Alternatives to PayPal

December 30, 2010 8:25 AM

What Alternatives to PayPal have you used buying, selling, donating? What are the pros and cons? Was it a viable alternative? In a perfect world this should be an international service; Does such exist?
posted by adamvasco to work & money (8 answers total)

Square.
posted by hal_c_on at 8:43 AM on December 30, 2010

Google Checkout
Amazon Payments
posted by sharkfu at 8:45 AM on December 30, 2010

I'm not sure if zashpay is international. $0.75 per send transaction, no cost to accept money. Sender and receiver each have to setup their financial account information.
posted by indigo4963 at 9:10 AM on December 30, 2010

A few of my European clients prefer Moneybookers over PayPal; however, in the reverse of the PayPal situation, it only recently opened up to U.S.-based merchants, and my experiences with the U.S. branch have not been positive.
posted by drlith at 9:19 AM on December 30, 2010

I was going to mention Google checkout and Amazon as well

There's a service called Obopay that seems pretty small, I have no idea if they're any good.
posted by delmoi at 9:29 AM on December 30, 2010

Western Union. They have agents everywhere.
posted by dougrayrankin at 9:31 AM on December 30, 2010

Western Union works for the things it's intended for (quickly getting cash to someone you know personally) but it's not ideal for online transactions with strangers. It's expensive and completely irreversible -- the equivalent of blindly handing over cash.

Also note that the Amazon payments can be sent from anywhere but only received by Americans.
posted by winston at 9:45 AM on December 30, 2010

Also note that the Amazon payments can be sent from anywhere but only received by Americans.

Also it can only charge in USD so foreign users can get hit by a foreign transaction fee by their bank.


I have heard good things about NOCHEX but only about the merchant side of things I've heard nothing about the personal accounts.
posted by Virtblue at 12:09 PM on December 30, 2010