Business Articles
1: How to choose a business name
Choosing a company name may be an easy process for many people. They may already know what they want to call their company after developing the business over several years. Other people spend a considerable amount of time deliberating over the smallest changes in a name. If you are trying to choose a new company name then there are different approaches that may be taken to assist you.
2: It’s PayPal time: online retailers are discovering that alternative payment services fit their business to a “T.”
It’s PayPal time: online retailers are discovering that alternative payment services fit their business to a “T.”
A GROWING NUMBER OF WEB RETAILERS are plunging into the world of alternative online payment options to replace or supplement credit card payments. Alternatives include a “bill me later” button on the site, payment by paper or electronic check, or the use of payment services such as PayPal. Although the use of other payment systems reflects ongoing consumer concern about online credit card fraud, these options are often less expensive and easier to use than setting up a merchant account, which is required to process credit card payments.
Most e-tailers favor PayPal’s service. Based in Mountain View, California, it’s the world’s largest online payment system. Recently acquired by eBay, PayPal lets consumers send money to anyone with an e-mail address through their credit card or checking account. Consumers sign up once for the free service-after that, they use their account number to buy products online securely, conveniently and cost-effectively.
3: Usaa Insurance - Usaa
United Services Automobile Association(Usaa) is a Fortune 500 financial services business which is used for serving military members and their families.
4: Money transfer business
Money transfer business
The best and most importantly safest way to transfer money is through banks. But, keeping aside all this there are many private players like Western Union, Moneygram etc through which you can transfer money to International shores.
Bank wire transfers are straightforward in case if you wish to send money to different countries. On the other hand if you have an online banking account with a bank then you can start sending money right away. In addition E-transfers can be done from websites. Majority of the e-transfers take 2 days maximum to reach the destination (anywhere in the world). Furthermore it is worthwhile remembering that the banks charge some fees depending on the amount of money being transferred.
It is worth mentioning in this regard that with Western Union money transfer you can transfer money online. Moreover MoneyGram has around 75000 agents worldwide. These money transfer companies are not only fast but also reliable and a convenient way to transfer money. In simple terms Paypal is also a very good way to transfer money. In an ideal scenario they charge 4.75% as commission for every 100$ received. But the best part about them is that they don?t charge any commission for sending money. According to experts most of the websites accept payments from Paypal. It is damn simple to reload money from your credit card to your Paypal account.
There is no hiding the fact that there are not many websites like Paypal out there, but the latest rumor in the market is Google is trying to start a similar service like Paypal. In theory there are millions of Paypal account holders worldwide. Not so long ago transferring money from one country to another was a difficult job. At the present juncture, it is very easy and convenient.
In an evolving and fast paced world, money is the currency for evaluation of labor, business exchange and meeting the requirements of people. On the other hand a few years ago, cash was the only source of money exchange, today there are several means by which cash is not transacted and yet millions of dollars are exchanged. Point to be noted in this regard is that the transmission of money was once a cumbersome and lengthy process, but today money can be transferred in an instant. All this has resulted to billions of dollars in the U.S. and all over the world being transferred everyday.
Cash, drafts and checks are the most common routines by which money changes
hand but in a world that is getting smaller and easier by technology, the amount of money being transferred by these routines has minimized drastically. In addition there are other easier, better and more convenient options for money transfers available today.
Electronic money transfers have become popular in the present scenario. Following this route, cash is not physically transferred but the money is transferred from one bank account to another. As a matter of fact companies like Visa and MasterCard also offer the transfer of money from one card to another.
The Internet is the modern means of transferring money. Last few years has saw many companies like PayPal, E-gold, and Xoom have emerged to offer the option of transferring money online. For instance, in PayPal, money is literally transferred in a matter of seconds from one email id to another.
The most traditional but still making its presence felt is the wire transfer method. It is still playing a part, albeit with a few modern changes by banks and companies like Western Union Money Transfer and MoneyGram. It is worth pointing that they are quite popular all over the world for their ease, reliability and speed. Fact remained that these companies need a higher service charge on the transfers than other companies, however one advantage of these services is that you can send or receive your money without even having a bank account. This is extremely beneficial to people whose families live in another country, or who need to send money to their business partners.
According to experts the latest trend in money transfers is the Online Money Transfers. By using this method, the money is transferred online from one account to another. There are plenty of ways of doing an online money transfer.
