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PayPal: Faster Than a Speeding Bullet!
By John Hill
While not yet able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, I wouldn't be surprised to see this fast growing Internet based payment service do just that; it already appears to be more powerful than a locomotive! Just a year and a half old, PayPal is the nation's leading online payment service provider, with over seven million members at the time of this writing, and growing at the rate of 20,000 customers a day.
Founded in December of 1998 by Peter Thiel, CEO, and Max Levchin, Chief Technology Officer, PayPal has set the standard for e-commerce remittance. It has been so successful in fact that a giant like Citigroup has tried to emulate the fledgling PayPal's e-mail payment service by instituting its own online service, called C2it, and in partnership with AOL, a clone-like copy AOLQuickCash which, like PayPal, utilizes Credit Cards and bank accounts to send money via e-mail. So far, however, neither has made much inroad into PayPal's domination of the market. Talk about your David and Goliath! Citigroup charges its customers $2.00 per transaction while PayPal charges nothing, receiving only a small 1.9% fee from recipients for its service. Citigroup might be wise to consider the plight of BankOne's eMoneyMail, another clone, which has fallen flat on its collective butt because it charges customers $1.00 per transaction.
Another plus for PayPal's customers is the fact that their accounts are insured up to $100,000 by Travelers Property Casualty against fraudulent transactions, while Citigroup offers no such assurance, relying only on the fact that their accounts are FDIC insured. To quote PayPal: "We're not a bank… we're a service-a money transfer service for the Web. People use PayPal to send money (for free) and businesses pay a small fee to receive those payments instantly and securely online. And, just like the non-bank accounts where approximately half of America puts their savings, our accounts are not FDIC insured, either. Instead, we offer folks the ability to withdraw their balance at any time - nobody is required to carry a balance to use PayPal. U.S. customers can also sweep their balance into a PayPal Money Market Fund account in their own name, earn a rate of return, and access the funds instantly with a PayPal debit card. Additionally, members' funds are held in separate accounts isolated from PayPal's operating funds."
Safety is of prime concern to PayPal. It employs aggressive anti-fraud techniques to protect your money. Credit card fraud is one of the major problems in Internet commerce and occurs with more frequency "online" than "offline." Unauthorized use of credit cards result in "chargebacks" to commercial websites, as they are liable for the loss. While there is no way to avoid this liability, merchants and others can greatly minimize their risk by using PayPal's service, confident in the knowledge that the company operates "one of the most stringent anti-fraud systems in the industry." As a result PayPal's fraud rate is well below the industry average for e-commerce payment transactions. This fact has special significance for those of you who are online gamers, one well worth taking advantage of. Many casinos offer extra signup bonuses and comps if you use PayPal instead of your credit card, passing on to you some of the savings realized by their lowered risk. This certainly makes a lot of sense to me and will definitely make your wallet happier!
You can take advantage of these "perks" at the following casinos that utilize PayPal's unique service:
www.treasurereefcasino.com
www.vegascasinoonline.com
www.riverbelle.com
www.amazonqueencasino.com
www.egyptianpalacecasino.com
www.celebritiescasino.com
www.miamiclubcasino.com
www.arabianpalacecasino.com
www.texasgrandcasino.com
www.gamingclub.com
As a gamer, safety and security are probably the two most important aspects you have to consider when transferring funds. You can rest assured that PayPal, with its simple, easy, and secure online transfer capabilities, can handle your transactions with the least possible difficulty and, best of all, with no cost to you! Investors Business Daily, the nation's premier commercial periodical, has given PayPal two thumbs up. "Clearly they've had about 50 times the success of their competitors. Among those competitors are, Ebay Inc.'s Billpoint subsidiary, Citigroup Inc.'s C2it service, Yahoo Inc.'s PayDirect, and Western Union's MoneyZap. There are three basic payment methods. When customers sign up, they give an e-mail address and the number for a credit card or bank account that can be debited or credited. A second way to pay is to transfer money from a bank account. The third way is to transfer money that's stored in a PayPal account. PayPal customers can also now get quick access to their funds from the millions of merchants and ATMs that accept MasterCard."
In a nutshell, PayPal can handle just about all of your online payment needs. They may not be Superman quite yet, but this "mild mannered reporter" would lay you ten to one that PayPal will be the only one wearing a cape in the near future!
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