We are trying to decide if we should use Paypal or not for our site. I've been doing a lot of research on it and it seems most sites are set up with them but I've been reading negative comments regarding their customer service if you have a problem.
Any feedback?

Paypal is more secure, affordable, and reputable more then any other paysites out on the internet. They have been out for more then 8 years now I believe and any company with such a large and long history are bound to have the few that have negative experiences with them. When people have bad experiences with something it turns out they usually will want to tell the whole world about it, whenever its a good experience you dont usually see someone post something and say HEY GUYS THIS SERVICE IS GREAT its one of those spur of the moment...if someone else mentions it you mention its good too.

Yes, that is very true. We will be selling pet products in our store and on-line and I'm wondering if it would be more cost effective to go with someone like Paypal for on line and then a bank for the in-store sales or just have one provder do it all, such as Costco?

PayPal customer service is great. I call them, wait 2 minutes and I'm directly connected to a live representative. I suggest you apply for a business account. PayPal is VERY secure, and VERY good at handeling fraud clients *(if you have any)* I would recommend PayPal anywhere, anytime, any day.

If you are going through the expense of setting up a merchant account then why not use it for both the store and online?

Depending on your online store software you could set it up to offer the choise. Personally if I was getting a merchant account then I would use it both on and offline.

Paul

We've had only good experiences with payPal - we have it integrated into our shopping cart, it gets the transaction confirmation easily and the auto process is smooth - so we can only recommend it

Depthnet, I didn't know PayPal could also be used inside a regular retail store, I always thought that they were just for online transactions only, but it is something I will check out

they make it easy to use their API to connect your shopping cart. This includes the response back u need to know the funds were captured and to continue the transaction

I have had a paypal account for several years(since 2000) I have read all kinds of negative stories,but have never had the 1st problem with paypal and that running two business thru them for years.

my 2 cents

Depthnet, I didn't know PayPal could also be used inside a regular retail store, I always thought that they were just for online transactions only, but it is something I will check outPayPal can't be used inside a regular store, but a merchant account can be used online. That is what I was saying. Use the merchant account in your regular store, and PayPal and the merchant account online.

Paul

PayPal is the most effective and reliable payment gateway, they are on this field for more than a decade now, they have billions of clients all around the world. So a company with such reputation and expertise is sure to provide you with the best service around internet grounds. So you need not worry on the fake issues around the internet, they are popular because of their service so you can go opt for them directly.

PayPal is the most trusted payment portal, they take upon millions of transactions a day and work with tons of people, so you could find a small delay on their response, but these are no issues when it comes to firms like PayPal.

I trust PayPal and using it for some years now, there are still many out there using PayPal for all their purposes and they are quite satisfied from the service thats the reason they still have such a huge client base. So no more worries you can directly opt for PayPal as your payment portal.

Moderator, please delete. :)

Moderator, please delete. :)

Why?

For the most part PayPal's customer service is decent. I wouldn't call it amazing but they certainly do try to help you to the best of their abilities.

Paypal is good and even if they are bad you have no choice but sign up with them. No wonder why they have over 200+ million customers.

I have lost thousands with paypal. DO NOT USE THEM!. Right now i have $7,000 Frozen for no reason. i will never use them again and im looking for an attorney. Please be ware that paypal is NOT regulated or required to fallowing any federal banking rules. They can and will freeze your account when you get a lot of money in it. I did nothing wrong, i have never received a complaint, provided every piece of info they asked for. Whats funny is people say they have great Customer service. When in actuality when something is wrong you can not talk to the people you need to. Their buyer complaint, account risk department has no phone number i was told and the only thing i can do is wait for a reply by email.. its been over 2 weeks and about 10 emails with no reply so far.. i suggest you google paypal scam or paypal sucks and you will find thousands of people in my situation.

I have lost thousands with paypal. DO NOT USE THEM!. Right now i have $7,000 Frozen for no reason. i will never use them again and im looking for an attorney. Please be ware that paypal is NOT regulated or required to fallowing any federal banking rules. They can and will freeze your account when you get a lot of money in it. I did nothing wrong, i have never received a complaint, provided every piece of info they asked for. Whats funny is people say they have great Customer service. When in actuality when something is wrong you can not talk to the people you need to. Their buyer complaint, account risk department has no phone number i was told and the only thing i can do is wait for a reply by email.. its been over 2 weeks and about 10 emails with no reply so far.. i suggest you google paypal scam or paypal sucks and you will find thousands of people in my situation.

I would call them up and literally not hang up until they get the situation rectified.

Hello Lemurs2,
I was reading up on your request for knowledge about the paypal team and customer service. I will say this for paypal:

I have used their service for several years now. It first started back in 2001 when I was selling things through an online game. Everything I did with them was perfect and on time, requesting money from my banking account, and putting money into my checking account.

But one of the most positive things happened just here in the past week. I own my own business and use them for my online transactions. Well I got on PAYPAL.com the other day from home and I had a virus and a hacker got my acount information, and requested that I had made a payment to them for half of the balance in my account. Well paypal called me moments after it happened and told me about it and we were able to cancel the payment and I was not out anything.

So I really believe that paypal is the best processing company out today.

Hello Lemurs2,
I was reading up on your request for knowledge about the paypal team and customer service. I will say this for paypal:

I have used their service for several years now. It first started back in 2001 when I was selling things through an online game. Everything I did with them was perfect and on time, requesting money from my banking account, and putting money into my checking account.

But one of the most positive things happened just here in the past week. I own my own business and use them for my online transactions. Well I got on PAYPAL.com the other day from home and I had a virus and a hacker got my acount information, and requested that I had made a payment to them for half of the balance in my account. Well paypal called me moments after it happened and told me about it and we were able to cancel the payment and I was not out anything.

