Saying Goodbye to Paypal

I've talked a lot about performance and booth etiquette on this blog, but VO is a business. 

One of the most crucial aspects of any business? Getting paid. 

Thanks to digital reach each small business VO player, out of necessity, has to have nation or world-wide reach. That means needing to have solutions in place for large companies with actual payroll and invoicing structures, and moving all the way down the chain to individuals paying for their business needs from their personal credit cards and checking accounts. 

For the last several years, I've been using Paypal as my solution for that latter scenario. The bummer? I've never liked using Paypal. 

We can all agree that fees associated with credit/debit card based services will always suck. That's a pain we can all just take for granted now. However, FOR those fees I would expect a decent service, and this is something Paypal has never delivered for me. Their service is painful to use. 

The site layout is awful. There are always delays in doing what you want to do. They can invoice you and pull money from you nearly instantly, but moving money out of their system always takes several business days.  

The site's security is draconian, which should be a good thing since we're dealing with people's banking and credit card information, but in practice it always feels like a barrier. Jokes online abound with people unable to log in to their accounts for the few occasions they need to actually use the service. This year alone, I've been forced to change my password on three separate occasions, and have been "selected" to "participate" in two security audits where I needed to re-verify all of my information. Each of these audits have taken my account offline for more than a week at a time. Wouldn't you know it though, during the audits, I could still deposit money into my Paypal account, but I couldn't withdraw it...

These types of actions don't really instill me with a lot of confidence in using their service. I can't imagine what I would do if I depended on it for mission critical invoicing. 

So I'm going to stop using it. Goodbye Paypal. 

I'm under no illusion that my meager protest will actually affect much change. Paypal is probably the most well known digital invoicing company on the planet, but my money is the only vote I have, and I'm tired of giving them my money only to be frustrated. 

In the meantime, I'm looking for alternatives. Dwolla looks really interesting, and the fees are MUCH more reasonable (also, politically, anytime I can route my money without using a credit card, it just makes me feel better). 

I'd be open to any suggestions you have as well.