When the only payment method is PayPal

[Honourspren]

Why do companies do this?

I do not have a PayPal account, nor do I want one. But some companies seem to give you no other payment option, do not prewarn you and so you are forced to abort at the last step in the booking/ payment process.

The latest is a holiday club one of my children wants to attend and it really grates on me. I am currently waiting to see whether my ex will use his account to pay and I'll then transfer the money to him. It's annoying.

This. You sound like my parents, OP - they also make their lives more difficult because they don’t understand how to assess the trustworthiness of various processes.

PayPal has been around for 25 years! What on earth do you think will happen if you use it? You don't need an account, it's literally just a card payment facility for the business you want to use. I really don't understand your reluctance. It's absolutely no different to paying for anything else online with a card. PayPal was online before my own actual bank (HSBC)! It's like saying you once lost your card in Asda and now won't shop in Tesco in case it happens again. Bizarre.

I have two things to say

1. PayPal is really easy and straight forward to use, you're making a bit of an issue out of nothing

2. I like your username, stormlight archives is one of my favourite book series

I work for a small company that offers only PayPal for online orders but it's to do with keeping fees low and also, setting up a bigger merchant services on the website has proven to be a bit of a technical nightmare.

Bigger companies with good resources should offer more options but for some smaller businesses, PayPal is their only option.

This!

Agreed completely

Most fraud is a result of phishing and I tend to find people that don’t understand things like PayPal or Facebook are often the most at risk to be honest as they’re less digitally literate,

For all those saying just use PayPal your paying with your card. It's safe. The transaction is but it's not the same.

You lose all the legal protection of your credit card, such as charge back or section 75 claims that many of us did during Covid, as you are paying PayPal and they are paying the retailer. Probably not too much of an issue in this instance but if you were buying goods/service and you want legal protection/guarantee you need to use your card directly.

I have now managed to get someone to pay on my behalf. It's still annoying.

So it's not okay for YOU to risk your hard-earned bling on paying via Paypal but okay to ask someone else to risk THEIRS on your behalf?

Interesting.

You don’t need an account, PayPal also operates as a payment processor without an account. So you can literally put your card details in like you would on any other checkout software. You don’t provide them with details unless you save them to an account.

Talk to the holiday club. Tell them you prefer to pay by cash, BACs, cheque in advance, chip & pin, anything else. Make your irritation clear. Customer experience matters.

Or you could set up a separate account specifically to pay PayPal. Put only the exact amount in that is needed. I have an account that is totally separate, and I use for purchases where you just know that eventually the bank account details will be hacked & stolen. If anyone steals the details of that account, they'll get nothing. Facebook, Amazon, Paypal, Etsy etc

That person has had a PayPal account for years, hence why I asked.

Yes, I will talk to the club (headed there now, in fact, for a different reason).

@lemonyfox I'm reading my way through the entire cosmere and can't get enough of it.

Using PayPal in that situation would give you a layer of protection that a small holiday club website wouldn’t otherwise have.

Each payment method has a range of fees for different types of transaction

Payment via a webshop would be a card not present transaction.

Card transaction from a non PayPal account - 1.2% plus 30p fixed transaction fee
www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees

SumUps standard card reader fee is 1.69% but their website transactions are 2.5%

help.sumup.com/en-GB/articles/4oI3qHHji2I2S9dyvRfec3-pricing-fees

Yes, but the point is that YOU think it's risky.

It's one thing the person being willing to undertake what you think is an unacceptable risk to pay for their own goods and services.

But an entirely different thing you asking them to undertake what you believe to be an unacceptable risk to pay for YOUR goods and services.

I'm surprised you thought this was an okay thing to ask of another person. I'd like to think if I decided not to do something because I felt it posed an unacceptable amount of risk, I sure as hell wouldn't ask someone else to take that risk for me.

I don’t use PayPal either.

I sold a few items on eBay and wanted the money out of my PayPal account. They wouldn’t pay to my bank - so I had to send my sister money for her to transfer it back - bloody nightmare - never again.

Used PayPal for 10 years never had a problem. I would rather pay by PayPal than put my card details online to pay for something. You have protection too.

I've been using PayPal for almost 20 years without incident. I first got it as it was the only accepted way to pay for a certain game site I was on.

I do agree that any company should inform potential customers what the payment options are so that you can decide whether you wish to proceed, it seems rude to drop that on you at the end!

So do I. Anytime I make a purchase, if PayPal is one of the options I use it. It's so easy, and I've been using it for a very long time with no issues at all.

PayPal has appalling fees for a small business so that reasoning is far off. It’s just more convenient for them. You can check out as a guest using your card, there is an option and you don’t need to register with PayPal.

I actually prefer to use PayPal even when other payments methods are available because of the extra buyer protection. I also use it for my business. Just check out as a guest if you really have an issue with setting up an account.

Would you rather small businesses run their own checkout processes?

If it's the choice between trusting PayPal or a holiday club to protect my financial info, I know which one I'd go with.

I'm with you in a way OP. I think it should have been made clear at the outset. Just as a business who will not take face to face cash payments does.

So you can choose to vote with your feet if you do not like it. Whatever the reason is.

The transaction costs are only one part of the equation, you would have to develop your website to be able to use another service too. PayPal makes it easy. Convenience is cheaper!

I have now managed to get someone to pay on my behalf. It's still annoying.
So you don't trust it but you are happy for someone else to be at ' risk'?