PayPal - The Forgotten Friend

I've found a renewed interest in PayPal lately.


PayPal, for those not familiar, is a service that allows to you send and receive money to just about anyone. Anyone with an email address and a bank account. Its kind of like Western Union for the 21st century.


Most people who have an account, use it for eBay. By design, eBay makes it easy to use Paypal and hard to use anything else.

Recently I paid for shipping my new motorcycle with an international company. They took my credit card, but charged me over $40 for the privilege of doing so. They said I could do a bank transfer, but that would mean bank fees. Turns out - they took PayPal. I could have sent the cash from my checking account for free and saved the $40. Ironically - I ended up paying their credit card fees with PayPal.

Lately I've also used it to send money for Girl Scout Cookies, paid a couple of bills and even entered a Scrapbooking Challenge (okay, that last one was for my wife).


The only reason that I even mention them is that I recently found out more about the other end of what they do (Collecting money rather than giving it). If you have a small business, their credit card rates are pretty good, and with one major exception - they are practically hassle-free.

So if you don't have an account - you can get one here.