Ask HN: Do you still pay with Paypal? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you still pay with Paypal?

25 pointsronaldl9337 comments

Unfortunately Stripe and Braintree isn't available where I live (South Africa), making accepting payments (subscriptions) in an international market a bit more difficult.

That basically leaves me with 2/3 options.

Use one of the few local Payment processor - but a huge drawback is that I cannot charge in foreign currencies (USD/GBP/EUR, etc). Obviously for a little 'startup', quoting in a relatively unknown currency (South African Rand) will highly impact conversions, so not an option for me.

There's Paddle. Which is super nice, but integrating it with something like React appears to be a hack-ish mess as it requires jQuery, so not ideal. Also their fees are almost double Stripe.

I think I can use PayPal.... I've heard some horror stories though, but willing to give it a shot.

Question is, do people still use Paypal?

Do you lose conversions when it comes to the redirecting the user to Paypal's credit card / login page?

Cheers

We had been using different providers but sticked with Paddle. It's not more expensive if you think about benefits you get.

1) We started with Braintree. We had to implement their SDK, and then we were charging PayPal and Credit Cards. Each transaction had to be accounted by us, we had to specify how much VAT. In Europe it's tricky because you have to charge VAT-MOSS based on which country customer is from (eg. 20% for UK, 23% for Poland). So accounting was a nightmare. 2) Then we switched to Stripe (new sdk to implement) and PayPal separatelly (another integration to support). Same crap as with Braintree. We only switched because Braintree kicked us out. A lot of developer work wasted to support paypal separatelly etc. Even more work for fixing PayPal's constant CSV changes and API changes to integrate with accounting. Then there was still some issue which I had to manually fix in accounting. Again: nightmare.

3) Then comes our saviour Paddle. One SDK to implement (so like implementing only Stripe) but you get all different features, like nationalized prices, one big invoice at the end of the month with VAT calculated by them, abandon baskets recovery etc and much more.

5% but hours saved in productivity and accouning. It was and still is worth it and I don't want to ever switch back.

Thanks to Paddle for keeping my mind sane :)

PS. If anyone is interested we use it at FreeYourMusic.com

Ohh, I actually bought your app last year sometime. :) That's kinda made me use Paddle in the past. :D

For similar reasons, I use Paddle to process subscription payments for a paid Chrome extension (https://www.checkbot.io/).

Fastspring and Gumroad deal with VAT as well. Fastspring is more expensive than Paddle but has more features. Gumroad is cheaper than Paddle but doesn't integrate well with SaaS products last time I checked.

Doing VAT processing yourself sounds like a nightmare.

It is ironic that EU entrepreneur have to use US intermediaries to overcome EU's VATMESS.

I'll definitely use PayPal instead of submitting my details directly to a site for purchase of goods or services.

I might even go so far as to not purchase from a site if I'm not confident with assumptions of how their infrastructure is and they don't offer PayPal.

I avoid it like the plague. Only using it temporarily now because it's the only way to sell on eBay but deleting it as soon as my stuff is sold.

Also always choose PayPal as every time I want to pay for something online my Belgian bank forces me to use what looks like a small physical calculator where I have to insert my credit card and punch in 3 sets of 4 to 6 digits each and then get a confirmation code for me to use on an online form.

I have used PayPal for a few years, mainly because paying with it was more convenient than using directly my credit card, even if the PayPal exchange rates were disadvantageous.

For a few years, PayPal worked fine and I was a satisfied customer. Than it had some kind of breach of security. The credit card known to PayPal was charged with a large number of small fraudulent transactions.

I did not loose any money, because within hours my bank alerted me about unusual activity and I blocked the card and refused the transactions.

Then I got a new credit card. Soon after making another payment through PayPal, similar fraudulent charges appeared again.

After obtaining and then cancelling 3 or 4 new credit cards, the causal relationship between making a payment through PayPal and a third party receiving my credit card details became obvious.

I have stopped making payments through PayPal and I have never had any credit card fraud problems again.

I have no idea about how my PayPal account was accessed by whoever was behind this. The only thing that I am certain about, is that it was not possible to guess my PayPal password, which was a long string of random characters and which had never been used for anything else except for logging into that PayPal account. Therefore I believe that it was some sort of inside job within PayPal.

Because I have never used again PayPal during the last 3 years, I do not know if there was any improvement in their security procedures.

How many times over the years did you change your PayPal password?

I would recommend setting up a subsidiary with Stripe Atlas[1] which would allow you to set up a U.S. bank account, and use Stripe to charge your customers. You don't need to be a U.S. resident or citizen, or have any connection to the U.S. in order to do this.[2]

[1] https://stripe.com/atlas

[2] https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/incorporation#who-can-incorp...

