posted on November 26, 2000 01:28:51 AM new
just going over an old issue of ebay magazine, soon to be a collectors item.
back page nice glossy add
"Faster than overnight, priority, or first-class mail. Undaunted by snow, sleet, or barking dogs. Never crumpled, crimped. or torn. Never short postage, never missing a zip code. Always free. PayPal.com:the quickest, most direct route for your online transactions."
not looking for a bunch of bashing over PayPal, but where else have you seen PayPal "always free" advertising.
posted on November 26, 2000 10:54:22 AM new
I don't want to get into the Paypal thing, but it seems like "some" of you have a vandetta against them.
I was never under the impression, from Paypal's own terms, that it was FREE for everyone, but free always for buyers, and free for sellers for a limited time. Who do you know that can offer free stuff indefinately??
When you started your own business, was everything perfect from the start, and flowing smoothly since? If you were accountable to hundreds of thousands of people with a new business, (and a brand new way of doing business) that was growing by the minute, how could you keep up with the changes without undoing "old" policies, while still trying to make everyone happy?
Do you realize electronic money transfers we can utilize ourselves, is a whole new way of doing things?
Yes, Paypal might have a few kinks to work out, but wouldn't you want buyers to stick with you through changing/growing times too?
So go ahead and have a big laugh at their ad, but put yourself in Paypal's shoes for a moment and see if you feel the same.
I 100% agree with kraftdinner If you don't like paypal, then go to the primitive way and keep accepting only checks, money orders, and cash. At least now guys you can display the Visa and MasterCard logo and say, we accept credit cards. Nothing in this life is for free, and PayPal really has a ridiculous fees on the entire Internet, so if you don't like it, please move on and everybody happy, because probably your customers will buy from me instead of you.
posted on November 26, 2000 11:18:36 AM newYes, Paypal might have a few kinks to work out, but wouldn't you want buyers to stick with you through changing/growing times too?
Is deceiving your customers just a "kink that needs to be worked out"? How about outright lies?
Moreover, while every business is based on trust to some degree, banking relationships are much more so. We hand over our money to someone we don't know, and trust that they will give it back when we want it. Many people feel that Paypal simple is not worthy of this level of trust.
posted on November 26, 2000 11:21:07 AM newI 100% agree with kraftdinner If you don't like paypal, then go to the primitive way and keep accepting only checks, money orders, and cash.
I wasn't aware that those were the only choices...
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I thought there were lots of other alternatives to Paypal -- like Paydirect, Exchangepath, and even Billpoint.
posted on November 26, 2000 11:43:39 AM new
I dont think paypal is the only way at all BUT.
BillPoint already charges sellers great service but not free.
Directpay nice free service but you have to jump through so many verification hoops to go from getting payment to accepting payment and moveing money most are discourage after there frist transaction.
makes paypals verification look like a walk in the park.
Exchangepath is only free to try now.
Its true nothing is free for ever not if they are going to be around very long.
I dont believe paypal is the best at all.
I think at this point if no other service comes along either propay and billpoint will soon be #1
Im not all wise about law suits but if there is any law suits or class action suits against paypal dont lawyers for these cases usually inform there clients to remain silent in the matter and wouldnt bad mouthing and downing paypal just add more power in favor of paypal
after a suit is started you gave up all rights to have a say in the matter out side the court room and chose to leave it up to the courts and judges wouldnt that be right !! http://www.Dman-N-Company.com
posted on November 26, 2000 12:18:29 PM new
you know I said I was not looking for a bunch of bashing but I knew I would attract a few people that don't have a brain in their head. all I want to know is if anyone else has seen their "always free" in print.
now to address kraftdinner and poton:
I was among the first people that started using PayPal and advertising it in my auctions, when I started putting it in my auctions I was running over 900 auctions at a time and if you did a search for PayPal on the auction listings you would pull up about 700 auctions with PayPal. In a few weeks most of the people that I watch(people that sell the same things as me)had it in their auctions as well. After they forced us to upgrade or close our account we received a letter that they say only went to 500 to 1000 people that were the top people that accepted payment and they gave us a different number to call, no waiting on hold, and the letter said there would be other "perk" to come, other that the same service. Last week I asked for someone to return a phone call, I gave them my cell phone number, with voice mail, haven't heard a thing back, good service??
