Credit card protection vs. PayPal ?

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kayanco
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Joined: Sat Jun 07, 2014 12:20 am

Credit card protection vs. PayPal ?

Post by kayanco »

Hi,

I was wondering about something:

What's the difference in consumer protection (e.g. dispute) in paying with:
Credit card directly vs. adding the card to PayPal and paying through PayPal.

I know credit cards have some protections, and I'm sure PayPal has some as well. But I'm not sure what happens when you pay though PayPal using a credit card (vs. the same card directly)? Do you get added protections from both?

Any experiences or knowledge on this matter, that you can share please?

Thanks.
Last edited by kayanco on Sun Nov 19, 2017 3:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nyc10036
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Re: Credit card protection vs. PayPal ?

Post by Nyc10036 »

The company being paid by Paypal does not know your c.c. #
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ResearchMed
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Re: Credit card protection vs. PayPal ?

Post by ResearchMed »

I just try to avoid PayPal as much as possible, for anything at all.
And it's almost always possible.

Their "customer service", basically, just isn't... as in "doesn't exist".

If we need the back up of the charge card, which is quite rare, the card company has always "been there for us", so why involve another party and possibly confuse the situation, with more ways to point fingers of blame?

RM
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LifeIsGood
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Re: Credit card protection vs. PayPal ?

Post by LifeIsGood »

I agree that Paypal has horrible customer service. About the only time I use them is if I buy something online and think there's a fair chance I will have to return it. Paypal gives you 12 refunds for return shipping per calendar year and $30 USD per claim. I've used it a couple of times and it's very easy.
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nisiprius
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Re: Credit card protection vs. PayPal ?

Post by nisiprius »

I avoid PayPal due to bad stories, but have never had a dispute that needed to be resolved by PayPal so can't speak to this from personal experience. I have a PayPal account with $0.00 in it (because I sometimes use it for eBay purchases) but whenever an online purchase shows a PayPal versus credit card option, I always use the card option--even if take extra clicks and even if there's a processing fee. Always.

Credit cards: various protections required by consumer law.
PayPal: protections are governed entirely by PayPal's voluntary policy and they are said to have lousy customer service.

During maybe three or four decades, I have called credit card companies to dispute charges perhaps ten times. Every single time the outcome was that a) the credit card company credited the disputed amount back to my account instantly, and b) I never heard anything more. Perhaps half the times the card company made a point of saying it was "subject to investigation" and that depending on what the merchant told them the credit might not be final, but in every case it was. Some representative examples:

a) Travel agency charged twice for the same plane ticket, four months apart.

b) Got home from a trip to find a $1,000 charge on my card to "FireCash," a company that manages credit card transactions for online gambling websites... I suspect it was a motel clerk but it is nothing but a suspicion... resolved instantly.

c) Cancelled an online subscription to an electronic service, but they just kept billing monthly anyway.

d) Most recently: not really a dispute. And it's a lovely company. But due to some weird screw-up in subscribing electronically, a purchase I wanted to make did not complete online and the subscription was not activated, yet my card was charged. The company said that they could not find the transaction in their own records so could not reverse the transaction themselves, and that the only way they knew to straighten it out was for me to call the card company and dispute the charge. I did so. The outcome was instant credit back to my card combined with a verbal warning that it was "pending investigation" and that's the end of the story.

Wait, it's not the end of the story: this company uses PayPal (!) as its credit card processor.
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nisiprius
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Re: Credit card protection vs. PayPal ?

Post by nisiprius »

Wait, I do have a "bad PayPal customer" story, but at second and across a language barrier. Also, during the event, I did call PayPal customer service, and they did answer the phone and all, but said (as I expected) that I couldn't do anything from my end, because I wasn't the customer having the problem.

I bought a handmade silk scarf from someone with an eCommerce storefront in a Colombian website, a sort of Colombian version of etsy. I paid about USD $40. It was a credit card transaction processed by PayPal and she ended up with dollars in a dollar-denominated PayPal account.

This was literally the first purchase she'd ever had. Only after she was paid did she discover that there apparently was no way to do a currency conversion and get the money in a form she could use. I'm only relaying what I heard, maybe misunderstood, but her bank told her that in order to get the necessary services she would need to open a business account with a large minimum deposit. PayPal was apparently unable to suggest any satisfactory solution. The final resolution was that she used the dollar account in PayPal to buy Russian lessons for her niece from an Internet site that accepted PayPal payments in dollars. In other words, exactly what PayPal would want... but not, in my opinion, a satisfactory resolution.

It was a nice scarf.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness; Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
Topic Author
kayanco
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Re: Credit card protection vs. PayPal ?

Post by kayanco »

LifeIsGood wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2017 5:55 am I agree that Paypal has horrible customer service. About the only time I use them is if I buy something online and think there's a fair chance I will have to return it. Paypal gives you 12 refunds for return shipping per calendar year and $30 USD per claim. I've used it a couple of times and it's very easy.
That's part of what I'm wondering, if what PayPal gives is on top of the normal Credit card protections? Or do you forfeit the CC protections and only have what PayPal offers as consumer protection.
Topic Author
kayanco
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Re: Credit card protection vs. PayPal ?

Post by kayanco »

nisiprius wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2017 6:50 am
a) Travel agency charged twice for the same plane ticket, four months apart.

b) Got home from a trip to find a $1,000 charge on my card to "FireCash," a company that manages credit card transactions for online gambling websites... I suspect it was a motel clerk but it is nothing but a suspicion... resolved instantly.

c) Cancelled an online subscription to an electronic service, but they just kept billing monthly anyway.

d) Most recently: not really a dispute. And it's a lovely company. But due to some weird screw-up in subscribing electronically, a purchase I wanted to make did not complete online and the subscription was not activated, yet my card was charged. The company said that they could not find the transaction in their own records so could not reverse the transaction themselves, and that the only way they knew to straighten it out was for me to call the card company and dispute the charge. I did so. The outcome was instant credit back to my card combined with a verbal warning that it was "pending investigation" and that's the end of the story.

Wait, it's not the end of the story: this company uses PayPal (!) as its credit card processor.
I'm surprised that the use of Virtual credit card numbers hasn't taken off.

Citibank, to my knowledge, is the only one that has this feature on their cards, and I think it's an amazing feature for online shopping. You can create a virtual number for one-time use, or even customize it:

- set expiry date (e.g.: you are paying in 3 installments ending on a certain date)
- can set the max amount that can be charged.
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