Paypal and RBI dumps Indian freelancers.

I feel humiliated due to the latest Paypal policies concerning the freelancers in India. The freelancers in India are bringing thousands of U.S.Dollars without ever leaving their country. Their effort and service to India should be highly acclaimed by those governing the nation.

On the contrary, the freelancers are always treated without respect. Take a look at the Paypal policies that will be implemented from March 1st 2001.

I quote Paypal below:
In order to comply with the RBI Guidelines, our user agreement in India will be amended for the following services as follows:

1. Any balance in and all future payments into your Paypal account may not be used to buy goods or services and must be transferred to your bank account in India within 7 days from the receipt of confirmation from the buyer in respect of the goods or services.

I understand this point and I welcome it to a certain extent. Yes, the foreign currency we earn as freelancers should come into Indian Forex reserves but why this 7 day deadline? What will happen to the money if it is not withdrawn in 7 days?

How can we buy domain and hosting if I don’t have a credit card. Now, don’t tell me hosting packages can be bought from India paying Indian rupees. They are stupidly costly and come nowhere near the hosting package offered by Blue Host or similar vendors.

There are thousands of freelancers that are selling products and services through their blogs and website. Their payment gateway is Paypal that is offering excellent service to Internet merchants all over the world.

Now, no Indian can buy through my website by paying USD. Fine enough. Indians should pay Indians only in their national currency. However, who will provide e-commerce facility in India matching Paypal’s offer?

I know I am only shouting like frog and the noise will get unnoticed among all the thousands of frogs that croak along with me.

However, this is my blog; I am venting my feelings.

Paypal refunds attract a fee.

As an honest person, you refund the money you received in your paypal due to some reason. Paypal obliges but slaps a penalty for your honesty. :)

Doesn't make any sense? Read below the official announcement from Paypal.

"Amendment to the PayPal User Agreement

Refund Fee. Section 8.5 (Additional Fees) is amended to add a new refund fee. If you refund a Purchase Payment, we will retain the Fixed Fee portion of the Purchase Payment Fee. The buyer’s Account will be credited with the full Purchase Payment amount and the Fixed Fee portion of the Purchase Payment Fee will be deducted from your Account in addition to the amount of the refunded payment. The Fixed Fee will depend on the currency of the Purchase Payment and is listed in 8.4(c).

Fees: The following fee for Refunds will be added:

After August 10, 2010, the Fixed Fee portion of the Transaction Fee will be deducted from your Account at the time of the refund, in addition to full payment amount that is refunded to the buyer. Fixed fee portion of the original Transaction Fee.

(The Fixed Fee will depend on the currency of the payment, so if the payment was made in USD then the refund fee is $0.30.)

* Excludes Direct Payments and Virtual Terminal Payments where an American Express Card is used."

What comes to your mind? I think Paypal employees have just asked for a raise.

All said and done, I view this rule as a reasonable one. When requesting to refund, you are giving more work to Paypal which could have been avoided by you and I as a seller-right?

How to install a paypal donation button?

Sometimes even spam email is useful. Very rarely, I open an email received from unknown source. This is that rare occasion because the title attracted me.

I too have seen in some blogs this paypal donation button. I have given the details below which I reproduced from the email from unknown source.

PayPal Donations is easy to set-up and use:

1. Log in to your PayPal account
2. Click on the Merchant Tools tab
3. Click on the Donations link
4. Specify the name, amount (optional; if you leave amount blank, your donor will be asked to choose a donation amount), and other details of the donation
5. Add more optional information such as a customized button graphic and the ability to include a note with the donation
6. Click Create Button Now and the Button Factory will generate customized HTML code
7. Paste the HTML code on your website to create your Donate button

Thank you stranger!

Paypal to bank directly for Indians.

This is the best news today. At last, paypal added this option withdrawing paypal funds directly to banks in India.

This is closely followed after they announced the transfer of paypal funds directly to credit cards with a VISA logo on them.

Another heartening news is there is no fee involved if the transfer amount to bank exceeds Rs.7000.00 which is equivalent to USD178.00 as per today's exchange rate. If the amount withdrawn is less than Rs.7000.00, there will be a fee of Rs.50.00 only.

The usual period to see the funds in our will be 5 to 7 days.

Thank you very much Paypal.

The following banks are approved by paypal.
State Bank of India , Bank of India, Canara Bank, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, ING VYSYA Bank, UTI Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC and Citibank.

I earned the paypal badge.

So far, I have forwarded back to paypal more than 300 phishing emails.
having studied their periodic guidelines published in their emails that are in reply to my forwarded emails, I am very thorough in protecting my paypal account.

I just took a test at their website and scored 100%.

If you are new to phishing, it's those emails you get that look like they're from a real company, but are actually fake. Well there's a new Fight Phishing Challenge that can show you how good you are at spotting the fakes. I just took it. You should try it - I earned a badge by scoring a perfect 5 out of 5.

Open a new browser and type www.paypal.com/fightphishing. It is ok to click on this link. You will answer those 5 questions without logging in.

Let me know your score when you're finished.