So I really believe that paypal is the best processing company out today.

And in other news, Paypal yesterday froze an account with a couple "k" of funds in it - without warning. The account was fully verified, and has had zero chargebacks. Thankfully, we don't depend on the funds in there.

So wait... BEST processing company? Man, I'm paying a lot it seems - a couple grand for the inability to process a transaction.

Paypal yesterday froze an account with a couple "k" of funds in it - without warning.
contact the paypal customer service via phone 08707307191 to find out why your account is frozen?

The only reason I use paypal it is the most used program. I have delt with them before over the phone and waited 20-30 minutes on hold and had no good experience.

We thankfully have little need to call PayPal for customer support but we have twice this past month and only was on hold 4 or 5 minutes

Paypal customer service is more than a joke, they never answer your emails, nor phones.Forget about PayPal as it is no longer well managed nor trusted. I believe paypal staff are cheating users with the name of security, just as I said here:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=683288
(scroll down and find my post or just go to http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpo...7&postcount=10)

We are trying to decide if we should use Paypal or not for our site. I've been doing a lot of research on it and it seems most sites are set up with them but I've been reading negative comments regarding their customer service if you have a problem.
Any feedback?

I can honestly say that it is a pain in the butt dealing with claims, chargebacks, or fraud. When they get a report from an outside source about fraud or a chargeback they just yank the funds and lock your acocunt. Sometimes it seems like the email that should proceed that action is just abandoned. Then is just sits there for a few days while they review the documentation that you send in to backup your claim, while in all reality the people on the phone look over your case and see that your file has not been forwarded to the right department then they do that and tell you to wait a few more days. Nuh Unh! call back in a few hours and just keep on them. They can get the job done correctly, they just need to be rode a little bit harder to get the job done.

I'm using paypal for 2 years now, I haven't met with any problems yet. Transactions are flawless and hassle free. But their customer service is not good. If we send an email there, you can expect a reply only in 10-14 days.

you can expect a reply only in 10-14 days.

better to say "never".

Stop using e-mail then. The best way to get anything solved with them is through the phone.

Ha, so you think you will get an answer from them by phone?
Just give them a try now to see if you will get an answer! :)

We have been frustrated in a phone attempt as well by the length of the time on hold (approx 10-15 minutes) but once we reached a support representative our issues were handled properly

They DO need to add to the support staff and make the time on hold significantly shorter

Blimey, I would LOVE to be on hold to PayPal for only 15 minutes. The shortest I have been on hold with them was 1 hour before getting through to someone, explain my issue, rep couldn't help so asked for a supervisor, 20 minutes waiting for the supervisor, she couldnt help either so asked for a manager, 1 hour for the manager, I hung up then as I had already been on the phone to them for almost 3 hours.

Paul

wow - maybe I got lucky - I better hope we do not need to call them again

Good luck

You're going to read about some people having a bad experience with paypal but for the majority they're great. We've been using them for 3+ years now with close to 0 issues. We've had a few charge backs 6 months later but the same issues would come up with credit cards. We've never had our account limited or anything like that but I'm not to worried about it if it happens because we're not selling something sketchy. Most of these people claiming about paypal holding their funds you find out the person was selling something against the Paypal TOS.

I've talked with friends who do several million dollars in revenue through Paypal each year and they have nothing but good things to say. Paypal makes it possible for them to have their user base actually pay. One friend had their account limited once but a quick call to Paypal and things were straightened out. The issue here was they deal with mostly kids so they get probably 30 complaints a month due to stolen paypal accounts or kids using their parents accounts. Once Paypal realized this they have had no issue with the amount of disputes each month. Of course probably special treatment to a degree due to the amount of sales they do.

TonyB, Youd' better to read this:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=687474

Why should I read that?

You'd love to have everyone pay by credit card but it's never going to happen. You'd still rather have a percentage of paypal transactions be reversed then have no transactions at all. This is especially true when you're dealing with $6-50 per transaction. It's not like anyone is putting $10,000 transactions through paypal it's all small for the most part.

They DO need to add to the support staff and make the time on hold significantly shorter

No, I don't think the zoo of paypal would need more animals to cheat members.

We accept hundreds of PayPal payments per month and we have never had an issue of being cheated by PayPal.

While I would like to see more prompt answers to customer support queries being cheated by a client can be an experience but PP has fairly investigated any issues we asked of them

Seems to me there must be more to all this chatter than described

^ Totally Agree with you

I've only had one major issue with PayPal and that was when I changed banks. For some reason I couldn't add my new bank and I had to contact support. This was a premium account but not business. It took them almost a month to change my bank account info.

PayPal doesn't care about the little guy.

paypal customer service. is the worst i've seen ever.
they haven't answer my mails yet. the first one which is the same all time started 1month ago.

I know some experience strange problems,but I think if we could post some figures,we would see a very small percent are negative.
You can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time.
Paypal locks accounts over suspicious activity.

Lets say that you and 30,000 other folks bought into a product/item and then 20 days later found out it was a scam.Would you want paypal to freeze that account so the owner could NOT withdraw the money (until investigated) or just let them have it?
Theres two sides to ever story... as I said earlier after having and using paypal for and online business since 2000,I have never had 1 problem that was not resolved

If you do simple transactions, they are okay. But as many people said, what's the point of listing a support email if there is never a respond? If you accept Paypal for deposit, jobs, etc, you are losing almost for sure if your client is meant to scam you. You do not get protection from scammer. PayPal side with buyers mostly.