What is PayPal?

August 18, 2008 by Roy
Filed under: Money, roysville

I created this post because in one of my post regarding BDO in my House Of Puroy blog, a friend asked me what a PayPal is, and even continued with ‘can I earn money with that?‘ This doesn’t really surprised me, because I for one have learned to use PayPal only recently, although I have been made aware of its existence before. Honestly, I still haven’t explored the PayPal potentials because for one, I’m still not verified and second, I haven’t received any payment yet nor paid anyone yet, with it.

Though not really an expert, I’ll try my best to explain what PayPal is (at least to my comprehension). First Paypal is not something that earns you money. It’s not like any online opportunities wherein after you signed in and do some stuffs, cash will flow in. It’s not like that. PayPal don’t earn you money. At least, not in the way I mentioned.

PayPal can be best seen as an ‘online wallet‘, it is where you can get your money to send to your suppliers or to anybody whom you want to pay money online for whatever reason. Likewise, it is also the same account wherein your customers, buyers, or whoever wants to give you money, can send their payment online. Much like an electronic transfer but without much paper and documents.

Getting a PayPal account is free. First, you need to have an e-mail account, which when registered will also serve as your PayPal account ID. Next, you need to have an International credit card (Visa, Master, JCB, American Express), for your account to be verified. An alternative for credit card is the debit card, you can ask your local bank for this and please confirm if it will be accepted in PayPal. That’s it! Once verified, you’re ready to make electronic payments and received them too.

But before you can make any payment, be sure that it has a balance. Like I said, it’s an online wallet and you can’t pay anything if you’re wallet is empty right? So how then do you put money in your ‘online wallet’, if your debit card is accepted, you can just transfer it electronically through the PayPal Add Funds option. If your debit card is in local currency, the PayPal rate will be used and convert them to US$. I’m still not sure about the amount of the charges though, or if you’re using a credit card instead of a debit card.

You can now make your payment, simply enter the PayPal account (e-mail) of the person you’re paying to and the amount and voila! The amount specified will be electronically debited from your account and will be sent to the other person’s account. As simple as that. If you’re the recipient, it’s just the other way around. Give them your PayPal email ID so they can send their payment to you. Simple isn’t it?

Withdrawing your money from your PayPal is just the reverse of putting money in it. Just choose the Withdraw option from the PayPal menu, and you’ll just have to follow the prompts. And it will go to your enrolled account, then you withdraw it from the ATM.

So if you sell items online, you need a PayPal for your buyers to be able to pay you online. Likewise, if you like shopping online, instead of exposing your credit card, paying by PayPal is safer. So, you still don’t have your PayPal account, you can get it here… IT’S FREE!