anti PayPal sites

[GameDevCn]

Hello all.

I'm very new to indie game business (also very new to shareware business). I planned to join in and have been researching on it for some days. I've got dozens of questions, especially about publishing and payment. Now let me start with this one:

I searched "PayPal" in google just now. I found two anti-PayPal sites at the 3rd and 4th position in the page google returns (the first 2 are PayPal itself). They are:
PayPaySucks.com (http://www.paypalsucks.com/)
PayPalWarning.com (http://www.paypalwarning.com/)

These sites present many negative information about PayPal. However, since I've seen PayPal everywhere, I'm wondering if PayPal is that bad. And is it good for indie game business?

Thank you in advance.

[arcadetown]

Many sleazy webmasters build websites to target particular search terms. Sometimes they use "parody" to make it more difficult to prove trademark infringement making it harder to shut down.

There's lots of guys making good $$ using Paypal. We're going to add it as an option if that answers your question.

[Jack Norton]

I integrate my vendor Plimus with Paypal and got no problems so far...

[Sillysoft]

Some people like paypal, and some do not. I think the best advice is to give customers the option to use paypal, but not require it.

[princec]

Paypal are all smiles while the service works. When the service breaks down there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that they have circumvented a large number of consumer protection laws which the credit card companies have to abide by.

Take, for example, the fiasco of our LWJGL donation fund - we raised $1000 in funding but by the time we'd actually managed to withdraw the money from our account we'd lost $100 in "fines" because the transaction repeatedly failed on every European bank account that we tried. In the end we had to transfer the money to the States to a "trusted" internet friend to withdraw for us and then have him send a cheque in the post to Denmark. Unbelievable. In this is a benign story where nobody got seriously ripped off.

Cas :)

[EpicBoy]

Every large corporation has a community of people who hate it. Every one of them. Doesn't mean they don't work for 99.99999% of their customers...

[princec]

I'm afraid that statistic errs considerably on the side of "it hasn't happened to me yet". The consumer protection laws I allude to are for when it does happen to you. With Paypal you are neither party is protected. When it does go wrong it goes wrong with the sort of style that earns it global hate sites.

Cas :)

[EpicBoy]

Well, my point being that the number of people it "goes wrong" for is miniscule compared to the number of people that never have an issue.

I'm sure there are also people that have been screwed over by Wal-Mart, Microsoft, eBay and Dell ... but they, too, are in the extreme minority. Doesn't mean the companies are bad or that you shouldn't deal with them.

[andyb]

I'm sure there are also people that have been screwed over by Wal-Mart, Microsoft, eBay and Dell ... but they, too, are in the extreme minority. Doesn't mean the companies are bad or that you shouldn't deal with them.

Surely most people are screwed by Microsoft several times in their life ;)

[papillon]

My general summing up of advice on paypal is simple - never pass more money through it than you can afford to lose.

Accepting a game's payment through paypal? Sure, no problem. Worst comes to worst, they demand a refund, you are forced to provide it (even outside your own policies) and you lose that money. You're out $15-25, it's annoying and you hope it doesn't happen often, but it's not a big deal.

Buying or selling something *expensive* through paypal? Be very careful. If the other party starts playing dirty games, you can end up screwed even if you've done everything 'right'. Paypal will be arbitrary and heartless as it applies whatever rules it feels like.

[Kai Backman]

<snip>.. However, since I've seen PayPal everywhere, I'm wondering if PayPal is that bad. And is it good for indie game business?


The pragmatic advice is to offer PayPal as one alternative way of payment but handle your credit card transactions somewhere else. Most registration services offer this option automatically. And as you are just starting out pick one from the list at www.regshare.com and look into opening merchant accounts (Credit Card, PayPal etc) when your volume goes above say $5000/month. You might still not need them.

Good luck! :)

[Dan MacDonald]

www.planetthinktanks.com has been run on paypal donations for the past year or so, well over 1000 in donations and I've recieved every penny.

[princec]

Brilliant and accurate advice.

Cas :)

[SyneRyder]

I know at least two people who were massively screwed over by Paypal. It's not just a case of what you keep in your Paypal account, the terms and conditions stated (at the time) that Paypal could withdraw any money that it deemed necessary from your bank account as well. Many non-US countries were required to add a bank account just to use the service and verify their identity.

Clearing your name with Paypal is extremely problematic, for one of my friends I think it even involved making an overseas flight. Some of the documents they had to provide included drivers licence, social security number, a letter from their bank manager etc. They did get their money back, but it took a long time (months?). In the meantime everything in their Paypal account was frozen.

Basically, I thought the Paypal Sucks websites were about the "tiny minority" until it happened to people I knew. I closed my account as soon as it happened to the first one - the other friend thought I was bit paranoid, until it then happened to her too.


However - Paypal seems to have cleaned up its act since the eBay acquisition. You can now buy products through Paypal without having to signup for an account, and I recently made my first Paypal purchase this way. I'm more confident purchasing using Paypal now, but I don't think I'd sign up for a seller's account yet. I don't want to be personally liable for VAT on sales to the EU anyway, which is currently the case with Paypal.

[GameDevCn]

Thank you all for your comments.


The pragmatic advice is to offer PayPal as one alternative way of payment but handle your credit card transactions somewhere else. Most registration services offer this option automatically. And as you are just starting out pick one from the list at www.regshare.com and look into opening merchant accounts (Credit Card, PayPal etc) when your volume goes above say $5000/month. You might still not need them.

Good luck! :)This is very helpful.
I checked Plimus and found:

When do I receive my money? (top)
On the 15th of every month you will receive a Monthly Payment Notification report for the previous month which includes the amount you have earned for that month. Your money will be sent on that same day depepnding on your selected Method of Payment, either Check, Direct Deposit, Wire Transfer or PayPal.

How can I receive my money? (top)
You can receive it via Wire transfer, check , PayPal or Direct Deposit (for US Bank Accounts Only).So Plimus can use PayPal to transfer money to developers. But how do they collect money from customers? Or maybe I don't need to care about this issue at all?

Several more questions:
Does anybody use PayPal together with one (or more??) registration services at the same time, for one product?
Do these registration services, PayPal, etc. care about if you are a company or an individual?

Forgive me if my questions are stupid. :)

[Sillysoft]

Does anybody use PayPal together with one (or more??) registration services at the same time, for one product?
Do these registration services, PayPal, etc. care about if you are a company or an individual?

I have paypal set up as an option while most of my sales come through the esellerate registration service. This is all for one product. Paypal makes you get a 'business' account if you want to accept credit cards through paypal. The alternative is to only accept paypal-to-paypal transfers. I first signed up as a normal paypal account, but after a few people used paypal with a credit card I upgraded my account to a business one. For business accounts paypal will take something like 3% of the money.

[spoomusic]

I've been using PayPal for the online aspect of my record label since its inception in July. I upgraded my PayPal account to Business to accept credit cards and I have honestly never had any problems. All the transactions are prompt as far as I can tell and I have never witnessed an error in accounting. Whenever I transfer money from PayPal to my checking account it has never taken longer than two business days.

Just wanted to add that.

ok c-yaz,
Ariel Gross
spoomusic.com, LLC
http://spoomusic.com/
IDM / Electronic / Ambient