Looking for alternative to PayPal

G

GuyS

Active member
I have just joined the not so elite group of people that have be burned by PayPal. If you have been thinking their "buyer protection" policy offers you any security, just wait until it is put to the test. Most people are honest and I suppose that is why I have not had any problems until now.

Unfortunately many sellers on this website want PayPal only methods of payment. Is there any other way of making payment to a bona fide seller available?
 
Send a money order. Of course, that won't give you any protection.

There is nothing more reliable than Paypal. In fact, I'd say everything else is likely worse or probably not going to be trusted by the seller, short of those who can take direct credit card transactions. Now, my understanding is that 'buyer protection' is a term reserved for Ebay sales, and without knowing the details I'm going to be a little skeptical about Paypal being to blame. You really just have to try to make sure you're dealing with trusted people. Your complaint seems to be about protection from scammers and the like. That's not really their job.

If you are concerned that a person is not honest, you can use a third party escrow type system. I know there are a few out there, but they are generally reserved for very expensive things. I think.
 
In terms of security, I'd say an escrow would be the safest (most expensive too), then paypal and then a money order. Of course, nothing is foolproof either and the responsibility of making sure a transaction is safe belongs to you. Trust no one in the beginning because people who want to rip you off will spot a sucker a mile away. Remember the golden rule too: If something or someone seems too good to be true, well, it probably is (not good). You have to trust your instincts as well with someone. If someone refuses to give you a valid phone # in which to talk to them or gives you a P.O. Box # in which to ship to, I wouldn't ever deal with them. If they give you a story that seems fishy, by all means investigate it. If their answers (to your questions) are vague or don't make sense, walk away from it. Simply put: you wouldn't let someone into your house if you didn't know them and they weren't making sense, so why buy or sell to someone who you can't communicate with.

I got burned by Paypal (through ebay) three years ago and vowed to never use them again. It was only for $60 U.S. (for a used motherboard) that I sold to someone in Georgia and they used Paypal to pay for it. The didn't want insurance on the package since it would've bumped up the price another $20 Cdn., so I sent it regular mail with no tracking #. They claimed they never got it at all and they filed to get their money back with paypal. I scanned in all my receipts from shipping to paypal only for them to still side with the guy who was ripping me off. He's probably pulled this scam on people in the past as well and I shouldn't have sent it without someone signing for it. That's the only time I ever had a dispute on ebay in which I shipped something. In the end, I still bought/sold on ebay but I never used Paypal again. I only use money orders with international sales and electronic banking transfers for Canadian sales.

It's up to you what you wanna use... I'm sure Paypal helps those who've been ripped off or wronged by after my experience with them, I've decided to go alternate routes.
 
P.S. I've bought three items off this site (my HVX200, manfrotto tripod and Firestore FS-100) and all transactions were fine. All sellers through this site I trusted and it's been nothing but a good experience for me
 
If your Paypal account is funded by a credit card, the credit card company should protect you. It's also good to initialize a dispute with Paypal. That way, if the other party doesn't respond or falters with a discepancy, you've got more ammunition to show your credit card company. If your card-issuing bank won't protect you, get one that will.
 
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