Shop and Pay for your Online Purchases Securely with PayPal

September 26, 2008 1:56 pm Dan Harris Features

Online shopping is convenient; however, it can be risky too. You can fall victim to internet fraud where your credit card information is stolen and used by other people to buy things online. Yes, your card can be charged with purchases that you didn’t make.

That’s why you need to be very careful whenever you buy stuff on the internet. Most people are wary about putting their credit card info on the checkout page of some websites for fear of someone else gaining access to it. But what if there’s a way to shop safely and quickly? PayPal addresses this concern.

PayPal is a safe and reliable online payment method popular among many online shoppers. As a matter of fact, there are about 100 million PayPal account holders already. A large number of eBay users would prefer to send and receive money through PayPal, which allows you to transfer funds safely through the internet.

Fast and Easy Signup

There are three types of accounts for everyone: personal account for buyers, and Premiere and Business account for individual sellers or business owners.

Signing up is free and easy. You just need to provide basic information about yourself, such as your name, home and email address, and phone number. Then, you can add your bank information and link your credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express). You’ll need to confirm your email address (by clicking on a link on the email sent to you after registration) before you can use your account.
Once you’ve done all these, you can already start buying online or even bid on online auction shopping sites such as Paypal’s mother company, eBay.

With PayPal, you can finish transactions quickly because instead of entering card numbers on the checkout page, you’ll be taken to your account where you can select how you want to pay for your purchase. You can take the amount from your credit or debit card, bank account, or PayPal balance. In a similar fashion, you can withdraw money either from your credit card or bank account.

Secure Online Payment

You are assured that your credit card numbers are not given to merchants or sellers during payout, and that there is round-the-clock monitoring team that helps prevent fraud.

PayPal also ensures that both buyer and seller are kept safe from illegal transactions through its Buyer and Seller Protection Policy. In case you paid for an item but the seller didn’t ship the item to you or it’s not in good condition, you can file a dispute and PayPal personnel will investigate and resolve the situation. The same goes with sellers who feel that they are being harassed by certain buyers.

There were other payment methods utilized in the early years of online shopping like Billpoint, BidPay, and PayDirect. But these services didn’t match the kind of reliability, security, and swiftness that made PayPal the preferred choice of online sellers and shoppers.