A couple years ago I was doing some work for a local university helping to redesign an internal website they wanted updated and made more user friendly. When the job was done the person I was doing the job for wanted to use his school issued credit card to pay for my services.

At that time I could not take credit cards because I didn't have a merchant account that is needed in order to accept credit cards. So I had to wait for a check to be issued by their finance department. This process took almost 3 weeks to get approved and then another 2 months to finally get mailed out to me. While I was waiting I searched the Internet like I always do for an answer to my problem, and happened to find the answer to my prayers.

It was PayPal.com, a company out of San Francisco, California that allows you to accept credit cards even if you don't have a merchant account. It does this by sending an email to the person that wants to pay you for your goods or services and lets them complete the transaction by using their bank account or credit card.

The money is then electronically transferred to your PayPal.com account, where you can either use your PayPal.com debit card to withdraw the money or just deposit it into your own bank account. Unfortunately it was too late for me to use this wonderful service for the university job but I soon used it religiously for every credit card payment made to my business.

It became such a great tool for me to use that I became a premium member, which gave me a higher security status and allowed me to accept and transfer higher amounts of money as opposed to the $500.00 minimum.

So what are some PayPal.com's drawbacks you may ask? Well for one there is no fee to become a member of PayPal.com but in order for you to activate your account you have to give PayPal.com the ability to access either your credit card or your bank account. This is done more for verification purposes but can be an inconvenience if you are in a hurry to accept credit cards right away. There are also transaction fees that are incurred every time you use their service to accept credit cards. The fees range from 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for an account that receives up to $3000.00 per month to 1.9% + $0.30 for accounts that receives up to $100,000.01+ per month.

Once your account is verified via your email, credit card and/or bank account you are ready to go. This is far less than the steps involved in obtaining and maintaining a credit card merchant account where you have to pay for a setup fee and transaction fees. You also have monthly maintenance and gateway fees. To obtain a merchant account it can sometimes take days and even weeks to get up and running. With Paypal.com you can literally be receiving money in minutes.

PayPal.com became so popular among the auction sites it is by far the preferred form of payment accepted. This caught the attention of the largest auction site on the Internet and on July 8, 2002, Ebay.com decided if you can't beat them with your own money payment service, you might as well join them by buying them out.

Since then PayPal.com has expanded into e-shops and customized shopping carts for its over 70 million members. I am very excited about the many customers who have come to prefer paying me with their credit card. Now I don't have to wait almost 2 months for a paper check to arrive. I can get paid today and have the money in my account in an instant using the power of PayPal.com

About the author:

Jeffrey Alexander Brathwaite, aka "JB" is an Internet Technology Coach, Speaker, Trainer and Broadcast Email Expert. JB prides himself on helping small to medium size businesses that are frustrated with dealing with the Internet. If you are having problems trying to deal with Email marketing, distribution and Search Engine marketing.