Paypal is the online service that allows you to make and receive payments online in a simple, fast and immediate way. Born as a system for payments on Ebay, Paypal today has become almost a real online bank, where everyone can open for free an account that can be fed by credit cards, prepaid card or bank transfers. The Paypal online payment system is particularly suitable for small organizations and companies, for private individuals for occasional sales and for everyone to make purchases and donations. Paypal bases the transfer of money on the Email addresses therefore, provided that the payer and the recipient must be registered, you can send money simply by indicating the registered mail address and nothing else.
You can use the power of PayPal to turn a simple website or even a blog into a simple online store or even use it to accept card payments when you are out and about, via a mobile app. On this page we try to shed light on all aspects of Paypal so as not to incur errors.
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1) Types of accounts
Signing up to Paypal is not necessary to make payments (you can pay even without registering, indicating the credit card number each time) but it is much more convenient to sign up for free and choose one of the three types of accounts on PayPal. Personal account is fine for buying things online and for sending or receiving money from friends but is not suitable for receiving credit card payments due to high transaction fees and some limitations. Premier account suits anyone involved in the occasional sale on sites like eBay and serves to receive money from credit card payments without limits. Business account is suitable for any organization making regular online sales.
On this page, more details on account differences.
2) After registering an account, this must also be verified to confirm identity and remove the limits .
To verify the account, a credit card must be associated with the online account, which can also be a prepaid Postepay or other circuits. The important thing is that there are in the rechargeable card, at least 1.50 euros that will be transferred to Paypal. The reason for this transfer contains a code that must be entered to verify the account and card.
3) Update the account
If you want to use PayPal to sell products or services, you really need a Premier or Business account.
To update from a personal account you can access PayPal and change the category, for free . Once you update an account, you can also go back to your personal account if you change your mind, but you can only do it once.
4) Multiple accounts
It can be useful to have more than one PayPal account so instead of updating the personal one to a premier, you can create a second account of a different category. However, a different email address must be used for each account and the same payment information is not allowed.
5) Rates, commissions and expenses
The money transfers for a personal account cost, to those who receive money and in the case of purchases, a rather high variable amount (nothing for those who send money). To avoid expenses, you have to choose, as a form of payment, the transfer of money between friends and family because, in this case, there are no transition costs. However, you have to use the money in the Paypa l online account, therefore, before proceeding with the payments, you must make a top-up otherwise you will pay the costs.
In any case, if there is a currency exchange (for example if you receive a dollar payment), you pay a commission.
For more details, you can read the rate guide.
Using the online tool PPCalc you can calculate the commission for any type of operation performed.
6) Premier and business accounts have the ability to send the Cumulative Payment which allows you to save on commissions to send money to various people in one go, with a single transition expense that is divided by whoever receives the money.
7) Top up the account
On Paypal it is possible to make, for free, top-ups of the online account (useful for making free transactions) by bank transfer as indicated on the account top-up page. Note that the money remains its own, as if it were transferred to another checking account.
8) Who has a website can insert the button to receive payments or donations from visitors to the site.
In the sales tools a custom button can be generated and the code to be pasted on the website to display and receive money will be provided. Those who send money, buyers or donors, will have no obligation to register a Paypal account and will be guided to a simple procedure, in total safety, where they will have to enter their credit card number. To set up the payment button, however, you need to update your account to a Business or Premier account.
9) As written in another article, you can download the PayPal app for Android and iPhone to pay and receive money from your mobile phone.
10) As far as account security is concerned, the only thing to be careful of are phishing emails, those where the user is asked to access Paypal to confirm the account or to change the password and be careful that the page where you access Paypal is always with https address .
Although Paypal is very easy to use and really a convenient tool that everyone should have, since we are talking about money, I still recommend checking what is written without taking anything for granted, from the official pages of the Paypal site.
In other guides we have also seen how to pay on Amazon with Paypal and how to pay bills with Paypal.
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