I was considering dropping paypal as payment method for new hosting clients, Ive had paypal charge back too many things months after the transfer had been completed. I recently had one of the chargeback clients, who will get hosting for about 3 months and charge it all back, go to the next host and do the same. It shocks me what people will do to save $15, anyone that would do something like that its untelling what else they would do.

Anyway I have heard some mixed reviews about switching from paypal. i know it would probably shrink my market as most people use paypal, but I guess if they have a paypal account they should have a credit card or debit card.

So basically I would like to hear from people who have experience with other payment gateways besides paypal, like pros, cons, chargebacks, etc; Id really like to dump payapal for new clients because the way they do things just boils my blood, I don't even get the dispute things they just reverse stuff as little as $3 and as much as $200. Ive tried anti-fraud measures such as checking locality of ip, verifying the paypal email, etc, but some people still are able to charge back. It doesn't happen all that often to me but its been 7 times now and that's enough for me, i just cant do business this way.

Thanks for any feedback anyone can give me on this.

What you can do is have your clients sign an agreement, can be short, basically stating that they are aware of this transaction and have read your TOS. We do this on all of our first-time server orders. So, if they start pulling the reverse BS down the road, you can waive that in front of their faces and they'll get into trouble with their CC for filing a false claim.

Credit card companies require you to provide physical proof with the client's signature to dispute the chargeback as Paypal does not do chargebacks if the client paid straight out of their Paypal account.

yeah, I have been verifying peoples locations, phone numbers and everything. Here lately they don't even file a dispute claim on my account, they just reverse it no questions asked. Ive had enough today of paypal , I'm editing my paylinks as we speak. Gonna try out 2checkout and see how that goes.

thanks Ayk, Ill try that when I start accepting credit cards and debit cards only. I may even hook my fax machine back up and have them sign stuff. I'm pretty much breaking even now, making a lil profit, more customers would be nice but not at the aggravation I'm dealing with now.

I'm using a shared business account with a family member and I say within time it will get frozen and that will cause problems. I called paypal today and got the most hateful woman ever, I had to hang up before totally going off on her. I seriously hate these people.

But I guess where they are not a financial institution and don't have to follow banking laws they do what they want.
So alternative payment method here I come!

From experience, more people prefer to pay by credit cards than by paypal. 2CheckOut is a great provider, except they have fairly high fees...also, don't rely on their fraud checking 90% of the time fraud orders go through clean.

Well, they must be using credit cards now as that is the only way to get a chargeback on hosting with Paypal. If they just pay straight out of their Paypal account, they won't be able to get a chargeback as Paypal does not honor non-tangible goods. Hosting falls under that category, you're selling a service, not an item.

So, to sum it all up, even if someone's using Paypal, does not mean that they are not using a credit card through it. To be on the safe side, if you don't know the customer and if it's for a large amount, have them sign a form.

I was considering dropping paypal as payment method for new hosting clients, Ive had paypal charge back too many things months after the transfer had been completed. I recently had one of the chargeback clients, who will get hosting for about 3 months and charge it all back, go to the next host and do the same. It shocks me what people will do to save $15, anyone that would do something like that its untelling what else they would do.


Yes that's right its recently happend with me i made a design for a guy as soon as i sent him files he applied for charge back and he got it... i provided them all proofs but they didn't hear anything :(

What you can do is have your clients sign an agreement, can be short, basically stating that they are aware of this transaction and have read your TOS. We do this on all of our first-time server orders. So, if they start pulling the reverse BS down the road, you can waive that in front of their faces and they'll get into trouble with their CC for filing a false claim.

Credit card companies require you to provide physical proof with the client's signature to dispute the chargeback as Paypal does not do chargebacks if the client paid straight out of their Paypal account.

there is still a major flaw with that theory. if the buyer pay with paypal then you MUST go to the buyers credit card company to diputer it. thats the problem.

A) you dont know what company the buyer uses
B) CC NEEDS the credit card number to bring up the charge back
C) CC will not help you as you are not the merchant (paypal is)
D) paypal washes their hands, and the only way to collect your money is by going to a collections agency. its crule but i just lost 910$ with paypal for an action they admitted is wrong but cant help me.

well the thing is a good 90% of chargebacks due to "unauthorized" funds are just people getting their money back. I can only think of one instance where someone actually used a stolen paypal account. The others have been just cheapos trying to get something for nothing which they end up doing. Paypal doesnt even file a dispute with me they just reverse it, no matter what proof I send they just reply with template emails.
Since I cant really afford most stuff businesses can to prevent this Im just going to go to selling resellers only, and just quit doing web services all together, I haven't had no resellers get charged back so I think this is bet for me, Im also going to take off the auto sign up from my site. May lose some business down the road but I have enough customers now where I'm comfortable and Id rather lose a few clients then sit and get ripped off every month.

Do you call your new "customers" before setting them up? We call all our clients before setting them up to verify their signup. This solves our potential fraudulent transactions big time. We haven't had anyone do such a thing since verifying our clients info.