Is Paypal Safe?

Making sure that our readers stay safe on the internet is one of our main goals here at PinpointVPN, and when we’re not discussing whether Ivacy or NordVPN is better, we’re looking at ways to make your browsing experience safer. That includes discussing sites that some internet users may have misgivings about.

In today’s article, we’re going to look at one of the biggest financial sites in the world: Paypal. More specifically, we’re going to look at whether or not Paypal is safe to use. This guide will be split into two parts. We’ll start by looking at whether Paypal is safe for sellers and then we’ll explore its safety for buyers.

Is Paypal Safe?

Let’s get started by answering the question directly. In general, is Paypal safe to use? Yes, Paypal is one of the most reliable payment and financial platforms on the internet, and Paypal itself is just as trustworthy as a bank. If you ever have an issue on Paypal, it’s much more likely to be due to the people you’re dealing with and not the platform itself.

Seller Safety on Paypal

Paypal takes its sellers’ security seriously because they make a lot of money off of them, mainly through fees. However, most would argue that the platform is just as safe for buyers as it is for sellers. This is because Paypal has secure servers and the info that is sent to their servers is always encrypted.

Keep in mind that there are specific instances in which it may not be a good idea to access Paypal. For example, if you’re using a public wifi network, it would be a lot easier for someone to snoop on your connection and figure out at least some of your financial info, which could be disastrous.

How Does Paypal Seller Protection Work?

There are a lot of different mechanisms involved in the Paypal seller protection system, and all of them exist to ensure that you have a good experience while using Paypal.

For example, to conduct a transaction on Paypal, you won’t need to enter info like credit card numbers because they’re saved to your account. You just need to log in.

Another advantage is that Paypal uses machine learning to ensure that transactions are kept secure and they also monitor every transaction that passes through their systems.

The merchant fraud protection system exists to allow you to get in touch with customer support ASAP if you feel like you’ve been involved in a fraudulent transaction. Even better, Paypal will ensure that transactions are put on hold if they have a suspicion that one of your transactions is involved in a fraud investigation.

How to not Get Scammed When Selling on Paypal

You can ensure that you don’t get scammed when you’re selling on Paypal by following a few of these steps.

Start off by ensuring that your clients always sign for their purchases using an e-signature. You should also make sure that you carefully advertise your goods to ensure that customers aren’t surprised by what you’ve sold them.

You should also be sure to use reliable postal services that won’t end up losing your packages, since that may make buyers think they’ve been scammed when a product never arrives. Finally, you’ll want to make sure that you’re quick to respond to customers so they don’t feel like you’re leaving them on the hook for too long.

Follow these steps and you’ll drastically reduce the risk of one of your customers trying to scam you.

Buyer Safety on Paypal

Buyer safety on Paypal is pretty similar to seller safety because the platform uses the same tricks to ensure that your financial info is kept confidential. This is due to the two-way encryption that Paypal uses for its transactions as well as a range of tricks that reduce the likelihood of scams.

How Does Paypal Buyer Protection Work?

Buyer protection is important to Paypal because it helps them protect their bottom line. If buyers don’t feel like Paypal is doing its job to protect them, then they will likely leave the platform. This is why they have stringent security protocols that ensure that their buyers are always kept safe.

These protocols include not providing sellers any of your financial info, instead they act as the middle-man. Much like with seller transactions, Paypal uses strong encryption to protect your info and it also makes sure that all transactions are monitored around the clock.

Paypal will even put your funds on hold while they arbitrate a dispute between buyers and sellers. For example, if an item hasn’t been delivered or wasn’t as advertised.

How to not Get Scammed When Buying on Paypal

Even though Paypal will do its job to ensure that you’re as unlikely to get scammed as possible, there are a few things that you can do on your end to ensure that you never end up in an uncomfortable position. By sticking to some of the following pieces of advice on Paypal and when performing any other online transaction, you’ll be unlikely to get scammed.

For example, you should always opt for a credit card when using Paypal because it provides you with a second line of defense. If you have a dispute and Paypal doesn’t side with you, you can always get in touch with your credit card company to see if they can do anything for you in the situation.

Using a credit card is also smart because if someone hacks your Paypal account, they won’t have access to your checking account, as they would have if you used a debit card. If you don’t want to get hacked, you’ll need to ensure that your account is properly secured. Failing to do so puts you at risk.

Make sure that you have a password that’s as tough as possible to crack. You can do this by lengthening your password, including numbers and symbols, and also alternating between caps and lower-case.

Another way to reduce security threats on Paypal is by ensuring that you always keep your Paypal app updated. Many people use Paypal on their mobile devices and wonder why there are constant updates to the app. These updates help keep you safe because they include crucial security enhancements that keep up with the latest developments in the hacking industry.

As we mentioned earlier, you should also make sure that you do everything possible to avoid using Paypal on public networks. This is because it’s a lot easier to steal your info when you’re on a public network because other people have access to it and they could easily intercept your traffic.

While Paypal traffic is typically encrypted, it’s usually a good idea to err on the side of caution if there’s a chance that your financial info will fall into the wrong hands. Instead of using public networks, we would highly recommend using your mobile device’s data instead because that will be more difficult to intercept.

Despite the cost of data in some countries, you’re better off biting the bullet and paying for a bit of data instead of worrying about being the victim of identity theft.

Friends and Family vs. Goods and Services Payments

Paypal features two different kinds of transactions and each of them have a few details that you’ll need to account for before you pay someone using their service. These are split into friends and family transactions and goods and services payments.

Friends and family transactions tend to charge the sender the fee, and it’s usually a smaller one than for goods and services payments, especially if you’re in a country outside of America. The downside to friends and family transactions is that they don’t offer the sender buyer protection, so only send these to people that you trust.

On the other hand goods and services payments are meant to be used for purchases. These transactions charge the recipient (the seller) the fee, and these fees are usually a bit higher than for friends and family. However, with this kind of payment, you have buyer protection on behalf of Paypal.

Requesting a Paypal Refund

So you’ve conducted a transaction through Paypal and you feel like you’re entitled to a refund. How do you go about that? There are a few different approaches to being refunded through Paypal, but the simplest one is to deal with the human on the other end. Talk to the seller.

Get in touch with the seller, explain the situation to them, and let them know that you would like to be refunded. The seller will likely ask you to return the item that you received, which you will typically have to send out at your expense if the seller wasn’t responsible for any issues with the product.

At that point, the seller can issue you a refund directly through Paypal. If you attempted this and the seller is out of contact or being uncooperative, you’ll have to go to the Paypal Resolution Center. This will allow you to open up a dispute that will be moderated by Paypal. If you win the dispute, you’ll be refunded.