New Billing System & PayPal

[Icabald Percival dragon]

I have a question about our payment options. By reading the thread about signing up with the billing system, It sounds like PayPal or using my CC thru paypal is my only option. I cannot and will not do that.

But, I thought that I had read that the new system would also allow us to use the good, old fashioned method of paying with a paper check. Did I misunderstand? Or, were minds changed?

Please understand, I am in the same boat as Peaches. If PayPal is my gateway -- I am barred from entering. Are there or will there be any other options?

With trepidation

Icabald percival Dragon

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

As far as I can tell PayPal has replaced Pay By Touch for all billing services. Instead of just taking Credit Cards you can now pay with a PayPal account as well. You don't need to actually have a PayPal account or give them any information other than your CC info over SSL.

As far as PayPal being "evil" there isn't much different than with PBT. They've both gigantic privately-held companies that work as a middle man in online transactions. There isn't going to be a payment method more secure than going though PayPal here. You don't even need to sign up with PayPal, you can just enter your CC details, although you have to click a few less obvious links to do this and be sure to hit "continue without logging in" if PayPal realizes you already have an account.

Seriously, your biggest risk with PayPal would be falling for some random phishing scam. Most of their criticisms involve heavy-handed actions on the receiving end of funds like when they locked SomethingAwful's Katrina Donation account.

[Vahrokh]

You mistake Paypal for something it's not.

It's not a sort of "alternate-and-possibly-unsecure" home banking system nor something that will go dig into your bank account.

It's a gateway to a credit card, a login like you can get a forum login with the difference it stores your CC number and that (can only do if you log in and specifically click "pay") many vendors / merchants / services have ways to interact with, via WEB.

A paypal account is not a bank account. They indeed provide "extensions" to link to your bank account but it's a plus you have to want, not something that rains upon your nose.

If you follow the kind of tutorial I posted about paypal, you'll see how to use it so that you'll never have to give them anything but your CC number.

It's the very identical thing to the previous payment gateways you used to subscribe to Horizons, with the following differences:

- some of the payment gateways used actually *were* shady at best and involved with less than crystal clear business (if you are old enough you'll recall the "scandals" of the first months). Yet you handed them your credit card number.

- paypal unlike those gateways has an end user control panel where you can actually check the transactions and everything else in real time. You can activate more services, including bank accounting but it's something left to you to do and only if you want.

- paypal, unlike the shady gateways you used in the past, makes zillions of transactions a year, they are one of the biggest online transactions gateway on the planet for what I know.

N.B. I am not their employee nor expecially endorse them, but I see some strange aversion to an actually reliable and honest mean to pay which is majorly used in many countries in the world.

[gopher65]

Do you realize that when you entered your billing information before (before EII took over), that information was NOT sent to TulgAE? It was sent to some giant (really nasty, evil) company named iBill/iPay/PaybyTouch. Tulga never touched your Credit Card information, only PaybyTouch did.

Now, instead of PaybyTouch getting your Credit Card info, Paypal will get your Credit Card information. Paypal is an infinitely more reputable company than PbT ever was (or is).

The only difference here is that a different billing company is being used.

So there really is no difference in what is happening. People were simply ignorant of what was going on before, and what goes on in ALL their online transactions. Heh, or their non-online transactions. Having worked in a restaurant, I know firsthand just how easy it is to nab someones CC info and everything I'd need to rip them off. I didn't, but I had an opportunity to do so many times a day. People are really careless.

[Spartikus]

If people have an aversion to using PayPal then online gaming isnt your thing. PayPal is responsible for literally millions of dollars of transactions everyone month for Ebay. Paypal is owned by Ebay (or Ebay is owned by PayPal) and say what you want about Ebay or PayPal, the fact is they are infinately more cpaable than any other "inhouse" or half assed billing system.

If I ran an MMO I'd run with PayPal myself. Anyone who wont use paypal but will use any other source of online billing (like pay by touch or giving your CC directly to the gaming company) needs to do more research. I totally understand peoples need for privacy and if someone never gave their CC to ANY company then I can understand but if you've used your CC for ANYTHING online, any game, any purchase, anything.. paypal is by far the lesser of all the evils out there.

[JDexter]

Why is there such an aversion to PayPal anyway? I've used it for years for many things and have always been happy with it.

Am I missing something?

[Istaria CS]

If you are not comfortable creating a PayPal account or using the direct credit card payment where PayPal processes the transaction, you can send us a check. Besides your check, also include your email, user name and what subscriptions you would like.

Please send to:
Virtrium LLC
461 W Apache Trail #117
Apache Junction, AZ 85220

We don't encourage this method because of the delay in receiving the check and then we have to manually apply the payment.

Horizons CS

[velveeta]

Why is there such an aversion to PayPal anyway? I've used it for years for many things and have always been happy with it.

