[Question] Explain Paypal to Me

Zappit

Staff member
How does it work? What's the deal? I'm possibly going to start putting up a storefront at one of the print-on-demand services in the very near future, but they only send your payments via Paypal. Help a total Paypal noob out.
 
Well first you gotta link your bank account with your paypal account and wait three to four days to confirm it. After you finish that process, you can just transfer the money you get from your paypal statements to your bank account. Or you can keep them in your paypal account and use it to pay for stuff online. Whatever's good for you.
 

Zappit

Staff member
Well first you gotta link your bank account with your paypal account and wait three to four days to confirm it. After you finish that process, you can just transfer the money you get from your paypal statements to your bank account. Or you can keep them in your paypal account and use it to pay for stuff online. Whatever's good for you.
That sounds...easy, actually.

Edit: Good Lord - ghost quote! The forums putting words in your text!
 
That sounds...easy, actually.

Edit: Good Lord - ghost quote! The forums putting words in your text!

And every few years, PayPal will randomly decide they need to confirm your identity, and will arbitrarily lock your account because you don't have a piece of mail with your physical address on it. I don't know what to tell you, PayPal, I live in a rural area without mail service. PO Box is the best I've got, and it's the exact same PO Box that's been on my account for years!

Oh, you want me to go to the DMV and have them put that PO Box on my drivers license? HAHAHAHAHAHA you're so funny, Paypal...
 
And there's lots of other ways to use Paypal, too. But that's the easiest way, especially if you live in the USA.

Anyway, you can link PP with a credit card, have them pay in a PP account, and draw money from the PP account or your CC, without linking them up to your bank account directly. Useful if you only use it to buy, not if you're going to receive a lot of money.
 
Paypal also has a debit card option (I have one), so that you can directly spend from your paypal account if you have money in there.

There's a "backup funding" option, so that if you overspend, the remainder of the money will come from your backup source.

They also offer a line of credit called SmartConnect. It's not a credit card--it's a line of credit. But you can link it to your paypal debit card and then it acts just like a credit card.

I've been using paypal since they first started (back when they were giving everyone $5.00 just for signing up. While I've heard horror stories of locked accounts and other mishaps, it's never happened to me (knock on wood). Just about every bank and credit card company has a certain percentage of complaints. I don't think paypal is any worse than any other service, and it's quite convenient for money transfers.
 
Yes. If you trip some sort of suspicion threshold, they will lock your account and freeze your funds.
So use it if you want, but don't use it as the main place to keep all your funds.

--Patrick
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Yeah, don't let money just sit in your paypal account, just use it as a way to send and receive money from and to your bank account without having to give everybody your account info.
 
Yes. If you trip some sort of suspicion threshold, they will lock your account and freeze your funds.

--Patrick
.... which I seem to do ALL THE FUCKING TIME. of course, I'm the first to admit that... well, my usage is maybe "questionable" (I do want to say, no drugs, no ummm.... what else.... ummm,.... no murders, ya, no assassinations, no nukes, no radioactive material.... you know, saying this things just to say I DON'T do it)... but yet I get flagged... all. the. damned. time.
 
There is also PayPal Here. A credit card scanner that you plug into your smartphone or tablet, for in person (or over the phone) transactions. Review - https://www.cardpaymentoptions.com/credit-card-processors/paypal-here/
Amazon and a company called Square has a similar service, if anyone wants one and hates PayPal. No monthly frees or minimum activity penalties. Instead they skim around 2.75% of your transactions. It's basically for low turnover businesses.
 

fade

Staff member
PayPal originally began in the 1700s, as part of Alexander Hamilton's Not Quite As Grand Experiment. Originally, the offices were staffed with trained Rhesus monkeys, or palliolios in the original Spanish. Hamilton had conceived of a way to fund the fledgling United States by trickery. He would take his wagon of trained palliolios to various towns and cities where they would fling poo at unsuspecting passers-by. You could stop this fecal onslaught by paying a fee in Continental Dollars. That is, you would "pay the palliolios". In the interest of brevity--because the last thing you wanted to do in a hail of monkey scat was open your mouth for long periods--this was shortened to "pay pal". At first, the experiment was a success, but the enterprising Americans eventually learned they could pay the palliolios for one another in exchange for goods and services. After Hamilton observed that he could simply skim a ridiculous fee off of the transaction, he dropped the monkeys and both PayPal and the American tax system were born. Politicians, however, continue the palliolios' tradition of flinging poo at the American people to this day.
 
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