PayPal

For you YBPs who shop online, I’m sure you’ve seen PayPal as a payment option, especially if you use eBay. PayPal, a clever marriage of e-mail and the credit-card system, lets anybody accept credit cards over the Internet. PayPal has evolved from just paying small businesses for purchases; now it lets you send money electronically to anyone with an e-mail address. Many websites and blogs use PayPal for “tip jars.” When you click on the link, it takes you straight to the person’s invoice and you can put money in their account. If you have a website and want to accept payment for whatever you sell, or just want to accept donations, you can put a PayPal button on your pages. To do this, you go to the PayPal site, click Merchant Services, copy the html code and paste it into the source code of your site.

Still using Western Union? Upgrade to PayPal

For example, if you want to give your brother across the country a Christmas gift at the last minute, go to PayPal.com, fill in his e-mail address and the amount you want to send, and click “send.” Shortly, he will receive an e-mail from PayPal saying essentially, “You’ve Got Money.” Then he goes to PayPal.com and, if he already has his own PayPal account, then he clicks to accept the money, which magically appears in my account. If he’s not a PayPal member, signing up is easy and takes only a few minutes. Best of all, the service is free. So unless it’s an absolute cash emergency, skip the high Western Union fees and send money the fast, easy way.

To get your money out of your account, you can have PayPal send you a check, arrange direct deposit to your bank, or have the company issue you a debit card, whereupon you can use it like any other debit card. You can also keep your funds in a money-market account with PayPal. Impressive.

As with any other site dealing with money, PayPal has its share of imitators and scam artists trying to con customers. But PayPal has an entire department devoted to keeping their customers safe. They give plenty of security tips, especially about fake PayPal emails. PayPal will always address you by your full name in emails and will never ask you for your password. And if you think you have received a scam email, don’t click on any links in the email. You can even forward the email to PayPal to get assurance that your account is safe (I’ve done this before and their customer service was very helpful.) Last but not least, keep your PayPal password protected and unlike any other internet password you have.