[joopxiv]

I have quite some personal experience with PayPal, and their policies seem quite random. If one person gets it into his or her head that something is not allowed, no voice of reason will change the decision. I wouldn't shed too much tears over it though, there are many better and cheaper alternative forms of payment.

[Hondor]

Can you give some examples? I know in America there are lots of startups doing it, but what about the rest of the world? I looked into Skrill a few years ago which seems to be just as international as Paypal, but also with just as horrible terms and conditions.

[ar0]

In Germany (where seafile is located), there is for example Paymill [1] for accepting credit cards and SEPA direct debit. It is pretty expensive (2.95% + 28 cents per transaction) but it seems to have a good API and if it is more reliable than PayPal (which isn't exactly cheap either) it might be worth it.

[1] https://www.paymill.com/

[thesimon]

Quote overpriced and uncertain future (they recently filed for Chapter 11)

[joopxiv]

PayPal is basically a pass-through wallet, meaning most people don't actually hold funds in their wallet but get they transactions funded one-on-one by a different source. For PayPal this is usually a credit card or direct debit from a bank account.

In most circumstances it's a lot cheaper to accept the credit card or do the direct debits directly (via a payment service provider). If you're operating internationally, find a PSP that offers many local payment options. For example, in many European countries, very few people have a credit card. If you offer your customers local payment options like Giropay and Sofort you won't need to bother with PayPal in my opinion.

[creshal]

Amazon Payments? It's as international as it can get, but I can't say anything about their terms, I've only used it from customer side (which is excellent).

[kennydude]

Stripe seem pretty decent

[Hondor]

This is one of the not-very-international startups. Only available for merchants in 2 or 3 countries last I checked. I don't think small companies can do true international payment processing because of the labor needed to handle all the red tape in every country they go into.

Edit: I see they're already grown a lot and are even starting to try unlikely countries like Brazil and New Zealand.

[girvo]

New Zealand is actually kind of interesting, and not as crazy as you'd think. It's often used as a test bed for consumer tech

[lovelearning]

I'd appreciate if somebody lists some alternatives (better or otherwise). I've plans to launch a paid online service and would like to study all payment options.