Paypal Sucks. 5 Reasons Why. (Part 1: The Beef)

This is post 1 of a 5 part rant about why Paypal sucks. I don’t have anything personally against Paypal except just about everything.

I’ve used paypal ever since I was in diapers and I continue to use their services today to process payments for my online board game store. What other choice do I really have? Just as a prelude to my complaining, I’ll say that Paypal is the best that there is right now, but just because it’s the best right now doesn’t mean that it needs stay this way.

Throughout my many years of using Paypal, I’ve noticed 5 things that have consistently made them suck.

1 – eBay Owns Them

Is it just me, or does it seem like everything that eBay touches turns into garbage? This is true in the case of eBay itself, Skype, and now Paypal. All overrated, all golden garbage. I have other reasons for hating eBay (like how I was banned for “miscategorizing an item”) but I already ranted about that.

2 – Design Sucks and Always Has

For a multi-million (or billion, who knows) dollar company, such a stupid design is uncalled for. Yeah, it’s simple (which is what they were going for, I’m sure), but there are all sorts of sites out there that have managed to stay simple, yet beautiful. This is another time that I prefer the design of my ugly blog over another website – and that’s just sad.

3 – I Swear The Site Has Never Been Tested By An Actual Human Being

I will delve into all of the issues I have with the interface in a later, more dedicated post. But for now, I think we can all agree that the site is not only difficult and slow to navigate, it has all sorts of ridiculous default settings that someone needs to be slapped for not tweaking.

4 – Double The Fees, Double The Hate

Nobody likes fees and nobody likes a monopoly. Paypal and eBay collectively can do just about whatever they want as far as jacking up fees goes because they control the online buying and selling market. You get charged a fee to list your item on eBay, a “final value” fee if it sells, and then a fee to accept the money into your paypal account. By the time you pay all the fees and pay for the gas to drive to your local post office to ship the dang thing, you’ve lost a couple of pennies. What happened to the days you could actually make a buck or two on eBay anyways?

5 – You Have To Be 18 To Use

Yeah, I understand they have to cover themselves legally, but honestly; couldn’t they create some sort of custodial program where you can sign up under your parents and they take responsibility for what you do? Perhaps they have implemented a process similar to this since I was a kid, but I highly doubt it. I think it would be a somewhat simple thing to do. Sharebuilder does it. It’s how I started purchasing stock before I was 18. Come on Paypal….give some lovin’ to your sub-18 audience.