Paypal alternatives?

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That's what confuses me - they say they act as the merchant. They are the seller which basically "buys the stuff from you and sells it to the end customer". Is this just me, or is the system intentionally overcomplicated, so folks like me don't understand it? :D
Vojtech
MeldaProduction MSoundFactory MDrummer MCompleteBundle The best plugins in the world :D

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MeldaProduction wrote:That's what confuses me - they say they act as the merchant. They are the seller which basically "buys the stuff from you and sells it to the end customer". Is this just me, or is the system intentionally overcomplicated, so folks like me don't understand it? :D
thats true, specially the german tax laws wich are one of the most complicated tax laws in the world, are imo that complicated because it's good for the government. As long as nobody understands it, most people would pay more than they need to. It's a good and save income--

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Yeah :D. In czech we probably have a similar systen and accountants are angry every year :D. The rest of us have no idea what the hell is going on :D.

And funny story - our system is actually so complicated, that even its designers don't know how to use it - when i started the business and found out i just need an accountant, he wasn't sure about hows such a simple thing as selling software worldwide via paypal do. So he asked the exact people, who contribute on creating the laws (he knows these guys) and all except for one said "we don't know" and that one said "it's like this, but i'm not sure really" :D.
Vojtech
MeldaProduction MSoundFactory MDrummer MCompleteBundle The best plugins in the world :D

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If you happen to get a donkey coming to you soon strapped with cash (pennies), you'll know it's from me :hihi: I will try to convince everybody that this is the preferred payment method, so maybe soon you'll have hundreds of donkeys showing up at your door :)

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MeldaProduction wrote:Yeah :D. In czech we probably have a similar systen and accountants are angry every year :D. The rest of us have no idea what the hell is going on :D.

And funny story - our system is actually so complicated, that even its designers don't know how to use it - when i started the business and found out i just need an accountant, he wasn't sure about hows such a simple thing as selling software worldwide via paypal do. So he asked the exact people, who contribute on creating the laws (he knows these guys) and all except for one said "we don't know" and that one said "it's like this, but i'm not sure really" :D.
lol yea, we also do have that stuff. One famous thing was a new law for company transformation tax in 2006. That law was so questionable, so there was basically no legal certainty. Many consultants raised questions and there had to be an enactment of application of that law, wich soonish followed in 2011. :hihi:

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MeldaProduction wrote:
kelvyn wrote:Credit Card

If you ever had problems with PayPal - someone trying to hack into my account for example - then you know what APITA it is to get your account unfrozen. I sent them all the necessary info they required and nothing. I found it impossible to get anyone on the phone to sort my problem out, so eventually I gave up.
But I'm still getting mails from unsavoury sources purporting to be from PayPal telling me my account needs to be re-registered and asking me for my account details in order to facilitate that... even though I closed my account ages ago.

Credit Card:)
I ran quite a big poll and it seems most people use Paypal. Most also have credit card, but that's a little more complicated to do (I too prefer Paypal). And some people actually don't have credit cards, just paypal. So ideally one should support all... oh, so complicated...
FastSpring lets the customer pay with PayPal.

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MeldaProduction wrote:That's what confuses me - they say they act as the merchant. They are the seller which basically "buys the stuff from you and sells it to the end customer". Is this just me, or is the system intentionally overcomplicated, so folks like me don't understand it? :D
This is correct. You sell to FastSpring, they sell to the end user. They act as a reseller, and handle vat. Less paperwork for you.

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:o
Vojtech
MeldaProduction MSoundFactory MDrummer MCompleteBundle The best plugins in the world :D

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MeldaProduction wrote:I ran quite a big poll and it seems most people use Paypal. Most also have credit card, but that's a little more complicated to do (I too prefer Paypal). And some people actually don't have credit cards, just paypal. So ideally one should support all... oh, so complicated...
It depends on the country. My impression is that in the United States 75 % of all adult people might have credit cards but in Bulgaria only 10 %, and Germany is somewhere in the middle. Because you can easily pay with your bank card, you don't need a special credit card. I'm still paying with hard cash in supermarkets and shops, and for most online purchases I use Paypal...

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No way I'll use my CC on the net. Thus I had to establish a solution for Adobe's Creative Cloud model but I'll surely not replicate this stunt for another supplier.

I'm fine with Paypal, that is.

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Am guessing paypal has more "mostly buyer" accounts than "mostly seller" accounts, but dunno. Maybe there are enough people who occasionally sell something online, that the percentages are more equal than expected?

People who looked at paypal in its infancy, may have different attitudes than people who started with paypal more recently. Or not.

Quite some years ago, before paypal, I had a credit card hacked online by criminal living on the other side of the world. This was "by blind lucky accident" discovered before any damage ocurred, but made me perhaps unreasonably cautious about security.

The terms of service in the early years of paypal-- The company would act as a credit card processor for buyers, up to a total limit of $1000 of purchases. If a buyer (or prospective seller) wished to transact business after reaching the $1000 max limit, the customer had to grant paypal electronic funds transaction rights to a customer bank account. I wasn't especially distrustful of paypal, but giving paypal access to a bank account seemed an avoidable security risk to me. So after I hit the $1000 limit, I quit using paypal and basically wrote them off for payment option consideration.

Nowadays paypal doesn't enforce this limit, and anonymous customers can buy via paypal with credit card. So for a non-paypal member, it is just another online credit card processing method. Nowadays I will very rarely buy something via paypal credit card processing, if there is no more palatable option. But it is not a preferred method. This is mostly due to my having "written them off" many years ago when their rules were more restrictive.

For years I programmed for a non-usa software company, and a few years ago investigated paypal as a way to get paid, but paypal at the time was lots more expensive than ordinary international bank wire transfer, for monthly paycheck-sized sums. So paypal didn't seem to make sense for that purpose either.

Maybe for small-business credit card processing, paypal is about as good, and no more expensive. than other small-biz options?

If I was to ever use paypal for selling, I would establish a dedicated bank account ONLY for local input/output to paypal. I would immediately transfer received sums from the dedicated account to my "main" account, so that the balance of my dedicated-to-paypal bank account stays very small. Perhaps that would limit losses if something gets hacked and an anonymous criminal manages to clean out the brick'n'mortar bank account. :)

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:o
Vojtech
MeldaProduction MSoundFactory MDrummer MCompleteBundle The best plugins in the world :D

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Sadly there is no viable alternative to paypal, it pays to play safe from the beginning. You better get your account restored as soon as you can.You may want to look into TransferWise, (http://blog.timedoctor.com/2015/01/21/transferring-money-transferwise) and other local payment solutions depending upon where you may be from. They may be helpful, They also have lowest cost for transferring payment anywhere within lowest price.

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We use Paddle: https://www.paddle.com/
Accepted payment methods are currently credit cards and PayPal. Straight forward to set up, they take care of EU VAT and they've always been friendly and helpful.

Best,
Stian

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