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Why do you prefer PayPal as opposed to card/ACH?
Providers that offer PayPal are welcome to chip in for that perspective but I'm mostly curious about others who are purchasing via PayPal vs using your credit/debit card.
PayPal
- Why do you use PayPal over card?36 votes
- I have a balance on PayPal.13.89%
- All my card/bank details are there.27.78%
- Prefer to keep my invoices all in one place.19.44%
- other38.89%
Comments
Additionally if PayPal wasn't an option would you be less inclined to do business with someone?
Honestly, it's just feels safer. I know most of the time the card detail does not sent to the provider, but to the payment processor instead like Stripe, but who knows. That, and I can check all the subscriptions I have in a single list, and in case provider decides to fuck with me, I can dispute. It did happen to me once, and I actually got 110 quid out of 120 back once PayPal closed a dispute in my favour.
Without prior experience, yeah. Though if they offer a good deal, I would go for it. After all, I can "pause" my card right after purchase. Lack of PayPal is not a dealbreaker for me.
Benefits of using PayPal
If PayPal is available as a payment method, I choose PayPal. If they don't have it, they might not buy there. Since PayPal is so commonly used, I think there is some kind of problem in places that don't use PayPal.
It is not as black and white when it comes to PayPal. It is easier to obtain a PayPal account with fake information. By the time their verification system kicks in, they have already completed tens of thousands of dollars of worth of transactions. This is why more fraudulent payments come from PayPal.
Storing credit card information is a liability. Most decent providers do not store card numbers for this reason. They also see fewer amounts of fraudulent payments from cards. So there is an incentive for providers to prefer card transactions.
When I ran a VPS host, I actually got many transactions from stolen cards, and had to pay $20 three times to Stripe for this reason.
Yeah typically I use the public key to hash card details client side and they sent it directly to the stripe API themselves and stripe will send me the payment intent or stored card id such that I don't have to touch that kind of sensitive details.
Preventing card fraud is easier these days with MFA/3DSecure, that is not to say that it is full proof.
exactly
Do people have MFA for card purchases? I think I see 3D mostly in the EU clients rather than the NA.
3DS essentially is MFA. Some card providers allow using an email in 3DS instead of a phone number.
Even though PayPal fee sucks (not only those payment fees which is declared, but also the fucking currency exchange fee which is not specified clearly), but the dispute is really helpful and I can always get full refund if the case is closed in my favor.
Also, I don't have to worry about the security which I need to worry if paying with cards.
Also, as a person who use UnionPay cards, most payment gateway doesn't support CUP cards but PayPal do.
Because its too much of a work to use burner cards with each provider separately.
Might as well just not trust them with my card info then.
Yes.
I can pay by card, crypto, cc or whatever, but I still check if the provider offers PayPal.
You can say a lot of things about PayPal and they are not all good things, but you can not deny that they are pretty convenient for a user. You do not have to give the provider your card details, you can do disputes and chargebacks, they support all kinds of cards etc etc.
Also, if PayPal refuses to do business with a provider there is a reason for it. It might not be a good reason but there is some reason, and as a customer I have to see this as a big red flag.