PayPal hasn’t had the best track record this month. Between a loophole that had the service denying toys to needy kids and an unusual requirement that forced a buyer to destroy a valuable violin instead of returning it, some users are ready to find an alternative for online transactions.
The service PayPal provides, however, is ubiquitous, essential, and hard to replace for many buyers and sellers. For all its flaws, it still has 100 million active accounts and is the only payment service eBay allows, making it a pinnacle of the online payment world. Even on Reddit, a particularly tech-savvy community, some users were unaware of alternate methods.
“everybody on reddit, and the rest of the internet, hates paypal. why doesn’t some youngster make an alternative that we can all use much like imgur did when it started? i would use it if only to stick it to paypal,” wrote chimx.
Fortunately, other redditors were able to vouch for several PayPal alternatives. Here’s what Reddit’s hive mind has reviewed:
Several redditors recommended Amazon’s PayPal competitor. Redditor bobtentpeg listed iOS jailbreak store Cydia and the Humble Indie Bundle as high profile adopters.
IMO… Amazon Payments [is] much better than Paypal. Unfortunately, because of Ebay, Paypal has too much market share and power. They can pretty much do whatever shit they want and charge more to do it.
2) Dwolla
Redditor blindsight recommended this alternate since, as he or she said, it’s “hoping to take it one step further and skip Credit Cards entirely.” This 2011 startup is getting buzz, but doesn’t seem to have been adopted by many redditors yet.
Nobody says dwolla?! These people are doing some amazing things!
3) Serve
Serve is American Express’ answer to PayPal. While it has some limitations, like only being allowed in the U.S., it has stricter legal obligations than other services.
The fact that it’s run by an actual financial institution (AmEx) is the obvious plus there. The chances of them freezing your online funds with no recourse or ability to petition isn’t in the same legal ballpark as Paypal.
4) Google Checkout
Redditors discussed but generally did not recommend Google’s competitor, citing poor customer service and a lack of customer support.
Photo by Public Domain Photos
