Online Shopping & Internet Marketing

PayPal has long been the leader in providing secure transactions for online merchants and payment options for buyers on the internet. Rising to fame in conjunction with eBay, PayPal is now the preferred type of payment option for over 24% of consumers and 43% of all online consumers claim to have used it at least once to make a purchase over the internet. It is readily apparent that online merchants can benefit from the reputation and extensive reach of PayPal by setting up a merchant account.
PayPal offers two different merchant accounts specifically for small business owners. The Website Payments Standard account is absolutely free to set up with the only fees incurred after a transaction has been accepted. The Website Payments Pro account costs $30 a month and allows consumers to complete their transaction on your website – a small cost for promoting unique brand awareness. With either type of account an internet merchant receives a variety of extra features.
Email Invoicing
This is a great feature, particularly for e-tailers who are selling monthly services on the internet. Bills are emailed to each account and can be set up as a recurrent event. Merchants can use a standard PayPal invoice or even create their own with Quickbooks. Customers are assured of secure payment through the PayPal website.
Payflow Payment Gateway
For any small business which already has a credit card merchant account with a bank or other payment processing company, PayPal allows integration to continue using this service while providing a secure link to accept payments through PayPal, as well. It uses 128-bit SSL encryption to assure consumers of data security. Payments go straight to the merchant bank account. There are various levels of this service but all options provide technical support, fraud protection, and sales reports at no additional cost.
Virtual Terminal
A virtual terminal works just like a credit card swipe machine in a bricks and mortar store. In fact, if a small online business is considering expansion into point-of-sale purchasing, a virtual terminal allows the merchant to enter the order details and it functions as if there were actually a machine processing the transaction but without the investment in equipment. Orders can come in via phone, fax, or mail. A custom packing slip is generated for each transaction making a virtual terminal easy, convenient and affordable.
More Features
Another advantage of using PayPal merchant services is the ability to process orders from international customers. Multiple currencies are easily accommodated and automatically exchanged at the prevailing rate the date the money is transferred.
Express checkout is also a feature popular with consumers. Much the same as Amazon’s one-click checkout, buyers can use their personal PayPal account to quickly pay for purchases. The more rapid the process, the more satisfied consumers are with the buying experience.
For the small business owner, often the most difficult component of increasing sales is the costs involved with accepting various forms of payment. By setting up a PayPal merchant account, there are no initial costs (when choosing the standard plans) yet an online business can look professional and reach the largest amount of consumers.

This article is written neither to promote nor criticize the Paypal online mode of payment. With the rapid growth in the number of Paypal users, frauds and email scams on Paypal accounts has become more frequent and severe. Our network team has put together a report on the current Paypal frauds and Paypal email scams being perpetuated by various groups of fraudsters. We also offer advice for users of Paypal to help them reduce the chances of becoming victims of such frauds and scams. As the usage of the internet has increased in handling online transactions, both buyers and sellers need to become aware of safe practices to operate online payments or online receipt of funds.

To access a Paypal account you need to have the username and password of the account. The username of a Paypal account is the main email address (primary email address) used to register the account. The owner of the account would also set up a password to be used along with the username to access the account. The security system is quite secure as long as the username and password of the Paypal account are known only to the actual owner of the account. If these details are available to anyone else it would mean that the security of that Paypal account has been compromised. Anyone acquiring the username and password of any Paypal account can access and perform all functions that the actual owner of the account could do.

In this article we will try to explain in simple terms how confidential login information of an actual Paypal account owner can be robbed and misused. We will then provide important and simple suggestions that would reduce the chances of such a fraud being committed on your Paypal account.

(a) Being careless with your information: This type of Paypal fraud can be committed very easily and does not require too much effort on the part of the fraudster. Users very often write down their login details for various websites with the fear of forgetting them. Anyone having access to these written details can login to the Paypal account and treat the account as if it was his own. Another possibility that could easily open a Paypal account to fraud is when the user selects a very simple or easy password that can be easily guessed. People with bad intentions need to make a few guesses before they arrive at the correct password to enter the Paypal account. These are the simplest ways in which a Paypal fraud can be committed and they do not require any email scam to be done.

(b) Identity theft through a Paypal email scam: Paypal phishing or identity theft as it is commonly known, involves an attempt by a fraudster to extract the login details of a Paypal account from the actual owner of the account. Armed with these detais, the fraudster can be very dangerous as full control of the Paypal account can be excercised.  In this case, emails will be randomly sent to many email addresses informing the receiver of a certain activity in their Paypal account. For these Paypal email scams to work, the receiver of the email will need to login to his Paypal account by clicking a link on the email. The exact contents of each Paypal email scam might differ but the objective remains the same. Once the user clicks the link in the email, he is taken to a web page that closely resembles a regular Paypal login page. This page is infact a fake and is hosted by the fraudster (not Paypal) with the sole purpose of collecting confidential login details from the actual owner of the Paypal account. If the owner of the Paypal account falls for this trick, his account will soon be operated by the fraudster and this could lead to heavy losses. Attempts to phish Paypal accounts have become quite common and each time a fraudster unleashes his cruel trick a number of innocent Paypal accounts become victims.