Is Paypal safe?

Despite the number of people who use PayPal on a regular basis for buying and selling via eBay, some users are still wary of the security of making and receiving payments. Webmaster Drew explains how PayPal really works.

Q. Margaret
I read your recent item on eBay buying & selling. However, it didn’t completely allay my reservations.

I’m OK with buying, as I have a separate (measured small capped amount) credit card for this. However, with selling I don’t feel so comfortable, even with going through PayPal. I’m nervous about giving out bank and account numbers for money to be deposited into. What are the dangers and precautions with this? Should I specify payment by cheque or some specific way? Should I have a separate bank account rather than just a separate credit card? I am thinking of selling some items, but want to be very careful about it. Don’t relish the thought of any savings or identity theft. Being inclined to be spendthrift, it has taken me ages to accumulate relatively modest savings!

A. There are a number of different ways I could answer this question for you so what I will do is explain the process of PayPal, and how to create a safe environment for a transaction when using it.

PayPal was bought out by eBay (around 2002-2004). eBay has slowly been moving to only using PayPal as its money transfer system of choice so that it can increase profits and to better handle complaints and refunds. Having extensive experience with the ups and downs of PayPal in the past, the seller of products is normally the most exposed party when using PayPal. This is because there is a function built into PayPal for disputes. If a product is sent and not received or found to be faulty, the buyer can challenge the seller and ask for their money back. The majority of transactions (99%) have no problems, I am just letting you know what can happen. PayPal is extremely safe to use as long as you follow standard security procedures such as installing a virus scanner such as AVG Anti-Virus which includes a firewall.

For argument’s sake, I would compare PayPal to being as secure as any major bank website. The great thing about PayPal is you do not have to specify any bank details to the person purchasing the product or even on your PayPal account until you have sold all the items on eBay. Instead, you specify your email address attached to your PayPal account to the buyer and they send you the money to this account. Once you have sold the items, then you can specify the withdrawal bank details and remove the money from your account. After you have done this, you can delete that bank account from your PayPal account withdrawal options to keep it safe and secure.

Just like anything on the internet, a website is only as safe as the user makes it by providing a safe environment for the purchase/sale of a product and transaction of the money.