What kind of people use paypal, moneybookers and other online payment options?

There are surprising demographics. It is not only those who don’t have a credit card, or who are cautious about putting credit card details online. More companies are using it to pay suppliers or freelancers who do work for them. Its a good way for a company to hold some funds in an account for that purpose, thus removing all those movements from the regular bank account. The simplicity of sending money to “joesmithsmoney” is a lot easier than getting the iban codes,swift addresses and coordinates for numerous international bank accounts. More people use Ebay to purchase things large and small, everyday, then there’s secondlife, and amazon, and online gambling, its endless…. they may not want to insert credit card details for many reasons. ( no I don’t work for them or get any kickbacks. Although if after reading this, any of you efinance companies begin to feel overwhelmingly generous towards me…. go ahead, double my balance, I dare you.)

Many people, on various forums I have visited, have many axes to grind with paypal and others, who they say won’t give them their money back when they want to close the account, or withdraw funds. (See previous blogs written by Mark and Benson.) I myself have had no problems with this. I do have a nominated bank account however, to empty funds into, so I can get the cash. I also secured my paypal account with my master card perhaps this helps, I dont know how though.

On-line payment companies have been offering cards to draw money at ATMs, or to use as a charge card, for some time now. I think it rather depends where you live, when it comes to the secuirity of these, as some are very bad and others Ok. Anything based outside of regulated U.S.A. or Europe is probably a risk. But don’t quote me on that, again just an opinion.

A nominated bank account is kept within your paypal account, and should you want to empty some funds into your bank account, you request this. I normally wait 5 days for an international transfer into my bank, I wait till I simply have to, there are no charges for this. Although I do pay when receiving funds into Paypal.
If you need to close your account, this can be accomplished with a nominated bank account. Simply request it. I haven’t tested this, as I don’t want to close mine and open it again. Please give me feedback if you’ve had a problem closing, and I’ll research this more. There are hundreds of threads on paypal-forums about this, so Google it.