consumer protections are also really high in the US for private individuals using credit cards. business fraud if you have a business card is not as good, apparently.
with paypal, you just use a credit card as the default method of payment.
what people didn't like with paypal is that sellers are required (and probably all users) to have a bank account linked because of poor behavior by prior scam sellers. New users also have to leave money in the paypal account for a while so that if a buyer make a claim, paypal has money to retrieve from the seller.
I didn't like having to link up a bank account, but nothing has ever come of having it linked.
If one uses a credit card here as a private individual within paypal, you get at least two levels of protection as a buyer. I used paypal with a japanese proxy shipper who denied a claim- they packed something for me, the way they packed it caused the item to break and I requested a refund of at least the fee they charged for "protective packaging" since they packed the item bulging out on the ends of the box and it broke. They said "no refund, you didn't insure". I reiterated "not looking for a refund on the item, just the service charge for packing". they said "no" (customer service isn't much of a thing in japan). I contacted paypal, let them know the situation, said I wanted $22 of refund on a $550 purchase out of principle, but wasn't requesting refund of the item that I had shipped and within 15 minutes, paypal forced the proxy shipper to refund everything. They were pretty mad. Paypal doesn't have much of a choice as the credit card itself would've probably dropped the hammer on everyone down the line had I gone to them out of need. they generally provide the money back immediately, and then cut you as a buyer out of the process so that it's "no hassle". you never know who ends up paying for what they refunded, but I'm sure it's in the vendor agreement with the card processors - so paypal would get stuck with it and then they'd have to subrogate against the proxy shipper in this case.
The whole thing is like a one sided version of mutually assured destruction. The threat of the credit card doing the dirty work makes everyone else down the line move on their own because it's worse for them I guess via agreement cost incentives if the credit card company subrogates from them.
Long story short, as a buyer or seldom seller, a lot of people hate paypal, but they hate paypal for doing things that are generally necessary to thwart scambags. If paypal shouldered more of that cost themselves, we'd all just have higher fees to make up for it.
