How to Understand PayPal

1. Sign up for PayPal using the personal account choice. PayPal needs an email address, password, first and last name, address and telephone number. During the signup process, you need to also specify whether you'd like to link a bank account or credit card or both to your account. This verifies your account and allows you to move money back and forth and purchase items online.
2. Get ready to accept payment, if this is the purpose of your account. PayPal handles payments several ways. If you're receiving payment for an online good or service that you sold through a website like eBay.com, PayPal skims off a percentage of the payment received, which is 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent plus 30 cents, depending on the amount.In most cases, receiving money from another PayPal account is free so long as there is no purchased item attached. Personal accounts cannot accept credit cards, so if you'd like to accept credit cards, you must upgrade to a premier account.
3. Withdraw funds out of the account by transferring them to your attached bank account. No fees are applied when you do this.
4. Send money to pay for an online purchase or as a personal payment owed to another account. Sending money from a personal account is always free.
5. Make payments to other countries with your PayPal account. PayPal converts your account currency into that of its 23 supported currencies for a small transaction/conversion fee. Both sending and receiving money in other currencies incurs a fee that will be displayed when you create the transaction.
6. Specify your method of payment any time you want to purchase online. By default, PayPal uses either funds in the account or the funds in your bank account. The credit card, if attached to your account, is its last resort. If you want to make a payment using your credit card, you must specify this option when you make the purchase.