Justin’s Blog

PayPal Review - How safe is PayPal?

I get this question a lot. I’ve also heard many people talk about how they wont do business with PayPal because they’ve heard of people getting victimized by PayPal. While I can’t speak for everyone else, I want to share a little bit of experience that may be helpful to some other users out there who might be on the fence about doing business on the Internet and choosing Paypal as a service provider.

First let me say that I’ve been a member of PayPal since 1998, (10 years) and have never lost money or had money stolen from me through their service. I can’t give an exact figure of the amount of money that has gone through Paypal in that time of my doing business with them but at times I’ve had over $3000 in my account from eBay sales or whatever. Anytime there was an issue, it was resolved amicably and quickly by contacting them.

PayPal Steals Your Money - not really

I’ve seen blogs and heard complaints like this many times but this usually isn’t the case. What happens is, people voluntarily give out their Paypal account information to phishing emails and then the thief gains access to the account based on what you’ve given them. Aside from that, they are working on security issues all the time to improve their services and prevent this type of stuff.

Identity Theft - How does a thief get my Information?

Let me tell you that they are brilliant. What they do is send you emails that look exactly like they are coming from PayPal. However, they usually address you, “Dear Paypal Member”. If the email was coming from Paypal, it would address you by your full name. They have links within these emails for you to verify your information and when an unsuspecting newbie follows those links and then offers their Paypal information on a page that looks like Paypal, guess what?… You’ve just become a victim. What I will do many times, because some of these email are so convincing, I’ll take and mouse over the link and see where it’s going to lead me to. Also, as soon as the email comes in that is suspicious at all, I’ll simply forward it to spoof@paypal.com and they will do whatever they do to stop it.

What is Phishing? - Fraud that is specifically designed to steal your identity. Usually, a phishing email will have a fake story that’s designed to lure you into clicking a link or button in the email or calling a phone number. The sender is trying to steal your identity by tricking you into revealing your password or other personal information.

When I signed up for a Paypal account originally, it was fairly easy. Now they want you to verify everything and rightfully so because there are so many fraudsters online. Many eBay sellers and others won’t even do business with you if you are not a verified Paypal Member. They do this by depositing two small amounts into a bank account number you have provided and then you have to put those amounts into their form. This seems to be a good verification system. Back in 1998 and 1999 it was much less secure.

Protect your Identity and Paypal Account Information

Here are a couple suggestions I can offer that not only apply to Paypal but to many other financial institutions that are online. I get similar emails from Chase, National City, eBay and any other account I have.

1. Paypal will NEVER ask you for full name and or password, PERIOD! 10 years I’ve been with them, they’ve never done such a thing… ever. So if they are asking you to verify your identity, they are out to steal it.
2. Never access Paypal from the links provided in the Email. Just don’t. Go to www.paypal.com and see if the message is in there and access your account only through direct navigation.
3. Attachments - Paypal will never attach anything to your email. If you get an email with an attachment that looks like it’s coming from Paypal, simply forward it to spoof@paypal.com and then add that sender to your junk email list and delete the email.

Currently and for many years, I’ve used Paypal for a number of transactions including an eBay power seller, selling domains, purchasing products in other countries, loaning my mates money, putting money on my wife’s card instantly, etc etc. I have it set up so my Paypal account, if empty will pull directly from my checking account and not worried a bit about it. I also have two other backup funding sources so many of my transactions will funnel through Paypal whether I have the money or not because it’s ads an additional layer of protection.

Also, I work with a Non Profit Organization that solely uses Paypal in their store check-out. At any given time there is between $1000 and $10,000 dollars in their account and since it’s been set up, it works seamlessly. Every month or so, I simply send a withdrawl request to Paypal and it transfers the funds to my clients Bank account within a couple days.

So, all in all, Paypal has provided nothing shy of superior services for my uses of it throughout my 10 year relationship. Most people that get taken advantage of are the ones who willingly give up their information to phishing scams. Here are a couple links that I’d advise you to take a look if you have any questions about security and Paypal.

Feel free to comment below if you have any concerns or specific questions. I’ll do my best to address them… and NO, I don’t work for Paypal.

