Paypal – Rip off Britain
I’ve been buying and selling items on ebay for a couple of years now. And things have changed a lot in that short period of time. First of all people always used to send cheques and I would send cheques too. Each auction would come with the line, “I will wait for the cheque to clear before sending item” or something similar. But the days of the cheque are fast disappearing. So now that the cold war is over, we have the war on terror. What is replacing cheques on ebay? Paypal.
When Paypal first made an appearance on ebay everyone was up in arms about their charges. But the ability of sending and receiving funds immediately was too good to miss and was soon taken up. Initially people added a surcharge to cover the Paypal fees. But people are beginning to accept it now. But is that a good thing? Not only that, Paypal has outgrown ebay and many big high street names are also accepting Paypal. And who’s going to be making the most money out if this? Mr. Paypal of course.
Other ways to transfer money
Alongside cheques, there was another method of payment that was used but mainly overlooked: bank transfers. I just made a purchase from the German ebay site and out of habit was looking for the Paypal button. But there was none. My wife, being German told me that in Germany they use bank transfers. Simple and quick, and best of all FREE. I’ll repeat that again FREE.
But not in the UK. If you want to sent me a £100.00 via Paypal then they will take £3.60. That’s 3.4% + 20p flat fee. Am I mistaken in thinking that’s a lot? But in Britain we are used to being ripped off, so we just shrug and tell our friends how expensive it all is. But if you want to send me £100.00 via bank transfer, then it takes a couple of days longer but they don’t charge a penny. But for some reason people hardly ever use this service.
But I don’t want to give out my bank details. I might have my identity stolen or be susceptible to phishing attacks. Or someone may hack into my account and take all my money. That really is a load of nonsense. All that anyone can do with your bank details is to put money into your account. Ok, so if they manage to get your cheque book and card together that’s another thing. But they would need your pin number and your secret questions to be able to get into your account.
All banks now have online banking. So it’s pretty easy to log into your account and put in the details of the person to whom you want to send money and that’s that. Or you can simply phone your bank and give them the details over the phone. The cost of the phone call is all that is charged. And with all those free minutes that you now get, you can reduce your costs further.
But I go on using PayPal
So I do use Paypal because everyone else is using Paypal, but I’d rather not give them my money. Maybe I should just buy some shares in Paypal. But what I can’t understand is why the Brits won’t just use bank transfers. It’s easy, it’s quick and most of all it’s FREE. But oh no. It’s cash, cheques or credit cards.
Just one more point about cheques, the environment. They cost paper, both in the cheque itself and in the envelope if it’s sent. Then they cost fuel being transported and then more processing is required. Plus the cost of the stamp. And you have to go to the bank to put the cheque in.
So UK, start using bank transfers and stop getting ripped off. Let’s ditch this badge of being rip-off Britain.