller worth 150$.

received ONLY ONE ...

I emailed seller 3x but got NO response.

opened PAYPAL CLAIM which was favored in my advantage BUT...

but...

in order to get a refund for the 150 $ I had to send back the received item by registered mail.

price 47$

that's trhe correct item, right, the item i paid for ...

so.... in order to get a refund of 150$ i must actually PAY 47$... ergo i lose 47$ because some seller <deleted>*CKs up.

emailed with paypal 10x. never received a proper reply to my case, only standard/generic emails...

"send back" "send us tracking" etc....

Agree with you ...

As long as no problems occur, Paypal is ok

Edited April 7, 201412 yr by andygunther

I was scammed out of 12,000 Baht. Paypal got me my money back.

pay pal SUCKS. thats all

Agreed, they are very difficult. Anytime I have used them the transactions take at least a day of computer work.

I give them a pain in the ass rating.

I avoid them at all costs.