Is paypal a safe way to send money to person i don know?
It is the payment method of choice for all transactions on ebay which actually owns Paypal. As mentioned in responses above, your personal data will be encrypted and kept on paypal’s server, and will not be revealed to the merchant receiving the money. Just be sure you’re not talking to a fake paypal 😉 I’m not sure, but I believe that there is an option which requires Paypal to confirm any payment by email before charging you. Similar services are being launched by Google and Amazon. But I understand that these are redirect services that involve redirecting the user to Google / Amazon’s servers to complete the payment before returning to the original site. By comparison, PayPal offers an integrated solution that allows users to remain on the original ecommerce site. I’ve never tried this, but I understand that in addition to merchants with their own websites, you can use Paypal to pay anyone with an email address or phone number instantly.