When they first started up they said that they were a start up backed by the same person that invented and developed VeriFone. If you have never heard of verifone it's the company that pioneered the credit card industry through credit card terminals instead of the old machine(a Bartizan) where you had to put your card in and make the copies with the little carbons. They said that it would always be free because they could make a huge amount of money on the interest they make on the float, they boast over 4.5 million customers, on average I have about 250.00 dollars in my PayPal account, I know I'm not the typical account so lets say the average person has 10.00 in there that's 45 million dollars. The more money you have to invest/loan the more interest you can make if they make 1% a month on 45 million that's 450,000 dollars, 5% 2,250,000, 10% 4,500,000, if they are in bed with the credit card companies you can bet it's higher that you think.
when I processed my own credit card transactions the bank charged me .11 per transaction and 1.770%, I have the statements to prove it, if they could make money on me at that amount why does PayPal have to charge so much more? they don't send a statement, it's way easier for them to process everything the way they do because they don't have hundreds of thousands of terminals in the field. they don't have to send someone to by business to program the machine, or fix the equipment. I just don't get it.
we still don't have a way to refuse a payment, why would you want to refuse a payment? someone sends you 100.00 and they only owe you 10.00 you were just charged a fee on the 100.00, and only a supervisor can give you a credit of the fees if that happens.
we still don't have a statement for the fees they charge, sure you can download everything and dump it into a spreadsheet, but for a service I'm paying for should we have to?
there is still not any security features in place so you know that the payment was sent form PayPal, I've been on them for that one from the first week I used PayPal, and I was one of the first people that advertised PayPal! just something like a keyword in the payment so you can sort your mail with that keyword and have it dump into a different folder so I don't have to check all the headers before I send the items to know it came from PayPal. just this alone would save me a few hours a month, but they are not here to help us they are here to make money.
I don't care to earn any money on my balance, I don't care for anymore referral fees, international don't need it, don't want it, and is it still a free service in other countries?? are they using the fees they charge us to fund referrals in the new countries they are going into?? do the new countries have the old referral system?? the list is far longer than I will post here as are the problems that still plague the service and they are slow to address and quick to sweep under the carpet.
I guess PayPal thinks we can't live without them to pull this right before the holidays to make us swallow the change, you can almost see them sitting around the conference table saying, they will all swallow the extra fees, they have to it's Christmas and they don't want to risk loosing any business. November 30 will be the last day I take PayPal transactions, I will keep the account I'll just change the email addresses so the people on the sending end can cancel the transaction when it shows it is just pending. Hopefully PayPal will come around and adopt the same business practices that are applied in the real world, the more business I bring you the better the service and the lower the fees, if so I'll be back.
I hope our buyers will use one of the other services out there as most all have PayPal beat in doing what I want, just accepting a simple payment no frills, no fees. If not I guess they can always send a check
posted on November 26, 2000 12:39:22 PM new
I'm not saying that Paypal is the only way to go, but am saying that they really pioneered the electronic exchange of money for individual use. Sure, you'll get "better" companies offering the same thing, but they will be better thanks to the pioneering company that moves ahead and makes all the "mistakes".
If Paypal is a liar because it's changed or revised it's policies, then so am I. The only difference is that I don't have to answer to anybody. I "change" my way of doing things all the time, hopefully to better and simplify my life. Isn't that what pioneering companies do on a grand scale? If we all had to be accountable for our changes, wouldn't we all be liars?
Yes, I think Paypal has a few kinks, along with eBay, etc., but I doubt there will ever come a day when everything finally reaches a point where there aren't any kinks left. It would be like me thinking I'll reach a point in my life where everything's done.
posted on November 26, 2000 01:49:25 PM new
Oh, I think PayPal will be outta business in the not too distant future. As their "float" dwindles, so does their ability to stay in business. And you can tell they haven't hit bottom yet, because they keep raising their fees.