• Paypal Online Saftey Essentials
• Paypal Online Phishing Challenge

Posted in Paypal, Reviews | 1 Comment »

Build a Niche Store - BANS Review

Monetizing Your Domain Names

As a domain name collector, I’ve found through the years that there are different ways to monetize traffic to a domain name. I’ve recently experienced a product called “Build a Niche Store“, and consider it to be the best $100 I’ve spent on a ClickBank product. With so many products out there on the market, it would be impossible to use them all but when it comes to monetizing domain names that fall into a niche category, Build a Niche Store is the best I’ve seen.

What is Build a Niche Store?

Build a Niche Store is basically a website system or builder that allows you to create a website quickly serving Niche eBay products via an affiliate RSS Feed from Commission Junction. Essentially, Build a Niche Store is a php software you can unzip and upload to your host and produce a basic eBay Niche store within minutes. The neat thing is that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do this. There’s also not an overwhelming learning curve. It’s simple and effective and it seems to be working well based on my experimentation with it so far. The product cost is around $100 and is available for purchase through ClickBank.com.

Niche Stores and Ebay

An eBay Niche store actually makes a lot of sense. If you think about it, you can go to eBay and it takes a while to find exactly what you are looking for. There are so many options and so many ways to search eBay, it can be confusing for someone wanting to browse a certain category. Basically with a Niche Store, you do that searching for them and provide them narrowed results in a nice looking template. The beauty of this is that eBay will pay you for products that are sold through your eBay store.

Hockey Store - StickRack.com - example

This was my first BANS site. Nothing fancy and not a lot of time into it, but effective so far in producing more income than it would if it were parked at Sedo, Fabulous, Domain Sponsor or any others. This website was basically slapped up on the server with about 2 hours getting used to how things work and reading directions. The neat thing is, it’s already producing a little bit of income which so far is more than traditional parking. The potential is there, the next step is optimizing. I’ll do some blogging on this as well.

How you make money with BANS - Build a Niche Store?

That’s simple. eBay has an affiliate program that is managed by Commission Junction that pays you for traffic you send through your site to eBay.

“You will be compensated for traffic you send to ebay.com in two distinct ways: earn between 50% and 75% of eBay’s Revenue (not item sale price) on ALL Winning Bids or Buy It Nows (BINs) within 7 days of an affiliate action AND up to $35.00 for each active registered user!”

Now, I’ve been an eBay powerseller and have sold products on eBay. There’s a lot involved in this. First you have to set up your eBay account… which can take up some time. Then you have to take pictures of items and write descriptions. Usually powersellers have some sort of services they purchase monthly to assist them with this. Once your product is sold, you collect payment and then box and ship to the user. Selling on eBay is not a piece of cake at all. It takes work and emails and following up with your customers. There are many times I’ve sold items and actually lost money on poor shipping calculations, PayPal fees, damaged goods, etc.

With BANS you just sell others peoples items. It’s that easy. The Build a Niche Store software is a content management system all by itself and you simply enter your CJ.com PID into the correct spot on the set-up and then enter the category number of the Ebay items you want to host. The auctions are fed into your site through the affiliate RSS feed. Essentially, you can set up and optimize a store and it’s on autopilot. Then build another one and keep going. The sky is the limit. What’s neat, is you are making money and not having to deal with all the headaches of being an eBay seller.

Here are some steps with Links to get you started:

1. Build a Niche Store - First step, read the page. Understand it. It’s not a lot of phony hype and it does work. It also provides you with exact directions. Purchase and download the zip file.
2. Commission Junction - Sign up through their affiliate program. Search for the Advertiser eBay and request to be added as an affiliate. This process is usually approved automatically and quickly.
3. Hosting Account - Get a hosting account through HostGator. For Niche Stores, I recommend the Swamp which is $14 a month and can host unlimited websites.

The rest is relatively detailed but not difficult at all. I will produce a video for this and upload it eventually with text to follow.

For anyone who purchases Build a Niche Store through my link and gets hosting from Hostgator, I will help you set up your first store as well as your hosting account. Use the contact me link on this website.

Posted in Niche Stores, Reviews | No Comments »