Most banks will give you this method. In case if you have signed up for the Internet user ID and password for your account, you can transfer money online from your account to the account of another person. Though, most banks offer money to be transferred only to another account with the same bank due to security reasons. There is no denying that it is a safe and convenient method if the user takes care not to misplace his password.
Furthermore the other form of online money transfer is using your email account. It is worthwhile remembering that companies like PayPal provide facilities for online transfer of money. More often than not this is quite an ingenious way of transferring money. Paypal needs you to create an account using your email ID. Fact remained that once your account is created, you can fund it using either your credit card or your bank account. The funds in your account can be transferred immediately to another Paypal account. In addition money can be withdrawn from the PayPal account of the receiver either online, to the linked bank account or a check can be requested.
It is worth mentioning in this regard that banks and a lot of governments encourage online money transfers as well. In such scenarios there is no physical money changing hands. This plays a pivotal part in helping the economy of a nation, as the government does not have to spend money on printing and maintaining currency notes. This type of money transfer is extremely advantageous for long distance or international transfer of money across different countries. Companies like Western Union, which have traditionally been in the money transfer business, also give you an option of online money transfers.
5: PayPal Targeted by Scam Artists
PayPal Targeted by Scam Artists
A new round of attacks by online criminals is being directed at online payments service PayPal this week, including e-mails that inform account holders they need to re-enter their credit card data because “we had some trouble with one of our computer systems.”
The scam appears to be aimed at harvesting PayPal (Quote) account numbers, passwords and credit card data from unsuspecting users of the online service, based in Mountain View, Calif.
The scam e-mail, slugged “URGENT: PayPal Account Update,” that has been going around this week starts off by saying:
“Dear PayPal User, Today we had some trouble with one of our computer systems. While the trouble appears to be minor, we are not taking any chances. We decided to take the troubled system off-line and replace it with a new system. Unfortunately this caused us to lose some member data. Please follow the link below and log into your account to make sure your information is not affected. Account balances have not been affected.”
It goes on to entice users by saying that: “If fees would normally apply, you will not pay anything for the next two incoming transfers you receive” because of the inconvenience of having to re-enter data.
The scam, an e-mail with the subject line directed account holders to this site, which was active at presstime but may have been taken down by now.
The URL listed was https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr/?cmd=_login-run. However, when clicked on, it directed the user to an ostensibly secure site, but with a URL starting with: http://www.paypalsys.com/. Users were then asked to log in with their e-mail addresses and their passwords.
Ironically the attack began to surface at about the same time as PayPal was announcing that the U.S. Postal Inspection Service recently presented awards to members of its anti-fraud team “in appreciation and recognition of their aid in the investigation of a man accused of Internet auction fraud.”
The scams are becoming more sophisticated, and now sometimes arrive in the form of HTML e-mails complete with PayPal logos and type faces. They offer Web links to sites that even contain the little lock symbol of security. The Web site addresses are subtly different from PayPal.com, however.
“We have had no problems with our computers — our site is completely up,” said Julie Anderson, a PayPal spokesman, adding that the company would track the fake site back to its ISP and attempt to get it shut down.
These attacks are becoming more and more commonplace, and more sophisticated in their ability to mimic a legitimate site, according to David Steiner, president of AuctionBytes.com, a site that covers the online auction world.
“For the past year or so they have been e-mailing sellers saying that your password or your account has been compromised, go to this site and re-enter your data,” Steiner told internetnews.com. “The site looks just like an eBay or a PayPal site but is on different server.”
“Some people fall for this. People are still falling for the Nigerian oil minister e-mail scam, so they fall for this, too,” he said.
Steiner advised all PayPal and eBay account holders (PayPal is becoming more integrated with eBay all the time, thanks to eBay’s acquisition of the company) to be very careful about looking at the address bar in the browser.
The scams redirect you a similarly named site, where someone usually has used a stolen credit card to register a fake domain name for a quick-hit scam.
Steiner said a whois search on the URL used in this particular scam attempt shows it was registered on Sept. 10 and the administrative contact shows PayPal, but the technical contact is in New York, not California, where PayPal is based.
The cops, of course, continue to look into such scams as best they can. Don Masters, head of a U.S. Secret Service high tech crime unit in Los Angeles, told internetnews.com last week that “We have a couple of undercover operations working.”
