Friedbeef’s Tech

Started in 1998, PayPal has become the top online payment system with 100 million account members.  If you have an account with them, here are 5 useful PayPal tools that you should be aware of:

#1 - Calculate your PayPal expenses quickly with P-Calc

Depending on the type of account and business you do with PayPal, it may impose a small charge on received funds.  Although minimal, these charges can be a bit hard to calculate.  P-Calc is a free service which lets you work out all those charges up front - With this, you can better price your products to ensure you reap a certain net amount. 

#2 - Withdraw funds from ANY country with VMI

As with many countries, PayPal, unfortunately does not support Malaysian banks in its system yet.  Hence, there is no direct way to convert your virtual funds into cold hard cash. 

The Virtual Money International ATM card (which I use) is a popular legal workaround to this problem.  It registers your details under a US bank which you can then transfer PayPal funds to.  After which you can withdraw the funds from your local ATM machine.

I’ve been using this for a few months now, and have had no problems thus far.  If you want to know more about how to use this card - check out HongKiat’s great post on this subject.

#3 - Add an extra level of security with a PayPal Security Key

As a service, PayPal is pretty secure, but passwords can fall into the wrong hands all too often! 

Most websites keep your online account safe by only asking for your user name and password to verify your identity.  The PayPal Security Key is a small electronic device that generates a unique security code for your account about every 30 seconds. You use that code to access your account, and to help prevent people that you don’t know from doing the same. It’s like a combination lock for your account, except that the combination always changes.

Currently only available in the US, it is being offered at a heavily subsidized price of USD$5.00 (waived for business accounts) - with replacement units being offered at the same price.  A small amount to pay for guaranteed safe transactions. 

#4 - Allow people to PayPal money to you from your blog

Steve Pavlina is one of the best known bloggers writing about personal development.  What he revealed was that donations made up a significant portion of his online income.

“My second biggest income stream is actually donations.  My average donation is about $10, and I?ve received a number of $100 donations too.  It only took me about an hour to set this up via PayPal.  So even if your content is free like mine, give your visitors a means to voluntarily contribute if they wish.  It?s win-win.

If you?re going to request donations, then really request donations.  Don?t put up a barely visible ?Donate? link and pray for the best.” - Steve Pavlina

Want to easily place PayPal donation link in your site?  There are a few easy ways to go about this…

• Go to PayPal and set up a standard checkout system - this is painful as the guide for the ‘easy’ standard checkout is 126 pages long.
• Try out Wordpress widgets by Patrick Chia or Supriyadi which allows you to have an easy donation widget in your sidebar
• Try out the popular ‘Buy me a beer’ Wordpress plugin which asks for donations, but is phrased differently.

#5 -  Settle meal tabs with the PayPal Facebook app

Looking for an easier way to get your friends to pay you back? PayPal for Facebook lets you request money from your friends with just a few clicks.  Currently released and still under heavy development for new features, it’s one of the more useful Facebook apps to have around. 

Bonus Tip: Filter Paypal imposters from your email for free with Iconix anti Phishing tools. 

[tags]paypal, donate, paypal security key, vmi, virtual money [/tags]

Do you use any Paypal tools?  Let us know what you think in the poll and comments below!

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