Owners & Players: Would you try something other than Paypal? - Garry's Mod

TL;DR at the bottom. This thread is an open discussion concerning the methods of payments used on Garry's Mod communities for whatever [B]intangible[/B] products they sell (VIP, admin, virtual currency, whatever it is). I've noticed a grand majority - not to claim monopoly - of these communities use [B]Paypal[/B] to process their payments. Fairly enough, Paypal has a few things going on for it. For instance, the customer doesn't need to log in to make purchases. The fees are very reasonable. Unfortunately, Paypal also has a few quirks that can cause some serious issues to both sellers and buyers. I'll let you Google that one. So I had a few questions for you guys. - Have you used anything other than [B]Paypal[/B] on any Garry's Mod community, whether as the seller or buyer? What was it? How was it? - When using Paypal on whichever community, do you [B]log in[/B] to Paypal or do you use your credit card without an account? - Would you be willing to use something OTHER than Paypal if [B]you don't have to create an account and log in?[/B] - Would you be willing to use something OTHER than Paypal if [B]you did have to create an account and log in?[/B] - Are there any particular companies/payment services you particularly trust? Amazon Payments, Google Checkout, etc. - Server owners, have you considered getting your own mercantile license and processing credit card information by yourself? - Players, would you trust (certain) communities to handle your personal credit card information and all that comes with it? At the moment, Paypal is very clearly dominating the market and I like to believe competition is a good thing - it would force Paypal (and other payment processing companies) to improve their services. I'm interested in expanding towards another merchant service, maybe side-in-side with Paypal, maybe entirely replacing it. The reason why is the "few quirks" mentioned up there. Google it! Something also worth mentioning is perhaps expanding towards services that allow to make purchases via phone, since certain players don't have access to credit cards and have expressed an interest in paying with their cellphone credit/bills - there's a few services that allow that but their fees are ridiculous. [U][B]If you could take the time to at least answer these questions, I'd appreciate it![/B][/U] Tl;dr: Would you use something other than Paypal to buy/sell whatever from whatever community you play on? Under what conditions? No log-in required? Credit card stays confidential like on Paypal? Etc.

I'd never let a gaming community have access to my credit card information.

Well, I use NFO's coffer service, which is good for me and the players because it only allows the money to go directly to the server, nowhere else.

[QUOTE=Greatie;41853390]Well, I use NFO's coffer service, which is good for me and the players because it only allows the money to go directly to the server, nowhere else.[/QUOTE] That's actually great for smaller servers. In our case, my community is registered as a legal Canadian company since I have various fees I need to pay (developer(s), accountant, lawyer, taxes, various community giveaways, etc.) But yeah, that definitely solves the issue for certain communities.

The thing about Paypal is it's kind of become the accepted standard. If people see the Paypal logo, they know the entire procedure of checking out, they're familiar with it, etc. If you change things up, people would be less inclined to make purchases - especially if you intend to process their CC information yourself. I, personally, would never give my CC information directly to a gaming community - it would have to go through Paypal, or at the very least a trustworthy processing company. If you want to go the processing company route, they're usually pretty reasonable on the fees. Paypal is sort of like Steam at this point. Even if something comes out that's "better", everyone's games are already on Steam, all of their friends are on Steam, it would be a long-fought battle to get enough people to switch to the new system to make it a viable option.

BL00DB4TH is right. People will always prefer Paypal. If I had a company, I'd use Paysafecard too though, since many people don't have credit-card/PayPal.

I honestly don't like Paypal. They got my Steam account locked when I bought Portal 2 (they thought it was 'suspicious activity' and reversed the payment without even contacting me) and I had to spend a bunch of hours phoning them and confirming that I, did indeed, want to spend money on Steam. Then my account got hacked (I've never had an account stolen before, my info is pretty safe), luckily I only had a few cents on my account. It's not easy for a lot of smaller gaming communities to have alternatives to Paypal, but if you can get one I'd really prefer to use it. Call me paranoid, but I don't trust them with my information anymore. [editline]b[/editline] Google checkout is a bit weird, but I'd rather have the option to pay through Google than Paypal.

-snip-

-didn't merge-

Is it not an option to support multiple payment methods? I would buy and sell things using Google Checkout if I had the option to.

[QUOTE=MonkeysLP;41853342]I'm interested in expanding towards another merchant service, maybe side-in-side with Paypal, maybe entirely replacing it.[/QUOTE]

I might use Amazon Payments and Google Checkout.

Bitcoin? Probably a shitty suggestion.

Paypal does some downright shady shit sometimes, I really don't like them at all but there aren't a whole lot of other options it seems. Everyone uses it.

I'd really like to see dwolla become a thing, but people are so entrenched in their ways that I don't see it coming anywhere near the popularity of paypal. At least, not unless paypal really fucks up. Then again, paypal already fucks up a lot and holds money with no cause, suspends accounts for the most miner of things, and can get away with murder because they aren't actually a bank.

- Have you used anything other than Paypal on any Garry's Mod community, whether as the seller or buyer? What was it? How was it? Never. - When using Paypal on whichever community, do you log in to Paypal or do you use your credit card without an account? Used my PayPal account. - Would you be willing to use something OTHER than Paypal if you don't have to create an account and log in? No, paypal is great and fast. - Would you be willing to use something OTHER than Paypal if you did have to create an account and log in? No, I already got a PayPal account and it's fairly enough I don't want to be managing a shit load of accounts with my cash on it. - Are there any particular companies/payment services you particularly? Amazon Payments, Google Checkout, etc. I also use Google Checkout a lot for Google Play payments. - Server owners, have you considered getting your own mercantile license and processing credit card information by yourself? No. - Players, would you trust (certain) communities to handle your personal credit card information and all that comes with it? No, Internet is already full of scam and I don't think anyone would risk letting gaming communities handle their CC informations as you really don't know who will have access to them. I don't see why peoples are arguing about PayPal, it's great, fast, safe and easy to use.

