[cjsuk]

Paypal offers one extra thing over the top, which is the ability to easily get your money back if the seller screws up.

I use this a lot with sellers in the UK. If you ask them directly for a refund because they forget something or sent you crap (dominos are good at this), it is like getting blood out of a stone. Even being polite, some people will just jam the phone down and tell you to fuck off.

If you pay with paypal, they usually don't even respond and the money just gets returned after 2 weeks by default with paypal. If they do respond they usually just refund a portion anyway.

So what you're getting on top is arbitration.

If you use your credit card, you're pretty screwed here in the UK unless the amount is over £100.

[jazoom]

Once I had a charge to my PayPal account for something I didn't buy. I fought with PayPal for about 2 months and they kept giving promises and failing to deliver.

One call to my credit card company and I got the money back via chargeback to PayPal.

I've never found PayPal to be that simple.

[cjsuk]

That's why you need multiple layers of protection:

seller -> paypal -> card company -> real money

[jazoom]

Except I don't "need" that because I've always been able to get the chargeback.