Am I missing something?

totally agree with you, here. i have used paypal for many websites over the years and have never had a problem.

[Steelclaw]

I think the problem that people are having with using PayPal is that they can't just provide their credit card info and do a one-off or recurring charge. It appears that you create a PayPal acocunt as one of the steps in processing the order.

That alone isn't a big deal. When combined with a weak PayPal password or a weak password for the email address associated with the account, there is a potential for lots of damage.

So... don't use a weak password. (Saving the password on your computer, including 'Remember this password' automatically makes it weak.) Use lowercase, numbers, uppercase and symbols. A lot of people (probably close to half) forget about the last two. Make it long (at LEAST 8 chars) and not in the dictionary, nor a concatenation of words in the dictionary. If you can't remember it, write it down on something (but don't include any info that would tell an observer what it's for) and store it somewhere secure.

Yeah, hard passwords are inconvenient, but not as inconvenient as convincing PayPal and your bank that unauthorized charges are indeed unauthorized.

[Creme]

uh oh

I think I forgot the password I used to sign up for that paypal after I put my CC in....

Waiting to add subscriptions until I know that it's not going to just add to the length of the current sub.

Any word on whether you can apply to new subs/existing subs yet?

And I guess I'm going to have to try to figure out what password I used. I was so surprised to see that "create paypal account" thing that I think I just put anything in and that was after cancelling about 3 times thinking I had selected paypal by mistake instead of credit card.

<---dumbie

[Creme]

I was right, I did forget the password

[redwulfen]

Creme, if you click on the forgot password link on Paypal they will email you (to the email address you signed up with) your password, or directions to reset you password can't remember which right off the top of my head.

Drelohan
Born on Spirit, living on Order

[Creme]

Thanks Redwulfen, I had to do that, was a bit confused about it since I didn't notice the email from paypal saying I had to click to activate account in the first place, did that and it made me log it.

Luckily, it allowed me to reset my password even though I hadn't activated the paypal account yet.

[Vahrokh]

So... don't use a weak password. (Saving the password on your computer, including 'Remember this password' automatically makes it weak.)
Use lowercase, numbers, uppercase and symbols. A lot of people (probably close to half) forget about the last two. Make it long (at LEAST 8 chars) and not in the dictionary, nor a concatenation of words in the dictionary

Actually, some 2003-2005ish malware can directly "read" into your ********* password fields and saved passwords and send them around, but at the moment this stuff is not the featured malware of the month.

The featured malware of the moment are the "keyloggers" - a phenomenon exploded along with World Of Warcraft diffusion.
Ill minded third world countries criminals (or regular hackers too) redirect gullible or not paying attention people into tampered with internet sites.

Typically you'll read a post or a blog with:

"Latest news" or "Nice girls at"

http://abcd.xyz.cn/goto.php?blah blah

(notice the ".cn" and "goto.php", not obligatory but a lot spread keylogger URL parts)
which believe or not, attract a fair share of clicks.

As users click that, malicious software gets installed to send the hackers everything, really everything you type.

In this case, having your passwords saved into permanent fields would save you typing them and thus preventing the hackers from getting your passwords, credit card info and much more.

Finally, at least when I created my Paypal account (many years ago), it checked for "weak password" and would not accept the 6 characters + numbers password I typed and so I had to put a safer one anyway.

I was right, I did forget the password

Click on the "I forgot password" like link and you can retrieve it by answering some questions yourself indicated at account creation.

1) If you snail mail us your credit card info, we will promptly shred the envelope, burn the shreds and then eat them.

Hmm, so you got your personal Lunus clerk burning and chewing on stuff?

2) If you email us your credit card info, we will promptly smash the computer, burn it and bury the pieces in the desert.

Hmm, you hired Shulahravaukar. Lunus indeed!

What makes me unhappy is that they mail me junkmail offers with my full CC number, address, personal info, etcetcetc inside. Weeee. I hope no scammers ever figure out that company does that. One of these years I'm going to have to get a credit card from a real bank, and not one of these "we have no branches and only exist online, except for our headquarters which are in our CEOs mother's garage!" banks

My bank would never do that. The little they send is in special double "walled" envelopes with random patterns to make reading in transparency harder, plus a black sheet around what they sent.

[Screech]

It always amazes me how encrypted online transactions are "omg don't do that, it will raid your bank account, murder your wife and mutilate the dog" but at the same time they have no problem whatsoever handing a complete stranger in a restaurant their card.
Watch this if you don't believe it. (The Real Hustle - Waitress Scam)

[Dragoniade]

To my opinion, some people doesn't like Paypal because they can freeze your account, with all the money in it, anytime if they don't like what you're doing with it. If they find out you purchased something they judged 'immoral' by their standard, say goodbye to your money.