Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Money Markets?

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

I've been so raped by banks on a repeated basis that I don't really see 
PayPal as anywhere near as bad as any regular bank. Not that I think 
they're perfect, and they've gone downhill since eBay bought them, but 
they are still way better than a bank. I have more than $15000 sitting 
in PayPal accounts and have had no serious issues with them. If anything 
my biggest complaints are that they are to careful with my money which 
just annoys me with red tape.

The whole concept of a real bank having good security, customer 
services, dispute services, etc is a joke. Ooops we lost hundreds of 
dollars of your money through an ATM glitch? We don't have that 
documented so it must not be true. Ooops we were idiots and marked a 
check cashed by a 23yo as a retirement check, forcing us for unknown 
reasons to put a hold on it, and therefore bounce all the checks, which 
we printed out and gave to you at the time of deposit, written against 
it. Fucking banks. Almost every bank I've ever had has done something to 
rip me off and calling, going in person, cursing, swearing, asking nice, 
etc didn't do much to fix any of it. I have a problem with PayPal and I 
can either call them or email them and eventually, with some work on my 
part, it gets cleared up. About two weeks ago my girlfriend lost my 
Wells Fargo debit card. There was no place on my account, that I could 
find after much looking, to ask the card be disabled and replaced. A 
somewhat cryptic line of help suggested I call a number. Calling the 
number resulted in no mention of debit cards at all. It turns out you 
need to find the right number to call, call it, ask to talk to a banker, 
and finally then they go do what you need. At that point it was fairly 
easy but it wasn't an easy process to take care of such a common 
problem. Certainly PayPal handles that issue a lot better in my experience.

I hate dealing with banks and the fact that PayPal isn't a bank is one 
of the reasons I like it. With PayPal all the transactions in and out of 
your account, fees, etc are clearly documented and disputes are pretty 
easy to work out. Some of the more interesting PayPal options are tricky 
to find in the menus (as some are in fact hidden in the documentation) 
but they are there if you look and ask questions. PayPal sucks, but 
banks suck a lot worse. I think there is very much still room for a good 
transaction handling mechanism for the Internet though. Someone who does 
it right will make a fortune comparable to the major credit card and 
bank companies.
> Paypal makes some folks uneasy:
> http://computer.howstuffworks.com/paypal7.htm
> http://news.com.com/2100-1017-858264.html 
> <http://news.com.com/2100-1017-858264.html>
> Basically it's the non FDIC insured, and the arbitrary freezing of 
> accounts....
> If you find that risk acceptable then go for it. 
>
> Here is another good site:
> http://www.savingadvice.com/ <http://www.savingadvice.com/>
> http://www.fatwallet.com/c/52/


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