NEXT LESSON (Paymate)

Lesson 5 - PAYPAL

PAYPAL is a system where you give them your credit card details and, when you need to pay someone funds, they take the money out of your credit card and give that money to the person you need to seller.  This way only PAYPAL has your credit card details and not every seller that you buy items from.
Note that PAYPAL has a secure server which means that people cannot hack into their system and read your credit card number.

I will admit that there are a lot of people out there who are scared of handing out their credit card numbers, and for good reasons.

Now to tell you the truth,
 No secure server has been hacked on the Internet.

Note that I said 'secure server'; you can tell if you are on a secure server by looking for a 'lock', examples are shown below.

The screen on the left is from Internet Explorer (which most people use) and shows the lock in the bottom right of the page, if the lock appears (here it is circled in red) then the page is secure.

Below is a screen shot from 'Opera' Version 8.5 (thanks to Darren for sending it in).  The secure lock is circled in red.

Unfortunately at this time I don't have a copy of any other web browser working on my computer to show you the secure lock, if anyone else out there can send me a screen shot then it would be greatly appreciated.

You've probably heard horror stories about servers been hacked into and whole companies being affected - ALL OF THEM WERE UNSECURED SERVERS.  Trust me, the day a secure server gets broken into it will create world wide headlines.

Creating an account is simple, simply goto www.paypal.com  and click on the 'sign up now!' button (circled in red below).

Here we need to choose which sort of account we would like.

If you only wish to buy on ebay then you only need a 'Personal account'.

If you intend to sell then you will need to open a 'Premier account'.

Personal accounts are free while premier accounts charge a small fee.
When you receive money you will be charged a small fee on the amount.

Note that you can change accounts at any time.

The next screen asks you for your personal details.  Only PAYPAL has access to these details and won't give them out to anyone.  You will need a valid credit card for all this.

 When you have set it all up then you will see this screen when you login.

Your account will be 'unverified' until PAYPAL verifies it.  They rang my wife one day (I wasn't home at the time) to verify that I was who I said, she said 'yes' and now I'm 'verified' :)

The amount of points in my status (122) is how many successful transactions I've had with this account.

You can move money from your PAYPAL account back to your credit card (or bank account) at any time.  In fact I had just moved all my PAYPAL money to my bank account just before I took this screen shot.

Lastly, note that PAYPAL doesn't need your password under any circumstances; if you receive an email asking for your password then the email is FRAUD.

NEXT LESSON (Paymate)

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