PayPal Primer

What is PayPal?

PayPal is an independent third-party company that handles online credit card transactions, a middleman of sorts that ensures secure online credit card purchases. PayPal works by charging your desired amount to your credit card and sending the money to the recipient. It is designed so that the recipient of the funds (in this case FSBOMetroDenver.com) never sees any of your credit card information. Popular opinion holds that PayPal is one of the most secure methods of transferring funds online via credit card, for both the sender and the recipient. If you wish, you may use a bank account instead of a credit card. This option functions like a debit card.

PayPal’s entire website is secure, so you never have to worry about your credit card information being misused. PayPal offers “100% Protection against unauthorized payments sent from your account” and sends you an email confirmation every time you make a purchase. The gold standard for online money transfers, it is widely trusted and is the method of payment used on the vast majority of Ebay purchases, as well as many other online purchases. According to the PayPal website, there are already over 96 million account holders throughout the world.

How to Set Up a PayPal account

If you do not already have a PayPal account, you can create one in less than two minutes. To make things easier, we have assembled a quick, step-by-step guide to take you through the process.

  • Go to www.PayPal.com
  • Click “Sign Up” in the top, right-hand corner of the page
  • The options “Personal Account” and the country “United States” should already be selected, so click the “Continue” button
  • Fill out the form, making sure you complete all fields not marked “Optional”. At the bottom, type in the characters you see in the picture in to the box alongside it- this is one of their security measures.
  • PayPal will now send a confirmation email to the address you provided. Open this email and click the link that says “Click here to activate your account”
  • This will take you to back to PayPal, and it will ask you to provide the password you selected. This will take you to a page stating that your account is now activated. Click “Continue”
  • You will be directed to a form which asks for your bank account information. Click exit if you wish to use a credit card, or continue if you wish to use your bank account.
  • Fill out the form that corresponds to your preferred method of payment

What does “Get Verified” mean?

PayPal likes its account holders to verify their bank accounts if they choose the bank account option. It is optional, however. It involves them sending a random sum of money to your account (less than 50 cents generally) and you tell them the exact value of the money they sent you. This is their way of ensuring that the person sending money is the owner of the bank account, similar to the way PayPal sent a confirmation email in order to activate you account- it ensures that it is in fact your email. This option is only for those who choose to use their bank account rather than credit card.

How to send money through PayPal

We have set up a merchant account through PayPal to simplify the payment process. Once you have an account, all you need to do is click the “Pay Now” button on the My Listings menu in your logged-in seller page (you need to register for one to be created for you). Then, simply enter your account information and authorize the payment. See List Your Home for more information.