

Why don't more people accept paypal? - piers

I've written here before about the fact I can't use services such as AWS because I only have a maestro (switch) card which isn't reall accepted in the US and dn't have Visa or Mastercard.<p>So, my question is, why don't more people accept things like PayPal?
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aston
Paypal is more demanding than most payment options about the prominence of
their brand. They require, among other things, that you use their BIG, BRIGHT
ORANGE Paypal button and that if you offer other payment options, the grouping
needs to be "Paypal -or - The Rest," and not an arrangement where they're
suggested as inferior (or even equal). They also pretty much require that part
of the payments process happen on their own site.

All of that put together means that people serious about handling payments and
maintaining their own experience for that process may opt not to go the Paypal
route at all.

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chris11
If you really don't want to use a visa credit card, but the company requires
it, you can get a visa gift card online. They can be used anywhere visa debit
is accepted.
[http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/visa_gift_card_or...](http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/visa_gift_card_order.jsp?view=Online)
has a list of online retailers.

Edit: It looks like most of the sites certified by visa require bank accounts
with the issuing bank, and it looks like all of the cards are physically
shipped to you. You can get a virtual visa card number from a bunch of
different websites though. And it looks like they can be use for recurring
payments too. Though I've read that some websites check the card for the
information on the actual billing address, so acceptance may vary.

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alain94040
From the US point of view, if you can't even get a Mastercard or Visa, you're
not trustworthy.

Here (US), my 2-year old daugther receives credit card offers in the mail.
Imagine that.

<http://FairSoftware.net>: businesses for geeks

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akronim
But if you're not in the US it's not straighforward to get a US card, which
can be limiting, e.g. you can't use Mechanical Turk without a US card and
address.

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lsc
yeah, that's the idea. those sorts of people tend to think that any traffic
originating outside of the US or EU or JP is fraudulent or criminal in nature.

That hasn't been my experience... I've personally had more trouble with USian
spammers who claim the user signed up... and the user disagrees. (I've largely
solved the problem by prohibiting bulk mail from my service entirely)

I've had plenty of customers who were intelligent, legitimate and profitable
who came from outside of the 'first world'

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lsc
no idea. I only take paypal, 'cause I don't want to take the time to harden my
billing system to the point where I'd trust it with other people's credit
cards.

Some people complain about high fees and chargebacks, but I've had a merchant
account before, and they have the same problems.

