direct deposit or pay pal?

[Bad Woodworker]

If you were to pay by credit card with an interest free period and pay off the sum promptly, they shouldn't be able to get interest from you.

OK, if have money owing on the card beyond the interest free period, put something on and pay it off straight away, the payment will be allocated in the order of interest outstanding, outstanding cash advances, outstanding credit advances etc, but if the card is fully paid by every due date, they can only hit you with interest on cash advances. I never ever use cash advances.

Um......... Its ok! take it easy! I was just hoping someone from Carbatec would read that post!

[weisyboy]

i agree

i dont have a credit card and i have make a trip into town to get anything. anoing when i need sompthing small its really anoying.

[abitfishy]

whoever thaught that letting people spend money they dont have musta been mad.

That sounds more like a comment from someone who doesn't know how to manage their money

[echnidna]

Well then Carl, get a debit card which is a Visa or Mastercard tied to a bank account, there is no interest. So you can only spend what is in the bank and not get into debt.

[Big Shed]

Hi Big Shed, really have to take issue with a couple of your points, especially as the OP didn't exactly specify whether they mean from a buyer's or seller's point of view:

No, they didn't but I'm happy to debate this with you.

It really isn't that 'fast', and it certainly isn't 'efficient' for the seller as it can represent a sizeable cost and enormous financial risk depending on the items for sale.

And I suppose Visa and Mastercard don't charge any fees to their recipient clients?
Ever tried to set up a Vis/Mastercard merchant account?

No they don't. They are TOLD that the money is there, but they then have to PAY to transfer it to their own account before they can use it, which takes at least a couple of days, and in that time if any of PayPal's systems flag a potential fraud threat the transaction is reversed - leaving the seller without the goods OR the funds. If a customer pays me by direct deposit, I have the cash MUCH faster and there is no chance that the transaction will be reversed just after I send the goods. Paying me by direct deposit gives me no access to your bank details, but having a PayPal account gives anybody in a very large, very ruthless and totally amoral organisation (including the employees of their overseas call centres) access to an awful lot of sensitive information about you. Not only bank AND credit card numbers but also your full name, address and date of birth.

I received a Paypal payment on a Sunday am, spent the money Sunday pm buying something in the US. Can your favourite bank match this?
Your "amoral" judgement reaks of hyperbole, and in any case this charge could just as easily be leveled at any big bank. Last time I look they were not exactly lilly white either

No, PayPal CLAIM to have a very good buyer protection scheme. In fact, PayPal guarantees you nothing in the event of a dispute, and will only refund your money if they are able to reclaim it from the seller first. If the seller is genuine, then they can probably grab the cash from the seller's account. However, if the seller is a scammer and does a bunk with the cash, then the buyer generally gets nothing.

I have only ever had to use Paypal's buyer protection scheme once, and it worked very quickly and without fuss.
I have had one occassion to ask Visa to reverse a payment, don't ask, a nightmare and VERY costly.
Ever tried to reverse a direct deposit?

As well as paying the high fees, the seller, ESPECIALLY in Australia, is woefully exposed to fraudulent buyers. Essentially the seller has to prove their case to an employee of a Bangladeshi call centre that doesn't even understand the way Australians write the date (cases have been decided and sellers have lost money because dates apparently didn't add up). The seller has to provide ONLINE traceability (not offered by Aust Post) to even be in with any chance of a defence. There is no appeals process or tribunal, only what a huge (yet surprisingly unaccountable) multinational corporation (which pays no Australian tax nor has any Australian employess that aren't lawyers) decides. They freeze accounts willy-nilly, and grab cash from any account that is linked (however tenuously) to anyone they believe to be trading with a fraudulent person - buyer or seller. They promise to unfreeze accounts and return rightful cash once the dust settles of course, but they make no undertaking as to how long this process might take.

Perhaps, although I have not experienced this. Have you?

