Resolved Question

Is pay pal safe? or a bad idea?

i was thinking about buying some clothes online with my remaining christmas money but found out you need paypal to order the clothes, i asked my parents if i could sign up my bank card with paypal but point blank refused because my cousins lost over £17,000 using paypal, is there anyway to convince them that it is safe?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Paypal itself is generally safe, however you have to know what you are doing, know the rules, know when it is a genuine paypal communication & especially know when it is a phishing scam. This is nearly always where it goes wrong, it's fraudsters pretending to be paypal. Never click a link in an email from 'paypal' or supposedly from rather, (or any place you have account/password details) you should open your own new page each time & sign in that way. Otherwise you've likely just passed all your bank/card details straight to the fraudsters to do with what they will. Paypal will always address you by your name. The fake paypals probably wont, & the real one wont send you links to click & ask you to verify details or passwords or threaten to close your account if you don't act quickly.. the fakes will. Always log out of your accounts properly too, don't leave them 'open'.

When using sites that use paypal like ebay, you have to know their rules too & know the risks involved especially when selling.. & use your settings accordingly to prevent certain potential risky buyers.

Make sure your internet connection is secure too for making financial transactions, you never know who could pinch your card details from that (i.e if using wireless)

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Other Answers (7)

• From your point of view as a buyer, paypal is safe. However, I have read many stories of sellers whose accounts were frozen and their money effectively "stolen" because they could not access it, and often there was no explanation offered, just their money kept by paypal. Is it any wonder they are making millions of profit?
  
  You could ask the sellers if they will accept any other form of payment - money orders, postal orders, bank drafts etc.
• PayPal is very safe to use for online transactions.
  PayPal offers a system where if you do not receive your item, or the seller will not give a refund for whatever reason, PayPal will sort it out for you and ensure that you get your money back.
  And only the PayPal user can transfer money to other accounts, there is no way to take money out of an account you do not own.
  
  Have a look on the PayPal website. It should tell you some useful information of how they keep your money safe.
  
  If your cousins lost a lot of money using PayPal, it was probably their own fault. I doubt PayPal would have caused them to lose that much money.

  Source(s):

• ouch! That's a pretty bad sum of loss money. Paypal for the most part is very much safe, it's just one needs to use it wisely and perhaps your cousin got a virus on their computer which made a hacker see what their card information was? Other than that paypal is highly safe. I have bought many things over the years but it's mostly been items i could not really find in my area or for cheaper. Personally, i would not ever use a card to purchase clothes over the interest unless it was a absolute 100% must (which is highly rare). Go to a regular store to buy your clothes and it's way better to use cash anyways.That's my advice. You don't want to get into the habit of using paypal for everything on the internet, i made that mistake years ago because i forgotten about certain purchases that didn't his my account yet n so forth but again...i wouldn't refuse your parents advice. If it was for a book you needed then yes i'm certain they may say ok to that but clothes? not really..go to a regular store for clothes
• PayPal is risky.. I almost lost $1000 on it a few months ago trying to sell something. The "buyer" had hacked into someone's account and used their money to pay me, and then things went south. PayPal took the money back from me (which I hadn't even received, so they took $1000 from my bank). It took almost a month to sort out.
  
  It's not the best way to pay online.
• Ive used it for years and never heard any bad reports till you said that. Personally id use it.
• well, my friend used pay pal and they totally got screwed and their money was stolen... so i'd say no.
• Until I read your question and answers i had never heard of anything bad
  
  Thanks for that