Less than 10% of my customers specifically ask for PayPal. And I direct the rest to the other alternatives.
posted on November 26, 2000 07:44:39 PM new
If I receive poor service from an establishment, I no longer go there...I dont sit around and harp about it for eternity.
There is a dept store literally 2 blocks from me. One of the big ones...They stink, and I hate their poor service. So, I drive 3 miles to another dept store with similar items and higher prices. But, I dont sit around and complain about it constantly. Who cares........
So, if you dont like Paypal, dont use them. Use one of the other services. It's really that simple.........
posted on November 26, 2000 09:35:38 PM new
50% of my customers pay by Paypal and I always still put Paypal in title and word description search when I'm looking to bid so that only Paypal sellers come up... it's the only way I want to pay so why bother searching sellers who don't take Paypal?
Besides, I'm earning interest off of my Paypal account now so the fees even out.
No worries.
posted on November 27, 2000 07:31:00 AM new
Sorry I don't have time to answer But I made almost $750 bucks just by displaying their logo in my auctions. $750 in referrals WOW!!! And I bet many people did more, and they still feel bad for the ridiculous they charge please give me a break. Now regarding to billpoint, exchangepath etc. keep waiting they will not succeed, soon they'll be out of business. PayPal is the pioneer and people will stick with them, the rest are just cheap competitors and copycats. It's exactly like eBay, eBay is the pioneer and people will stick with them including all of you NO MATTER WHAT! the rest will try to offer you free listings, etc. But people don't care, they always stick with the leader. If yahoo makes a little of competence to eBay, it's because they already were big, besides Yahoo was the perfect business for Auctions. Besides of all this, the buyers are the ones who decides which company you should have to use, not you And at this point they already have an account with paypal, and paypal is great for them, so I think they are not interested in any other method of payment (except billpoint) But sellers don't like much billpoint UPSSS got to go
posted on November 27, 2000 08:08:48 AM new
pumpkinhead, that is exactly what I am thinking. Not trying to hype up Paypal or put it down but no one is pointing the gun at my head forcing me to use Paypal. You can always tell your customers that you don't accept Paypal. Deal with it...when are we getting back to good old eBay bashing, I kind of miss that.
posted on November 27, 2000 08:43:31 AM new
I think we should all go back to the old ways of doing things for just 2 or 3 weeks. No eBay, No PayPal, No Billpoint, no computer buying or selling at all. Just place an ad in the local newspaper, run it for seven to ten days, deal with phone calls 24 hours a day, have deadbeats come to your door trying to buy for half what you priced an item at, people coming in your kitchen, basement, garage, whatever, tracking mud, snow, rain, leaves, roaches, dandruff and whatever evil some people bring with them, and then receive a bill from the newspaper for 25 to 30 bucks, and you didn't even get to include a picture with your item, unless you paid really big bucks, and had several black and white glossies made up and had a really small town newspaper that would accept this type of ad. Kind of like what the grocery store would put out in a weekly paper. I myself think that the AuctionWatch, eBay, Billpoint, PayPal route is the most cost effective alternative there is for both buying and selling. If you think that business doesn't change the rules on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly basis, look at the Automotive industry, the computer industry, the grocery store marketing. Rebates are good some weeks, and end whenever they want to end them, and only apply to certain situations, and the list goes on and on and on. Some people get good deals, and others are shut out for whatever number of reasons. So sellers, go ahead and bash all you like, just be thankful you have a place to go and sell and buyers that are willing to follow some of the most fouled up TOS's in the world and still buy your products.
If quitters never win, and winners never quit, what fool came up with, "Quit while you are ahead"?
posted on November 27, 2000 09:41:19 AM new
"airguy" - I just read your post about your dealings with Paypal. There's a few things I could say, but I won't. More to the point, I'd really like to know what all these "LIES" are that Paypal-haters are referring to. If you are talking about this "FREE" thing, perhaps it's because you didn't read the small print. It said (from the start - you should know, you were there)...Free for all Buyers, AND Free for all Sellers - FOR A LIMITED TIME.