Definitely seems worth it in the long run... but just don't see myself forking out a couple hundred USD when I just wanna validate a little app I built.

I avoid PayPal totally for any online purchase unless it's the only option. I learned it the hard way.

Once I paid $5 to buy the trial version of some software tool. Since I didn't know the seller, I used PayPal thinking it would offer more protection. After one week I was charged another $100 for the full license. I contacted the seller asking for a refund, but they declined it on the grounds of me having already accepted "recurring charges" on my PayPal transaction. Apparently I had but it was kind of hidden on the transaction and I hadn't paid enough attention. I contacted PayPal but they refused to help either. Finally I reached the credit card service attached to my PayPal to initiate a charge back. But at the same time I informed the seller about my intent and they refunded me instantly.

So long story short; don't use PayPal and if you have to, use only reputable credit cards. Never use your debit card on PayPal. PayPal doesn't protect you any more than your credit card does.

Your case wasn't a security issue though, right?! Also, I might be wrong but I don't think that PayPal's offering is of a platform that makes it easier for you to cancel transactions.

You're right! I was being careless and stupid. I was just surprised how easy it was to miss the recurring charges agreement. That experience made me wonder what value PayPal actually offers to buyers (I don't know much about the sellers' side). If people are worried about fraud, their credit card provides more protection that PayPal.

A lot of power users are a bit wary of PayPal but for much of the average customer it's still a great option so you will get a request for PayPal.

I haven't had the opportunity for myself yet but I can suggest you to look in to Mollie[1]. I think that's the processor I will use for my next project.

[1]https://www.mollie.com

When it's available, yes. It's especially helpful when living in the UK to be able to pay with my US bank account.

Also, from the perspective of someone who ran a successful SaaS for a couple years, I highly recommend PayPal. About 50% of my payments were via PayPal, especially for international customers.

I try to pay with Paypal wherever i can.

I use PayPal often, especially when I need to subscribe to a service on the internet that I don't fully trust with my credit card information. PayPal is a great buffer against identity theft.

All the time. It's default on eBay. I can pay with my credit card, without having to give my card details to anyone but PayPal. Also, I can pay from my bank account directly. I also buy things from people on different forums, and using PayPal gives me a sense of trust. I can use F&F if I know the seller and save the fees. Chase runs cash back promotions on PayPal from time to time as well.

At work we even run PayFlow for credit card processing, which is a PayPal company.

I prefer to use paypal if a website offers it so that I don't give my card details to a random website that may steal my details.

I never had issues with Paypal and in general people do not complain about stuff that works. I always only use Paypal since it is available everywhere, convenient and i trust it more than random websellers with my debit card details (i do not use credit cards as i prefer to either have the money to buy something or not buy it at all).

I still use PayPal frequently because it is more convenient for my client to pay me in USD. And since the banks in my country have poor online transactions implementation, PayPal can really help. But take note,

PayPal will hold your amount for months if you are new to them, because you need “cred” to be able to use their service.

I’m happy to use PayPal as a customer. You can checkout without signing up, which I sometimes do even though I have an account. I don’t think it’s a problem. As a seller you might have issues with limits or funds being blocked if you make a lot of money.

Well, I have been using Paypal gateway for the last 2 - 3 years and never faced any issue.

Especially in India, the process of making foreign payments is very lengthy and if I make payment through credit card, their charges are very high.

I find paypal is a much better option for both buyers and sellers.

Thanks..

Yes, all the time. PayPal (and their subsidiary, Venmo) provide the most convenient ways to pay someone online who doesn't have a merchant account. That includes a lot of smaller vendors that I deal with on a regular basis.

I use SOFORT or Giropay where available, it cuts out the middleman between bank and merchant. I also prefer Stripe or my prepaid Credit Card over Paypal. Basically Paypal is my absolute last resort to payment if nothing else works.

Imho if you do not offer paypal, quite a few customers will ask for a paypal option.

Much of this depends on who your customers are. Are they the average computer user? PayPal is fine, maybe even preferable. Are the hip, ultra-connected and young? It would be worth setting up Stripe Atlas as mentioned.

Yes, often. It is more convenient and safer than using credit card directly. When combined with Paypal credit card, you get cashback too, so you are not really losing anything.

Seems Flutterwave [1] fits your needs perfectly. Have you tried it?

[1] https://flutterwave.com/za/

Thanks will check it out!

Horror story time:

https://minifree.org/paypal/

When I didn't have a credit card, I used PayPal for all my online payments since I could top it up from my bank account.

I use paypal for personal purchases and business invoices. its so easy and painless. been doing so for 12 yrs.

My Europe webshop: 1/4 of the customers are paying with paypal

I use it whenever I can. It works just fine for me

What about Amazon Pay?

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