Pretoria-born Elon Musk was one of the co-founders of PayPal, the e-commerce system that allows payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. He served as the company’s chairperson, and was its largest shareholder until eBay purchased PayPal in 2002 for $1,5 billion. If you buy online, you’ll be glad to know that PayPal (www.paypal.com) is extremely secure.
Sign up for a free PayPal account and you won’t need to enter your credit card details again for all further online transactions. It makes Internet shopping safer, as you will be protected if you buy something from a website that is not as secure as it could be. PayPal can be used for buying and selling items or just sending someone money.
If a website selling items accepts PayPal payments, there is no transaction fee for the buyer – it’s paid by the seller. PayPal is accepted in almost 200 countries and can deal with payments in 24 different currencies. Literally millions of websites around the world use it.To receive a payment via PayPal, you pay a fee of 2,4% to 3,4% of the value of the transaction plus approximately R3,00.
Ideal for retail sales online
If you have an online store and want to save money with your sales (which can be international) and avoid expensive costs by having a credit card facility on your website, this is the way to go. Many freelance writers, website designers and others who supply online services use PayPal. You can also invoice someone for services rendered. All you need is their email address to complete the transaction.
PayPal will send the buyer an invoice via email and payment made will then reflect in your paypal account. (For more information, visit PayPal.) PayPal also has a purchase protection policy, which is handy if you are sent the incorrect goods or they are damaged. Visit Purchase Protect.)