You may be interested to learn about the recent adventures of Frerk-Malte Feller. He is the current MD of eBay and prior CEO of PayPal in Germany, and when he sold some UEFA cup tickets recently from his own personal account he insisted that anyone wanting to pay for them by PayPal would need to email him a photocopy of their driving license and BOTH SIDES of their credit card. This is a man who either desperately wants to discourage people from paying him by PayPal, or who seriously feels the need for additional protection against fraudulent buyers.

Add to this the current attempt by eBay Australia to obliterate any form of payment other than PayPal (experimenting with us Aussies first before attempting such a gross act of greed on the rest of the world - fortunately the ACCC has a little more to say on the matter than eBay anticipated), my own personal feeling is that the less I have to do with a syphilitic outfit like PayPal the better.

I take it from this you don't like Ebay and/or Paypal?

eBay already allows us to suss out our seller's prior history and reputation before we choose to deal with them, the price we pay for a bit of 'perceived' additional protection from a lying, cheating, thieving corporation is too much to pay. It isn't 'protection' at all, it's smoke and mirrors and corporate greed of the worst kind.

I didn't know this discussion was about Ebay, you have an agenda here?

Let me say, if you hadn't already guessed, I have had nothing but good experiences with Paypal. I just got my latest ANZ/Visa statement in today. On it are 4 purchases from the US, each roughly $US50, they were paid via Paypal. Paypal does the currency conversion at a far better rate than Visa, then charges my ANZ/Visa card in $A, no further charges. Had I charged these purchases to my Visa card, the currency conversion rate would not have been as good (there is one such transaction on my ANZ/Visa statement, same day) and they charge a $A4.75 conversion fee! This amounts to almost a 10% fee to me, plus whatever the merchant gets charged in fees!
And Paypal is "amoral", yeah right!


BTW, I don't have shares in Paypal, but I do have shares in ANZ (more fool me).

[Honorary Bloke]

Add to this the current attempt by eBay Australia to obliterate any form of payment other than PayPal (experimenting with us Aussies first before attempting such a gross act of greed on the rest of the world - fortunately the ACCC has a little more to say on the matter than eBay anticipated), my own personal feeling is that the less I have to do with a syphilitic outfit like PayPal the better.

Aside from the fact you seem to dislike PayPal and e-Bay, this "PayPal only" thing would be a big plus in the States, not a negative. Direct deposit, as practised in Oz, is not available here, so PayPal is much preferable to writing a cheque and mailing it to some unknown seller. I will not buy from sellers who do not accept PayPal. And I will not sell to buyers to do not have a PayPal account.

Horses for courses, I suppose.

[Interwood]

Over here in WA a transfer to Heritage BS in Qld? costs $5.

Ever wondered how Banks make such big profits.

Paypal is simpler, quicker and cheaper.


Interwood

[Honorary Bloke]

Over here in WA a transfer to Heritage BS in Qld? costs $5.

Over here, it is from $40 - $80, depending on the amount. And it's such a PITA, you wouldn't do it anyway for small amounts.

[jmk89]

I use both. I have good experiences with both and a couple of bad experiences. The bad experiences were only bad because of the prat who was on the other side of the deal, not the organisation I dealt with. As the circumstances would identify the other sides I am referring to, I won't go into detail.

Suffice to say that I got satisfaction in each case - in part because I have the quaint old-fashioned habits of trying to write proper sentences and to spell and punctuate correctly. Also, I stick to the facts and don't engage in irrelevant issues and personal abuse. I find that these work a treat when trying to communicate with anyone, but especially someone who may have some difficulty with English.

Years of dealing with our North American friends have taught me not to use date abbreviations - I write the date out as 27 June 2008, no-one can be confused by that, now can they (they shouldn't be by 27/6/08 either, if they thought about it; but 05/06/08 is ambiguous)!

On the access to PayPal money, it depends how you want access. If you use a PayPal credit to pay for PayPal purchases, you have instant access and lower fees.

