Is Paypal safe?

I've been using PayPal probably a couple hundred times or more since near the time of it's inception, so I'm speaking from alot of experience.

Your credit card and money are as safe as it can get sending it by internet, and if your card number ever was stolen, PayPal guarantees you and covers any unauthorized charges. The only problems I've every really had were during times of expansion, where the server load could not keep up, or during maintainence on the site, which made it temporarily inaccessable.

It is also much safer than sending money orders overnight, for instance. If the account holder you are sending money to is VARIFIED, you are GUARANTEED to receive your goods...not nessasarily in the condition expected, but you are guaranteed to receive the item(s) described. Be especially cautious sending money through it to unvarified accounts--there's little reason for them not to have varified it, unless they just began with it.

It is a VERY fast and convient way to send payment, if both parties are already signed up...you can send money in about a minute. Signing up can take about 5-10 minutes, and there's a $250 limit on new accounts, until your account is varified as real with your bank.

Jeff Delman
Value Audio
www.value-audio.com

Forget PAYPAL- Avoid the hassle- Use USPS money orders and wait it out. Saving time w/PAYPAL etc. isn't worth the potential hassles

Paypal was part of the single worst experience I had purchasing an item via the internet. It was on EBay.

I've never had a bad experience on Audiogon. Using Audiogon which I think is a superb site as well as its ancillary services, I've purchased equipment all over the USA and Canada.

Once the party who had the goods I won as higest bidder was paid through Paypal, I never received the merchandise. Complaint after complaint was filed. At one point Paypal wanted all of my e-mails with this person. They asked me to send them as attachments. I attached numerous files for their records and was then informed that they could not open attachments. On and on it went, until Paypal kicked me out for being a bad customer. Me?! I was the victim. One of the things that made them mad was that I cancelled the credit card to this person after nearly two months of first excuses and then silence. A silence that continues to this day some 8 months later. Paypal is so screwed up that recently I received a message from them that they were going to work on getting my money back. This after they informed me several months ago they could not, kicked me out and after I subsequently got my money back through my credit card company. Bottom line, there is no reason on this earth that I will ever use Paypal again and under no circumstances can I fairly suggest you do.

I just wouldn't leave my $ in there too long. Have them transfer it to your bank account. It takes 3-4 days.

After reading somewhere around 100 posts about Paypal over the past 6 months, my impression of their service is certainly not very favorable. I understand that the majority of people that use their service do so without a hitch and tend to be pleased with them. However, there do appear to be enough folks out there with bad experiences that I'm a little wary of using the service myself. Issues such as double payment if you hit the submit button twice, unsatisfactory resolution of bad transactions, and failure to respond to customer complaints in a timely manner are among the most common complaints I've read. Its enough to make me feel a bit edgy about executing a large transaction through them. That said, does anyone have experience with other escrow services that offer a different level of service? Is Paypal pretty much the best there is for managing Internet transactions? Information about alternatives would be extremely useful. Thanks, Ken