[wolfgke]

Because most other payment providers (say Stripe) require a credit card, which is, at least in Germany, a not very popular payment option (the prefered payment option there is SEPA direct debit).

I often have the impression that lots of vendors forget that in other countries (say, Germany) not everbody has and is willing to get a credit card and other payment options are prefered. Paypal provides them (in this case SEPA direct debit), while e.g. Stripe does not. So I use Paypal, though I don't like it.

[joepie91_]

This, also in the Netherlands. iDeal is the common option here, but usually only offered by Dutch shops. The only other options are PayPal and Bitcoin, so...

Most vendors I talk to aren't even aware that there exist countries where creditcards aren't commonplace.

[MrBuddyCasino]

Exactly. If Stripe managed to offer SEPA transfers, or integrate with giropay.de or whatever, I would be happy to use that instead. Credit cards are an inferior technology compared to the electronic bank transfers that are common in Europe since the early 80s.

[jotm]

Can you tell me if SEPA provide some kind of buyer protection? I bought a few parts on eBay and paid with SEPA, but there's no mention of any protection in case the seller is fraudulent, felt a bit uneasy unlike when paying with Paypal :-). Do you just call the bank and tell them to reverse the transaction? Thanks!

[MrBuddyCasino]

For basic SEPA, You can order the bank to reverse the transaction for up to 8 weeks afterwards. There are different kinds of SEPA transfers though, and I think its different between companies.

[wolfgke]

There are two kinds of SEPA direct debits (Lastschrift):

  - SEPA Core Direct Debit
  - SEPA Business to Business Direct Debit

(source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lastschrift#Arten_der_SEPA-Las...)

Only the first one is used when you buy things in the internet (the second one is only important for B2B transactions). It can be reversed without giving any reasons for 8 weeks. If you have not authorized (in other words: it was fraudulent) even for 13 weeks. If you reverse it, though it was legal, it's the vendor that has the problem (and has to collect the money). That's why often only larger vendors will accept SEPA direct debit (small vendors will often insist that you use SEPA credit transfer instead that is a lot less customer-friendly in case of a fraudulent vendor). SEPA credit transfer is in my opinion not suitable for "fast, spontanous" payments, though, for reasons I won't explain here.

[joepie91_]

Generally your bank will handle these issues, yeah. SEPA is more a protocol than a service.