BTW I don't want a "moral" dimension to my bank. I just want them to tell me what they are going to do in advance and then do it. I like contracts for that reason - they tell you what situations to avoid (ones that give the bank the chance to exercise a discretion). I hate it when they change contracts on me usually because they now don't like the terms - on one occasion a bank said my acceptance of a change in terms would be deemed to occur if I used the account. So I didn't - for 28 months. They had to come to me and beg me to agree to the change. So I negotiated a 0.5% reduction in my mortgage rate as the price for my agreeing.

I do object to being forced not to use direct debit (or any other payment system). But that's OK, there are others like me and we can buy and sell on OZtion.

RANT Off

[Big Shed]

I don't know why Ebay was brought in to this discussion, other than to vent a bit of bile at them, but I happen to agree with those people opposed to the forced use of Paypal only by Ebay.
The ACCC has told Ebay that isn't on, but Ebay is appealing. Ebay does not however object to sellers passing on Paypal costs to the buyer, I can point to some listings where this is explicitly stated by the seller.

I will repeat I have had nothing but good experiences using Paypal and will continue to use until such time as I have evidence to the contrary. Emotive terms such as "amoral muti-nationals" and "a gross act of greed on the rest of the world" have no place in a rational evaluation of which payment system you prefer. Those terms seem more at home on placards for demonstrators against the WTO.

As to any bank charging me $5 to do a direct deposit, I think I would have to re-think where I would do my banking.

[damian]

Boy this is a can of worms isn't it ?

Ebay is probably relevant because it owns Paypal.

Banks are evil. I have 1 account with 1 credit union and 1 visa debt card and 1 cheque account. The staff at my CU know me on a first name basis, tehy have gone far beyond my expectations in looking after me for the last 17 odd years. I had bank accounts, absolutely no comparison. I don't pay fees on domestic transfers, I think there is a fee for international ones.

I've been online since 1990, and been buying over the net for almost as long. I got my paypal account in 2000, just after I started buying on ebay. I've also paid for things via direct dep, western union, international money order.

Many of the charges paypal pass on to sellers are credit card fees. Ebay policy specifically prohibits sellers charging a loading for paypal, but like most things on ebay it isn't enforced until someone complains. Ebay/Paypal have some really dodgy business practices and they have been so good at agravating customers that they are moving rapidly from a monoply position to losing whole markets. Ali Baba in china, Tradme in NZ and craigslist in the US have all taken signifigant market from ebay.

Are they worse than the banks ? Probably not, but it's a low hurdle. On balance I suspect DD is less secure, but the only time I've been scammed it was directly a visa prolem and the scammer didn't need any of my personal details.

My understanding of the US legislation is that they are trying to force internet retailers across the board who operate in the US to pay state taxes to one particular state (NY I think). The US retailers are hitting the roof and it may not have legs because there is a federal act of congress protecting the internet traders from tax, although that may be about to expire. I would be surprised if they tried it on for international transactions because it'd shoot a masssive hole in the US economy. Even if it happens you can't really blame Paypal for acts of the US government. Heaven forbid you hold me responsible for the behaviour of the Australian government.

Anyway we shall see.

[Rattrap]

I have just reciently had an issue with the ANZ bank & direct deposits - direct as in walking into my local bank with cash & asking them to deposit it into an account.
I asked them to deposit some money into a credit union account & was told that they don't do cash transfers into credit union accounts because the transfers get 'lost' in cyberspace even tho i could come home & do it online ( as i ended up doing) with no problems at all. ???
This wasn't just my local bank either, i tried several ANZ branches all with the same result so it must be a company policy. I was told that maybe a Credit union could do the transfer successfully. A local credit union told me that they would happily do it & for free too (some banks will charge u up to $35 to press a few keys on their keyboard) provided i had an account with them. I even went into a different bank altogether, CBA & just got a similar story.
Now i ask u, in this modern day where i can come home & do an electronic funds transfer that will show up in the recipients account within 36-48hrs, why is it that a major bank with high tech computer security up the wazoo, can't do a simple funds transfer without loosing the money in cyberspace.
I know it sounds completely insane, thats just what i told the bank tellers.
It sounds to me like an outright lie. I'm guessing that they get less flack from customers if they say, 'sorry we don't do cuse the money gets lost in cyberspace' rather than, 'happy to do it, for a small fee' (a banks idea of a small fee that is)
Just 1 more example of what our so called deregulated banking system has done for us.