PayPal, meanwhile, has been working to combat similar frauds. The company said that PayPal fraud investigators were recently presented with commemorative plaques thanking them for their “significant contribution” to the investigation and capture of Jay Nelson, of Gilsum, N.H. Nelson, 34, recently pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering for failing to deliver thousands of items he offered for sale on Internet auction sites.
“It’s no secret that PayPal aggressively pursues people suspected of fraud in the PayPal network,” said David Sacks, PayPal chief operating officer. “We have no tolerance for these people in our system and are more than happy to help law enforcement bring them to justice in any way we can.”
But it’s no wonder PayPal is a target. It’s big, it’s everywhere and it’s where a lot of online money is.
The service lets users transfer money via e-mail, mobile phone, or Web-enabled pager, with transactions charged to the customer’s bank account, credit card or PayPal balance. About 13 million users (80 percent are individuals) use PayPal; most are online auction participants, and transactions average about $50, according to Hoovers.
PayPal does have a security center right on its site, with advice of all kinds both for sellers and buyers.
And one of the tips for everyone is: “Never, ever share your PayPal password with anyone. Never, ever share your PayPal password with anyone. PayPal representatives will NEVER ask you for your Password.”
It also says: “If you receive an email and are unsure whether it is from PayPal, come directly to the PayPal site at www.paypal.com. Don’t click on any link in an email which seems suspicious to you. These security measures will help ensure that you are logging into PayPal. The only site you should ever type your username and password into is at www.paypal.com.”
6: PayPal fixes phishing hole
PayPal fixes phishing hole
By exploiting the flaw, attackers were able to redirect people from a PayPal Web page to an online trap located in South Korea, a representative for the service said. The page actually has a real PayPal URL, but hosts malicious code that presents a message warning members that their account had been compromised. It then redirects them to a “phishing” Web site.
At the malicious, information-thieving Web site, people are asked for their PayPal login information, experts at Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company in England, said in an advisory. Subsequently, the scammers are urged to enter their Social Security number and credit card details, Netcraft said.
“As soon as we became aware of this scheme, we changed some of the code on the PayPal Web site. So this scheme, or any scheme like it, can no longer be effective,” Amanda Pires, a PayPal spokeswoman, said in an interview.
PayPal, a unit of online auctioneer eBay, is working with the Internet service provider that hosts the malicious site to get it shut down, Pires added. The company has no information on how many people may have fallen victim to the scam, she said.
7: PayPal. E-commerce Solution
PayPal has been around a while, at least in Internet years. It is a payment gateway that is best known for its ability to help people transfer money when they use auction sites like Ebay. But now PayPal can offer web site owners and developers more options in e-commerce than they may realize.
There are a variety of payment options within the PayPal web site. You can stick with their basic payment system where you sign up for an account and you can immediately transfer cash to anyone with an e-mail address. This is a great way to pay for stuff when you win or sell on an auction site, but what if you need a real e-commerce solution for your web site? PayPal now offers three levels to help you. They have Web Site Payments Pro where customers can pay for things on your site or the PayPal site. The second offering is E-mail Payments where customers get an e-mail and can then pay their bill on the PayPal web site. The third option is what’s called a Traditional Merchant Account. This is a full blown e-commerce solution where you can process credit cards on your site, and you have a great deal more control over many aspects of the shopping cart and the payment processing. This final option will cost you the most to implement and run.
Overall, PayPal is a solid option if you want to dip your toes in the e-commerce pool. But keep in mind that when people have to leave your site to go to the PayPal site to make a payment, it doesn’t project as professional an appearance as if you were able to process their credit cards on your own site directly. That is where you need a merchant account (or a software package that enables you to access a merchant account). Many web hosting accounts will also provide some built in e-commerce solutions that can be tied into your hosting account directly. These can be a safe bet, since your hosting company is already set up to use them. So the moral is, if you need basic payment abilities, look at PayPal. If you need something more full featured, you have a variety of options. But the best place to look first are those solutions tied to your existing hosting account. If you don’t have a hosting account yet, do a Google search on “e-commerce solutions” and start digging. There is a great deal of options out there, so tread carefully and do your research.