[QUOTE=_FR_Starfox64;41855538]I don't see why peoples are arguing about PayPal, it's great, fast, safe and easy to use.[/QUOTE] Sorry, but this actually made me laugh. For the sake of keeping this post pretty short, I'll only point out two big issues. The first being that paypal's fees are very high considering that a large portion of paypal transactions don't involve dealing with credit card companies. Paypal made 1.6bil in just the second quarter of 2013 and is pretty much the only reason ebay is even profitable. As for how paypal can, and does, act: they aren't subject to the multitude of regulations that businesses like banks have to abide by. Their TOS even explicitly states that they may suspend or limit any accounts, without having to contact the owner. And that they may suspend accounts, at any time, for any reason. I've heard they suspend or limit around 2mil accounts every year. One of the major reasons is because, just like when you put your money in a savings account, as long as your money is in paypal -- they're making even more money with it.

As far as I know banks also get money off your account. I personally don't mind the fees, they got to earn money too, even if you find them high it dosen't really affect anything on your side. They earn a shit load of money well good for them I don't think peoples should hate a company because they found a "golden recipe".

[QUOTE=_FR_Starfox64;41855786]As far as I know banks also get money off your account. I personally don't mind the fees, they got to earn money too, even if you find them high it dosen't really affect anything on your side. They earn a shit load of money well good for them I don't think peoples should hate a company because they found a "golden recipe".[/QUOTE] Banks also pay you back a portion of the money they make, plus they're actually regulated. In the event that paypal was ever shut down, like liberty reserve, any money you had in paypal would simply be gone. As for the fees, well if you don't mind missing out on a good chunk of your money then you have a very unique sentiment.

[QUOTE=code_gs;41854200]Bitcoin? Probably a shitty suggestion.[/QUOTE] I've considered it for the sake of supporting the idea, but I doubt it'd get much use from customers.

I know of a couple alternatives to paypal. Paypal holds a monopoly on the online transfer of currency. And the blame lies with the Vendor. Majority of the vendors accept paypal but no other exchange such as payza(formerly alert pay) or 2checkout. Sure it's nice and handy to have your money in one virtual account but that doesn't mean you shouldn't offer an alternative. My problem with paypal was having to verify my account 3 times, the fees/taxes, and the lack of a decent api. [editline]16th August 2013[/editline] 2checkout has higher fees than paypal in some areas while payza generally has lower fees and also offers to mail you a check for free.

i don't like paypal but everyone is familiar with it so it's what I use. never really had any issues besides not being able to do much when it comes to chargebacks

Webmoney.

Google Checkout ends in November.

I've found that in general Paypal is the most universally used by all customers and generally if they can't use Paypal it falls under two categories - ie they're underage and cannot use it due to lack of cc / proven underage or they're up to some slightly sinister stuff. That's not to say that every scenario is like that, but many are. We did some experimentation for a short while over at BBS giving the option of Amazon and Bitcoin. Bitcoin actually worked okay, but the problem with it was you have to wait for the blockchain to verify payments (up to thirty minutes) and also converting it back to actual cash without charges is bit of a hassle. With Amazon it was actually a lack of people using it entirely.

[QUOTE=erie1555;41870597]Google Checkout ends in November.[/QUOTE] But they offer pretty similar services in tandem.

The reason why I preffered Google Checkout over Paypal was because chargebacks had to be initiated directly from the CC Company and couldn't be done so through Google Checkout. Google would only be the intermediate to help fix the dispute. While with paypal, you can file a dispute directly with them, so anyone, such as little kids, can file a chargeback.

Fuck Paypal, shitheads dumped about $2,000 in chargeback fees on me over around $1,000 worth of donations being chargebacked on top of taking the money back. Took 7-9 months after a week long ordeal of faxing shit to them to have the money refunded and by then I honestly don't know what we lost and what we got back but they probably made about a grand disappear. I would never ever use Paypal for a business or business like activities and it's far too easy for people to dispute payments over being banned temporarily(later changed to permanent). However, all you have to do is call them up and explain it's for an intangible virtual good and a donation to server costs. Calls like that rarely took more than 3-4 minutes of my time and the amount was promptly released back to me. I suppose it's partially the way credit card companies work but Paypal likes to make money "disappear" whenever possible.

[QUOTE=slayer3032;41878242]Fuck Paypal, shitheads dumped about $2,000 in chargeback fees on me over around $1,000 worth of donations being chargebacked on top of taking the money back. Took 7-9 months after a week long ordeal of faxing shit to them to have the money refunded and by then I honestly don't know what we lost and what we got back but they probably made about a grand disappear. I would never ever use Paypal for a business or business like activities and it's far too easy for people to dispute payments over being banned temporarily(later changed to permanent). However, all you have to do is call them up and explain it's for an intangible virtual good and a donation to server costs. Calls like that rarely took more than 3-4 minutes of my time and the amount was promptly released back to me. I suppose it's partially the way credit card companies work but Paypal likes to make money "disappear" whenever possible.[/QUOTE] I also have bad experiences with chargeback cases. A guy requested chargeback a month after he paid me for something. Paypal froze my account for six months during the case process. I "won" the case but because of fees and other shit I ended up with the half of the original amount.

Part of the problem is where you're geographically based. In the EU they're seen as a bank and must follow regulations as per the law. In the USA and other countries, this isn't the case so they're able to get away with more sketchy stuff.