Feeding crucial credit card information into a foreign website is in the first place unsettling for many. Losing money to faceless people on the internet can be one of the most painful and frustrating experiences and this is made worse by the fact that in many cases there is little chance of recourse for those sending money from countries different from the merchant countries. With international shopping doors so wide open, buyers and sellers are operating from different jurisdictions and under different laws. Many people who lose money online would sooner give up on it in frustration other than go round in circles dealing with faceless criminals who are highly savvy in matters tech and finance.
Enter PayPal, the online payment system used by millions of people online for the safety, security and simplicity it offers. PayPal is safe and secure in that your credit card and shipping details are saved in your PayPal account so that you do not have to feed them into every different merchant website you visit. Furthermore, PayPal does not share these details with sellers. This means that you’re not dispensing bits of money and sensitive financial information to every site you transact with, but rather using just one account over different websites. You’re therefore provided with a much needed extra layer of security in online transactions and given power and control to operate your money from one pool. Given the sensitivity of money, this is highly advantageous for accountability, ease of follow-up, and above all, security.
PayPal is now in Kenya and this has come at a very opportune time when websites and online stores are awash with Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers. Black Friday usually marks the beginning of Christmas shopping and this year it falls on November 28th. Cyber Monday is a digital shopping day and it falls on the Monday immediately after the Black Friday weekend. With some stores giving upto 90% discounts for assorted items, this is by far the best time to get shopping.
Setting up and operating an account is a simple few steps procedure that does not require any special knowledge or skills. All a new user need to do is link up the account with their debit or credit card in a one off registration process after which they can access it (the account) through simply feeding in their email address and password. The account holder can then go ahead to transact with any of millions of websites that make use of PayPal. Transactions are monitored 24/7 by a team of security specialists so that both consumers and merchants conduct their online business within a safe and secure system.
PayPal also protects eligible purchases with the PayPal Buyer Protection program whereby if an eligible item does not show up or turns out to be different from what is described, then PayPal helps sort things out with the seller. Safety, security, accountability and simplicity all ultimately spell peace of mind as you go about shopping online.