8: Transfer Money Securely
The issue of how to transfer money securely over the internet has been a concern for many people who enjoy surfing on the web. However, most of them have a bit of a problem when it comes to the part that they have to transfer money for whatever reason. To be honest, they should be cautious when doing so. On the other hand there are systems out there that can make this process sometimes hard or easy and secure.
For the first time since I have been using computers and the internet, I am at a loss for how to transfer money. Oh, sure I know how to use the absolutely perfect system, PayPal, and knew immediately (when I first signed on with PayPal) how, in a heartbeat, to transfer money from my PayPal account to my bank account…but this is an unusual (and maddening) transaction I need to make. Here’s the story, in case anyone cares.
As a freelance writer who prefers investments and offering advice on money issues. I have worked online for a while now and two months ago I “contracted” with a company to write articles, which, as their website thoroughly defined, would be paid for by them through the writer’s choice of either PayPal, Western Union, or e-gold.
Again, I prefer to transfer money through PayPal, as it is easy—easier than learning to tie shoes is learning how to set up an account, transfer money, get paid, etc.. I checked out e-gold and was not impressed. Though minimalist in website design, it is also minimalist in information dispensation and in client services. And Western Union is fine if you are about to be evicted and Mommy sends you a wired amount of dough from her IRA account, but Western U also charges a hefty chunk to do so. So I took on this project knowing they used the ever dependable, reliable, and long-standing PayPal.
When time to pay me/us came around, they started posting notes on the writer boards, saying they were “having trouble” with their PayPal accounts and would we all please open e-gold accounts if we wanted to be paid on time; otherwise, they said, it would be a week or more through PayPal. I stuck with accepting the week or more option, as again I had no interested in hunks of metal in place of real US Dollars. Though, I WAS questioning how such a big company could have “trouble” with PayPal, considering how easy it is to send, receive, and transfer money…UNLESS they were “BS” about implying trouble and instead were greedily screwing someone somewhere along the way and found that impossible to do with PayPal.
After ten days of no pay, I invoiced and waited, invoiced again and waited, emailed and waited, called and waited. I was ignored, given the de-railing maneuver of “please invoice this XXX account instead of this YYY account, and could not reach anyone by phones—which either just ring and ring or give a voice recording that “no one is available”…CLICK…. I finally, after doing an intensive investigation of these freaks, found out they were not paying other writers either, were buying brand new homes in states 3,000 miles away from where their addresses indicated they were, and were decidedly going to blow me/us off, finally “spammed” their writer boards…as no other address or phone number was real, no way to communicate left me pissed.
In any event, make sure you know what you are getting into with the company that the will transfer money to you. Also when buying things online make sure the page is secured. Usually easily seen by the small “Lock” icon on the bottom of your browser.
9: The History of eBay
The History of eBay
eBay was founded in Pierre Omidyar’s San Jose living room back in September 1995. It was from the start meant to be a marketplace for the sale of goods and services for individuals.
In 1998, Pierre and his cofounder Jeff Skoll brought in Meg Whitman to sustain the success. Meg had studied at the Harvard Business School and had learned the importance of branding at companies such as Hasbro.
Meg culled her senior staff from companies such as Pepsico and Disney, created an experienced management team with an average of 20 years of business experience and built a strong vision for the company — that eBay is a company that’s in the business of connecting people, not selling them things.
They quickly shed the image of only auctioning collectibles and moved into an array of upscale markets where the average sale price (ASP) is higher. ASP is a key metric in determining eBay’s transaction fees, so increasing the ASP became an important item. By forging partnerships with namebrands such as GM, Disney and Sun, eBay has managed to do exactly that. Sun has sold
$10 million worth of equipment and it now lists between 20 and 150 items per day.
10: Electronic Fund Transfer Rights and Error Resolution
Liability for Unauthorized Transactions. You can inspect your transaction history at any time by logging in to your account on the PayPal website and clicking the “History” tab. It is very important that you contact us at once if you believe your user ID, password, your PayPal mobile user ID or PIN has been compromised, if your PayPal mobile activated phone has been lost or stolen or if someone has transferred or may transfer money using your account without your permission. Under applicable regulations, the extent of your liability for an unauthorized transaction may be determined by your promptness in notifying us if someone has gained access to any of the above, or if a payment or withdrawal shown in your History is incorrect or unauthorized. Notifying us quickly limits your liability:
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