posted on September 14, 2000 04:36:31 PM
Hi! Never posted before but I was wondering if anyone had ever used Payplace?
I think the best way to "REWARD" paypal for thier duplicity would be to flock to the competition!
I was also one of the naive people who auctually belived paypal when they stated they would always be free. Since my auctions usaully are less than $2 bucks it is really kind of pointless to keep going with paypal.
I will try out payplace they are saying they are free also and pretty much mirror all of Paypal services. I was hoping to wait and hear from anyone who may have good or bad experiences with them before I go ahead and sign up.
posted on September 15, 2000 12:21:51 AM
I've had several buyers pay through PayPlace. Quick & easy . . . so far. I moved the $$ right over to my account, though, just in case.
As far as PayPal, I'm not thrilled at all at this bombshell, but must admit I DID notice an increase in my sales when I added it and about 1/2 of my buyers use it to pay me. It's a lot better than the 9% I was paying with CCNow!
Also,when I buy, I find I'm a little bent out of shape to have to actually MAIL even a personal check, much less, (choke), a money order! I MUCH prefer using PP. So I'd bet my buyers do, too.
They claim they will be accepting 25 countries soon, so that will be a BIG boon for me. And it's still cheaper than bank rates!
Sandy AKA: chev1959
posted on September 15, 2000 12:32:46 AM
I am willing to give PayPlace a try but it may be a little like rowing up stream for a while. Most buyers that use online payment systems already have a Pay(Pal?) membership and it may be hard to get them to switch.
posted on September 15, 2000 02:51:15 AM
I have used PayPlace and PayMe.com, both work well but I haven't used either very often. That will now be changing. ECOUNT is also a very interesting alternative. With ECOUNT you can withdraw your money from an ATM using an ECOUNT mastercard debit card. ECOUNT also has a service that lets you shop anonymously online.
There is also a company called propay. All of these are FREE and viable alternatives to PayPal.
posted on September 15, 2000 04:00:27 AMThere is also a company called propay. All of these are FREE and viable alternatives to PayPal.
I've got a ProPay account, and unless something changed since I last looked they are far from 'free', they charge 3.5% + 35 cents per transaction, they hold your funds for 30 days before depositing them in your bank account also. They also have a $30 fee in the event of a chargeback. I think Ecount also charges a fee now. If you think PayPlace will be able to handle sellers that rack up 10-15 credit card charges a day and remain solvent then good luck. I know there's a popular saying "Any port in the storm" but I don't know if I'd switch without a bit of investigating first. Hell I don't even think there's a storm, but if you feel like panicing, go for it.
posted on September 15, 2000 08:10:29 AM
I am only covering the FREE services (or the ones that claim to be free)
Ecount is now charging $1 on the payment and another $1 on the withdrawal. And their site still says "Free-free-free." You dont find out about the charge until you try to use it. THis deception is worse than paypal. Ecount started off with deception from day one. They claimed you will get $10 if you made your first transaction by Aug 31. I told a bunch of people. Within a few days, they changed it to you have to buy $30 at one of their partners stores. I dont know anyone who got the $10.
Payplace has been very smooth. They give a $5 referral fee. I tell my bidders join payplace with my link and I will give you 2.50 off.
A new one just popped up called exchangepath. Yesterday I signed up and referred a bunch of friends. Today none of us can get in. Not a very good sign.
Achex, which works checking account to checking account has worked out very nicely.
Payme is a bunch of liars. They hold on to your money for months and tell you the sender is being investigated for fraud. This has happened to a number of people. Stay away.
A client paid me with moneyzap on Saturday. It is now Friday and I have gotten nothing from them, not even an email. He has forwarded to me all his correspondence with them and even without this, he is a previous customer and I know he's tellng the truth. Mailing a check would be faster.
I guess the bottom line is you get what you pay for.
I believe ECOUNT only charges the $1 fee for ATM transactions. On their "Fee Disclosure" page it says that email transactions are free. Did they charge you a dollar when somebody sent you a payment? If so, they are worse than PayPal.
Oh now I see the fine print buried deep within their site. It costs a dollar to add money and a dollar to withdraw money. The only way it would be free is if you never took your money out.
posted on September 15, 2000 12:50:00 PM
So, it sounds like PayPlace is the best alternative.
Many of these new payment services will soon go out of business and probably take customers' money with them, so I'm not going to chance it.
Regardless of recent, um, developments, PayPal is still the safest and most established payment service, and they seem to have a business plan which will keep them in business. Even though they changed the rules, I tend to look more favorably upon them than if they hadn't changed, expanded their services, and -- yes -- begun charging fees.
I might check out PayPlace, but I'm not going to sign up for every one of these services which are now cropping up.
posted on September 15, 2000 02:27:20 PM
Ecount charges the buyer $1 when making the payment and the seller $1 when withdrawing it. This won't make buyers all that happy and on small items, it wont make sellers happy either. So I wont be recommending it.
Exchangepath was down for a few hours today. A message eventually showed up stating that they were upgrading their equipment. I would guess that after the news about their referral fees and signup fee on top of the news about Paypal's charges, they had a lot of hits. They're back up. A few of my customers already paid me and I got immediate confirmation. The customers liked the $10 they got back. So if it works smoothly from now on, I will continue to accept it. And I expect that they will all be charging fees at some point, so I am keeping my Paypal account. 2% is still cheaper than I paid my merchant bank for CC acceptance.
posted on September 15, 2000 03:59:41 PM
If you are dead set on a PayPal alternative because of fees to you as a seller I'd look to one of the services that charges the buyer instead of the seller.
There are 2 major companies that offer such payment vehicles.
http://www.moneyzap.com The Western Union name attached to this one gives it a lot of clout. There are no fees at present and at some future date there will be a per transaction fee to the buyer.
http://www.emoneymail.com This has the First Bank name as it's parent company, another heavy weight. There is a $1.00 fee per transaction that the buyer pays.
Both of these would be faster than a money order and cost about the same when you take into account the postage.
There are so many new companies, I can't keep track of them anymore, and if I can't find major news articles about them I'm a bit reluctant to even try them, PayPoint2000, EZCardInc, AChex, CheckSpace, etc., while they might be very valid companies I'm pretty much a coward on companies that haven't caught the eye of the news services yet.
I've used links to other pay services on my auctions, but PayPal is the only one the buyers have used... I'll keep the PayPal logo on my auction, 9 months of good service, and it's wide acceptance isn't something that's easy for me to dismiss. I've also got very low blood pressure, that and marriage has taught me a great deal of tolerance. I don't do the 'indignant or outraged customer' very well.
posted on September 15, 2000 06:51:52 PM
I really like paydirect it is a service from Yahoo (they are a LOT more then auctions) I use it both on Yahoo and Ebay. They are FREE and they don't allow chargebacks.
posted on September 15, 2000 10:27:48 PM
Is PayPlace the best alternative? Have you read their help section?
You can only electronically withdraw $200 in a 90 day period... So to get your money out of your PayPlace account you have to request a check. It will be mailed 7 days after the request, so you will get your money within 10 or so days. It sounds like they hold onto your money as long as possible to milk the float.
HHHmmmmm, I'll have to think about that one for a while.
