First off, I had a bad PayPal experience years ago, so no amount of discussion would persuade to me to use them. I wouldn't use them if they, or anyone else, paid me. They are that bad.
Putting my bias aside, what you need to consider is the time and stress that will occur if -- I'm straining not to say when -- things go wrong. If they do go wrong, then you will meet a void of silence.
You will spend huge gobs of time -- and incur costs -- trying to sort things out, and you will completely without control. You will lose sleep. You will be distracted. And if the sum involved is large enough, it could be disastrous for your business and perhaps your life.
Now, ask yourself: what you would pay to avoid those risks?
I suggest the simple answer is to sidestep the risk and simply not go there.
You know what? I should have known better. We had $50K frozen for 6 months about 10 years ago when paypal suddenly decided they liked our money more than we did.
Eventually they paid it back but not after all the symptoms that you just described.
Then, about a year ago I did a project with a freelancer in the US (another HN'er) and I ended up having to pay him using paypal because we had no other viable option.
So, I thought maybe they'd cleaned up their act in the meantime.
After a few bad experiences with Paypal, I always use wire transfer when paying someone else or being paid as a freelancer... It works well, it's more often than not cheaper than Paypal and anyone who has a bank account can receive wire transfers.
When, or how, is a wire transfer cheaper than Paypal? In the US, wire transfers through banks tend to have fixed initiation costs on the order of $25-$35.
Yes but with Paypal between fees for changing currency (2.5%) and other fees it quickly adds up...
Plus, you have to convert to a business account (additionally to having to send a lot of different documents to prove your identity) if the amount is more than 2800$ and then it's 3.5% fee.
So yes internally in the US paypal is cheap but once you go cross border it's expensive and it's a headache
Putting my bias aside, what you need to consider is the time and stress that will occur if -- I'm straining not to say when -- things go wrong. If they do go wrong, then you will meet a void of silence.
You will spend huge gobs of time -- and incur costs -- trying to sort things out, and you will completely without control. You will lose sleep. You will be distracted. And if the sum involved is large enough, it could be disastrous for your business and perhaps your life.
Now, ask yourself: what you would pay to avoid those risks?
I suggest the simple answer is to sidestep the risk and simply not go there.