> PayPal might refund your money because they are nice. The credit card > companies do it because of law. Niceness can change. The credit card > companies are usually nice, since the law only requires them to refund > money over $50.
Personally, philosophically at least, I'd rather deal with a company that was nice because they had a reputation to uphold, not because the law forced them to. Practically speaking I'm probably an idiot. > Not necessarily. Visa "check cards" do not have most of the consumer > protection. The guarantees are not because of someone's good name but > because of laws specifically around credit. Not all cash cards are considered credit, though. I worked for a company that provided cash cards (reloadable debit cards) and since they were not a bank they didn't have to follow the same laws. However, being a money making enterprise, they were more inclined to listen to complaints and be more consumer-friendly because they couldn't use the law as an excuse to be jerks (or not be jerks, for that matter) to their customers. In that case the company took BBB complaints, etc. very seriously because their name/reputation is all they had, and all they could technically offer to consumers. They followed standards for data security/rentention, guarantees, refunds, etc. on a volunteer basis, and that was good enough for hundreds of thousands of customers. And in the case of PayPal that's good enough for me. I wouldn't trust my cash to Joe's Debit Card service but I would (and do) to PayPal. So anyway, if you don't have credit cards, PayPal works just as well and for the 11 bucks we were originally talking about here, I'd feel good about using it. :) -Matt -- KPLUG-List@kernel-panic.org http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