Why would any company or companies finance another company that made no money? You have to build a huge customer base FIRST in this type of business. Paypal's way of achieving this was to offer a Free service to all Buyers, and some lucky sellers were able to take advantage of the Free for a Limited Time offer as well.
If you were with Paypal from the beginning, and managed to survive this long with them not returning phone calls, having to print out your own paperwork, etc., what was the final straw for you?
Just one more thing.....if you didn't want any of us to get into our views about Paypal, what was the purpose of your post?
posted on November 27, 2000 10:28:14 AM new
kraftdiner
as I said in the first place all I wanted was to see if anyone else had in print that they would always be free. that's it, that's all.
when they started they never said for a limited time anywhere. if they had I would have never given up my merchant account which was cheaper.
they did ask how can we offer this service for free? then they answered their own question, simple we make money on the float. we are a start up backed by Confinity Corp the inventor of the verifone credit card machines. their words not mine.
I do say that they keep changing their rules, but I've never gone as far as saying they are liars, so don't put worked in my mouth and don't jump to conclusions and say that I hate them either. their business model is far form the model of perfection that their staunch supporters want you to believe. I don't want to post the laundry list of things that are wrong with PayPal in this post because it is far longer than the post above I've already made and didn't want to get into on this page.
posted on November 27, 2000 10:39:49 AM new
kraftdinner- There were plenty of discussions on PP and the downside to consistant changes they have made over the short time. It's not about hating this company as much as keeping them on course in their committment to us the users. You may want to archive back some time in the AW Partner area to get more views and the downside and upside to PP and online services.
[ edited by Empires on Nov 27, 2000 10:41 AM ]
posted on November 27, 2000 11:27:44 AM newMore to the point, I'd really like to know what all these "LIES" are that Paypal-haters
How about "no one will be forced to upgrade"? Was that true? That really gets to the heart of the "always free" issue.
How about the promised free shopping cart. I haven't seen mention of it in months, even though it was promised to be in place now. However, Paypal does now offer a pay shopping cart.
Or the "verification" nonsense. Paypal has not been truthful about many aspects of this, including its entire purpose.
Paypal has told countless lies, many of them right here on Auctionwatch.
posted on November 27, 2000 11:53:00 AM new
The term "For A Limited Time" was my understanding based on a short read of their terms of use. I think that's what a lot of people thought/think. I never understood their Free thing as being indefinate (at least not for Sellers).
And "airguy", I'm certainly not trying to put words in your mouth. The "LIAR" part is the impression I get from Paypal's x-memebers. I'm trying to understand why people feel so strongly about Paypal (either way). You have to admit, you're not the typical Paypal user, but a high-volume seller. I think Paypal is better suited for small business's that can't afford to have their own C.C. processing account.
Paypal probably wasn't ready to handle some of the bigger accounts properly in their early (and still early) stages, but has worked fine for the "average" Seller.
If Paypal had of charged Sellers from the beginning, would you still be with them? The whole Paypal "thing", to me, seems to be based on the FREE part, not being free any longer, which makes Paypal a bunch of liars. How do you get out of changing policy without being called a liar?
The point being that you have to decide if Paypal's right for you or not. I imagine they will change their policies from now on to better themselves, but they may never be suitable for the high-volume seller.
It's a predicament I understand though. For WHATEVER reason you decide not to use Paypal, how do you deal with your buyers that want to pay you this way?
posted on November 27, 2000 01:17:39 PM new how do you deal with your buyers that want to pay you this way?
I tell them I take Billpoint and PayDirect -- and they're more than willing to use one of those. As long as they have a way to pay by credit card, they're happy as can be.
But I made almost $750 bucks just by displaying their logo in my auctions. $750 in referrals WOW!!! And I bet many people did more, and they still feel bad for the ridiculous they charge