Paypal – making online shopping safer
I have been a Paypal user for quite a few years, since I first started selling on ebay. They have added a bunch of features over the years and one of my favorite recently has been their plugin.
It is a little do-dad that pops up whenever you land on a page that has a field to enter a credit card number. It then offers to generate a one-time credit card number for you to use on the merchants site. If you say yes, it then generates the number, fills it in for you along with a generated expiration date, and even the extra 3-digit code if needed. Once the transaction is complete, the plugin offers to take a screenshot as a receipt for you and then the money comes directly out of your Paypal balance.
I know that lots of merchant sites have technology to protect user’s credit card numbers, but using a generated credit card number rather than your own seems like it will always be safer. And then again, you have sites that don’t have very good security measures in place to protect your credit card number. This baby comes in handy for those as well.
What you need to use it
Since I just recently switched to Mac, I was a little bummed to find out that it is only currently available to Windows users (I can still use it on my 13″ laptop). Mac users can go to Paypal’s site and generate single-use numbers, but that seems to take all of the fun (not to mention time saving) out of it.
- Internet Explorer and Firefox are both supported.
- Paypal also says it is only available to U.S. users as well… I am not sure why, sorry to all the Canadians
My experience with the Paypal plugin
I have been using it for about a month or so and I love it. It saves me time and makes my purchases more secure, that makes me happy. So, if you do much shopping online, you may want to check it out.
this post was included in the carnival of personal finance
Have you used it? What do you think about it?
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I haven’t tried it, but I appreciate your recommendation. I might have to try it out then!
Great to know! I’ll have to use this next time I make a purchase online. Thanks!
Great, let me know how you guys like it!
bob – a comment and a question for you, completely off topic…well, almost completely off topic.
First, I like the new graphics and theme changes – they look nice. Second, you mentioned your switch to Mac…are you still happy with the change now that it’s been a few weeks and the “new computer smell” is starting to wear off? We have all PCs but my wife mentioned offhandedly a desire to get a Mac, so I was wondering if your view had changed at all.
@John
I am glad you liked the changes, I felt like it needed a bit of updating, I am not completely done yet – maybe a few more tweaks here or there…
as far as the Mac I am still very pleased. I have found that there are many things that used to be quite a pain on my PC that are SO simple on a MAC… I don’t really get why PCs just make things more difficult, it is almost like they choose to give you more options, which you would think is a good thing, but in a lot of cases, it just adds confusion… The only issues I have had are with non-mac software that I have tried to put on it, but even most of that has been working fine.
I would say go for it, I think you will like it!!
I didn’t know about this, so I appreciate the info and your review. Thanks!
And thanks for stopping by CFO earlier today, too
Yes paypal is used as secured payment gateway around the world. we also use that.