Paypal Alternatives
Every time someone asks me to send them money (or accept money from them) via Paypal I have to explain that I don't use Paypal and that I will happily use any other online money transfer service. The most common responses boil down to "I didn't know there were any alternatives to Paypal" and "Why not?". Here are most of the services I have used, all of which are safer than Paypal, many of which are cheaper:
http://wallet.google.com/
http://payments.amazon.com/
http://dwolla.com/
http://popmoney.com/
http://serve.com/
http://venmo.com/
http://square.com/cash
https://www.skrill.com/skrillit/
http://chase.com/online-banking/quickpay
https://home.ingdirect.com/products/products.asp?s=ElectricOrange
And here are a few other alternatives that are more expensive and strange or complicated:
https://www.mtgox.com/ or https://campbx.com/ or any other bitcoin exchange
http://www.westernunion.com/send-money-online (high fees)
https://www.greendot.com/greendot/account/ach-bank-account (you have to get a physical card to the recipient at some point)
As to WHY I don't use Paypal... They enabled scammers to steal tens of thousands of dollars from me, ruined my credit for the first decade or so of my adult life, caused me to have to close multiple bank accounts (at banks who will never do business with me again), and have hurt a lot of people and organizations that I care about over the last decade. I cannot even begin to list all of the ways that they are shady and untrustworthy, but feel free to get lost in the stories below for a few hours if you want to know how bad it gets:
http://www.paypalsucks.com/
http://www.paypalwarning.com/
http://www.aboutpaypal.org/
https://www.google.com/search?q=paypal+horror
https://www.google.com/search?q=paypal+sucks
http://wallet.google.com/
http://payments.amazon.com/
http://dwolla.com/
http://popmoney.com/
http://serve.com/
http://venmo.com/
http://square.com/cash
https://www.skrill.com/skrillit/
http://chase.com/online-banking/quickpay
https://home.ingdirect.com/products/products.asp?s=ElectricOrange
And here are a few other alternatives that are more expensive and strange or complicated:
https://www.mtgox.com/ or https://campbx.com/ or any other bitcoin exchange
http://www.westernunion.com/send-money-online (high fees)
https://www.greendot.com/greendot/account/ach-bank-account (you have to get a physical card to the recipient at some point)
As to WHY I don't use Paypal... They enabled scammers to steal tens of thousands of dollars from me, ruined my credit for the first decade or so of my adult life, caused me to have to close multiple bank accounts (at banks who will never do business with me again), and have hurt a lot of people and organizations that I care about over the last decade. I cannot even begin to list all of the ways that they are shady and untrustworthy, but feel free to get lost in the stories below for a few hours if you want to know how bad it gets:
http://www.paypalsucks.com/
http://www.paypalwarning.com/
http://www.aboutpaypal.org/
https://www.google.com/search?q=paypal+horror
https://www.google.com/search?q=paypal+sucks