[Wikipedia-l] paypal

Erik Zachte e.p.zachte at chello.nl
Fri Aug 22 00:30:53 UTC 2003


In the Netherlands many people have credit cards, but most people only
use them occasionally (travel, dinner, new TV) and most people are
hesitant to use them on the web. Debit cards are much more popular; we
also use chip cards which are preloaded from a bank account and used
like a purse, no online transactions involved.

I do use my credit card for Paypal, Amazon and the like, but not without
some concern. Web transactions are often secure these days, but
occasionally a large firm is hacked and a whole customer database is
compromised.

By far the most common method of asynchronous payment is by direct bank
transfer, no checks involved, no costs whatsoever, no paper work either,
most people do this electronically (they do trust the proprietary bank
software, which they believe is less easy to hack). For many people
Paypal would mean an investment in time, which might weigh heavier than
the financial investment.

Erik Zachte




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