[Woodwould]

All financial institutions have their pluses and minuses. I have had bad experiences with using PayPal and several banks. I'm somewhat ambivalent about PayPal; it's easy to use and ultra convenient, but I've been stung by them a few times now.fficeffice" />>>
> >
Basically I won't purchase anything using PayPal any more if I'm not prepared to lose that amount of money, so making purchases with them has become a gamble.>>

[Dusty Dave]

Sorry Big Shed, not trying to single you out or anything but it really raises my hackles when people go into bat for poor little eBay without understanding all the facts.

Ebay does not however object to sellers passing on Paypal costs to the buyer, I can point to some listings where this is explicitly stated by the seller.

This is simply wrong I'm afraid, and just because you can point to examples doesn't mean it is acceptable. Ebay objects very strongly indeed to sellers charging additional fees to cover PayPal costs, as this harms the illusion it wishes to project of PayPal being more-or-less 'free', at least as far as buyers are concerned. If a seller does this and the listing is brought to the attention of eBay's helper monkeys it will result in the immediate cancellation of all offending listings and possible suspension or cancellation of the seller's account, with no more than an automated and unreplyable email pointing them to this page informing them that all costs should be 'built into' the sale price of the item (exactly how one does this when the sale is by AUCTION and therefore decided by everyone other than the seller is somewhat beyond me).

eBay began life as a friendly little peer-to-peer outfit with a bit of profit on the side. It is now an extremely ruthless, shareholder-driven corporation that regularly introduces new rules and moves the goalposts in order to screw a few more dollars out of its sellers that got sucked into operating in a particular way. EVERYTHING that eBay does is calculated to increase its own, tax free profits (eBay is "run" from Swiss bank accounts for goodness sake). It doesn't care about its customers, because it never has to deal with them beyond taking their money.

I have no doubt that eBay will eventually eat itself. It regularly slaughters the geese that lay its golden eggs and when you think about it, all it really offers is a particular type of forum and search engine. There are other players out there that could just as easily (and just as profitably) launch an auction site as they could a search engine, and I suspect that as soon as eBay stops paying them millions for preferential search results that this will happen.

In the meantime, eBay's own profitability is declining and it is leaning more and more heavily on PayPal to appease its shareholders. This is why it is rolling the dice and killing off other payment methods leaving PayPal the only accepted method. If that is allowed to occur then how long do you think it will be before PayPal increases its fees? A monopoly is a very ugly thing in the hands of those with no morals and insatiable greed.

As much as possible I try to use bank deposit to pay for items I buy, especially locally. I actually feel safer knowing that a seller has a legitimate Australian bank account - getting a PayPal account isn't hard and the scammers know exactly how to work it. I also get the satisfaction of knowing the septic corporation gets a little less cash that way, while the seller gets a little more and experiences less stress about whether I am planning to pull a shifty or not. Plus it makes it a little harder for eBay to justify its latest trick as each successful non-PayPal transaction further exposes as spurious its claims of PayPal being somehow 'safer' than bank deposit.

To each his own, but I like to retain some control over whose pockets I line.

[Big Shed]

Your apology is noted, although it would have been nice if it had been a sincere one

You then immediately turn around and vent your spleen about Ebay. To put it on the record, I don't really care what your opinion of Ebay is. My original post was about Paypal.

Like everyone else you have a choice, no one forces you to use Ebay, or indeed Paypal.

If you want to have a hate session against Ebay, there are existing threads that have done that (more politely) than you. You also have the choice of starting your own thread for that purpose, in stead of hi-jacking weisyboy's thread.

So, if you want to point the finger at other people and entities, look at your own behaviour first.