The Coin of the Realm

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries.

Do you use PayPal? Practically every stamp collector with any sort of online presence does, especially buyers.

It's owned by eBay now... which had its own payment system, Billpoint, before 2002. PayPal was better, so eBay dumped Billpoint and bought PayPal.

It's fast, it's easy to use and for many users and uses, it's free. There are other online payment systems, but none has the popularity of PayPal.

That's not to say it doesn't have problems and drawbacks. It does sometimes shoot first and ask questions later when there's a dispute. If you need to add or withdraw money, it can take a few days; you can't just walk into a bank.

PayPal has another function for some stamp collectors: They can keep their philatelic funds separate from their general accounts... and away from the prying eyes of their spouses. We used to see separate stamp-collecting checking accounts. Now it's PayPal.

I'm Lloyd de Vries of The Virtual Stamp Club. For more on stamps and stamp collecting, visit virtual-stamp-club-dot-com.