Could PayPal Be an In-Store Option?

daria42 writes "PayPal has long been one of the most-used payment options on the Internet; its history serving eBay's millions of users has now expanded into a wider remit across many e-commerce sites. But will the company ever become a valid option for point of sale payments at actual physical retail stores? Yes, according to PayPal's global president Scott Thompson — and PayPal's working on that right now, with one option based on mobile phones on the way and two others in development. It'll be interesting to see how far the company gets with its plans; personally I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be using such a system."

Looking for trouble

[schwit1]

Paypal demands access to your checking account after $10k of purchases. It is reckless to permit any third party access to a checking account.

What happens when Paypal gets hacked and people's checking accounts start getting drained?

Re:Pointless addendum

[spooje]

Usually you have some legal protections when using a debit card. Paypal has a habit of ignoring disputed transactions until it's legally too late to get your money back. I had a problem with them a few years back where they kept telling me to talk to the merchant to resolve the issue, but if the merchant never shipped my stuff and won't give my money back what else can I do? If I used a debit or credit card it would have been much easier to dispute the charges and get my money back.

Re:I have a debit card with chip-and-pin.

[bmo]

>Paypal could be a safer option

For who?

Vendors?
Customers?

From what I've heard is that everyone hates them, that they're forever screwing over both sellers and shoppers, day-in, day-out, 24/7 on Ebay, but since Ebay is a captive market, there aren't any real alternatives.

Why, on Gawd's Green Earth, would you want to take their abuses and expand them out into meatspace?

Credit card companies, as much maligned as they are, treat their customers (both vendors and shoppers) far better than Paypal has ever done for their own customers.

As a purchaser, you are better off with a regular or secured credit card and pay it off at the end of the month (this is key) than ever dealing with Paypal. You get extra warranties, cash-back, fraud protection, frequent flier miles, etc. Indeed, just comparing credit card fraud protection to Paypal's version of "fraud protection" and the differences are staggering. Only a fool would pick Paypal.

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BMO

Credit card companies are far more dangerous

[Colin Smith]

For who?

For the entire world.

Banks and credit card companies are orders of magnitude more dangerous than PayPal. Paypal are small potatoes on the Evil scale.

The 1929 Great Depression? Banks.
The 2008 Great Recession? Caused by banks. The fucking great boom we're in just now? (which is going to end at some point with a terrifying bust) => Banks.

No matter how bad PayPal's customer service, it doesn't compare to foreclosure fraud or the utter (20% unemployment) kind of mayhem which banks and credit card companies can wreak on an economy.

Re:Credit card companies are far more dangerous

[Jibekn]

Until PayPal is regulated under the same accountability as a bank, Ill never use them in cyber, or meat space.

A bank cant just freeze your account for no reason, paypal can.

Re:PayPal is a bank in Luxembourg

[mestar]

Let me translate this FA for you:

"daria42 writes" - obviously a fake name since there are no women on slashdot.

uses ";" - he is a professional writer.

"PayPal has long been one of the most-used payments option" - Paypal is paying for this piece of PR.

" according to PayPal's global president Scott Thompson" - appeal to authority, another mark of PR writers.

"PayPal's working on that right now" - PayPal is scared of emerging free alternatives, so they are increasing their PR spending.