PureBasic Forums - English

I was thinking of using PayPal to sell my PureBasic apps, but I hate PayPal.
Well, I hate it for use with eBay, since that's all I've used it with so far. But
I've read horror stories (and had some of my own!) where people demand
their money back from PayPal and they get it -- leaving the seller without
an item and the loser.

So I'm hesitant to use it to sell an application, but it does give me pretty
much an instant payment (about 4 days to transfer it to my real account).
That's the incentive to use it. The other method I was using was Reg.Net
but it literally takes months to get a US check here in Australia, so any
sales means a nice long wait for the money.

Is anyone here (besides Fred) using PayPal successfully for their apps?
If so, do you have any tips that you picked up on the way to keep it all
smooth and trouble-free? What did you do when a customer wanted a
refund on your app, etc? Thanks for any advice.

I use PayPal to handle all purchases for PureGDK on my website. I also support three currencies (easy to do) and deposit everything into a single multi-currency business account.

I like PayPal because their API is really easy to use, bank account transfers are free, I can accept multiple currencies, credit cards and e-checks, and their fees are fair.

I've never used any other payment service so I can't speak for the competition.

Yes I use Paypal for software and other stuff that I sell. I've had a couple of 'minor' problems but nothing which has casued me any real concern - at least not in the longer term.

I would say use them.

But
I've read horror stories (and had some of my own!) where people demand
their money back from PayPal and they get it -- leaving the seller without
an item and the loser.

A few things:

1. Keep in mind the original horror stories of paypal were before eBay bought them. That said, there are still enough horror stories to go around and being owned by eBay isn't exactly a good thing, either.

2, What I quoted is so easily prevented against. Just issue a reg-code that is only good for 30 days. When day 28 arrives, send your customer a permanent code. For the reasons you specify, products like Armadillo (or whatever it is called now) have had this feature built in for many years to protect against chargebacks.

3. I am VERY partial to BMT Micro: http://www.bmtmicro.com I am not sure how well it would work for you, but over here, they literally pioneered online ordering. I was even using them for paid memberships for a dialup BBS in the early 90s before the net killed BBSes off.

4. There are some major online retail companies accepting PayPal. I am not overly fond of it myself, but will use it now that you can order via a debit/credit card without having to be a PayPal member. Major retailers accepting it, does reassure me that PayPal is a legitimate option.

5. For dishonest customers, what you said is bad. They can get stuff literally for free. But, for dishonest sellers, this is good for the honest customer. I have had to get my money back from paypal twice, because I never received what I ordered and the seller would not respond to smail, email, or telephone, or even PayPal when they investigated.

I've been using PayPal for several years for selling my app and I haven't found a better service regarding reliability and fees. I use Linklok code on my website in conjunction with PayPal, which enables me to maintain a database of orders and customers, and to process new registrations online. There may be other web products around that interface with PayPal. Linklok works OK but I'd be interested to know what other PayPal users use for automated registration processing.

Regarding people demanding their money back from PayPal and getting it, this has happened to me once. The 'reason' given by the customer was that the use of their credit card was unauthorised, but I have my doubts about that based on information recorded in my web log. But that's only one (ex)customer, and so does not alter my satisfaction-level with PayPal.

btw, I'm also in Australia. I receive PayPal payments in USD, GBP, AUD, NZD, and EUR, and transfer them all to my AUD balance before transferring the amount to my Aussie bank account.

I use shareit. They offer paypal payment afaik.

I've never had any problems with paypal.

> issue a reg-code that is only good for 30 days. When day 28 arrives,
> send your customer a permanent code.

Awesome! I'll take that approach. Solves my problem of dishonest customers.

But what if they try a chargeback after 30 days? Does PayPal allow that?

Regarding people demanding their money back from PayPal and getting it, this has happened to me once. The 'reason' given by the customer was that the use of their credit card was unauthorised, but I have my doubts about that based on information recorded in my web log. But that's only one (ex)customer, and so does not alter my satisfaction-level with PayPal.

Exactly what happened to me. Paypal does refund the purchaser very quickly in these circumstances. That's why these days I either send out temporary reg codes or simply insist on a personal e-mail from the buyer confirming the purchase before I will send anything out. That way I have the necessary proof to show Paypal etc. Never needed to mind.

Pay Pal will give their money back in a heartbeat, and they end up with the product and their money back. I've encountered that myself, would sell something and then send it when the money arrived. Once the guy got it he disputed the payment and ended up with the product for free. Sadly, there are those types of dishonest people in the world.

There's always google checkout which seems pretty good.

On the other hand - paypal is everywhere, most tech-savvy / online shoppers already have a paypal account so the process of buying from you (if you also use paypal) will be easy and familiar - compared to signing up to a new service...

Ohhh....oooo...I asked around a bit and found out about this one thats supposed to be OK to use > www.moneybookers.com

They supposedly make sure everyone has a say so before resolving a dispute from the customer.

I use PayPal all the time to BUY software, no problems so far. I prefer to use them.

I use Regsoft. I like the fact that automatically, after a confirmed purchase, an email gets sent to the buyer with their registration key and other info. Been using it for 5 years with no issues. It's even blocked bogus or fake purchases.

I use paypal and google checkout, partially because I want to generate my own keys using my algorithm.

I get approximately 50% from each service. Google was much cheaper until they changed their rate, now it's comparable.

Never had anyone scam me. From my experience the people are very nice and very honest as long as you're decent to them.

cheers