For example let’s say I wanted my co-worker to work the late shift and I wanted to work the early shift everyday for a year. I know it sounds ridiculous but, to me it would be worth almost anything! So if I want it I would have to make it worth it for him.

Surely, I would get laughed at if I asked him to do it out of the kindness of his heart – now if I put $1000 behind my offer I think he would HAVE to take it – feel me?

So it is a pretty simple service that anyone can use. With or without a Paypal account.

Let’s take a look at it.

Point your browser to Paypal’s Do Stuff For Money site and watch the intro or hit the skip button to get right into it.

Now as you can see below, they are taking a play on money and letting you fill in the following fields:

• The Service You Want Done
• Your Name
• The Persons Name You Want To Do The Deed
• And Don’t Forget Your Offer!

After filling it out the form at the bottom of the note, you will see the note’s fields actually populate. It will look like this when you are done:

Then you hit “Send Offer” to actually send the request to your recipient. Remember that your offer may be posted to the site’s home page as an example of a “Past Offer” if PayPal sees it fit. So maybe, you shouldn’t use your significant other’s real full name when requesting sexual acts

After hitting “Send Offer” you will see this form:

Send the request either by email or Facebook. You will see this message when you have completed the steps:

The email will look like this:

Hey Yo’Mamma,

I just made you an offer at PayPal’s DoStuffForMoney to do a specific task for a specific price. Interested?
To view this offer, click here:  http://www.paypal-dostuffformoney.com/review/2710

Your industrious friend,
AskTheAdmin

PayPal’s DoStuffForMoney
“Because just asking isn’t always enough.”
Want to send your own offer? Visit www.paypal.com/dostuffformoney
Learn more about sending money with PayPal at www.paypal.com/sendmoney

Pretty neat eh? Got some crazy ideas about what you are going to do with this service? If so, leave them in the comments!

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This is why it’s important for every Paypal user to understand how to keep your Paypal account safe. Knowledge is power – and if you know how they do it, you have the power to stop them.

How Hackers Attempt To Access Your Paypal Account

Yes, it is possible for a criminal to gain access to your Paypal account. However, it’s also important to keep in mind that despite all of the melodramatic news reports you may hear about the terrible threat hackers pose to online security, foiling those criminals is actually very easy, even for people who aren’t technically savvy.

The following are the most common methods criminals use in order to break into your Paypal account.

• When you open an infected attachment inside an email from a friend or a stranger, keylogger software gets installed on your PC that attempts to capture every keystroke from your keyboard, and then it sends that data to a remote Internet location, where the hacker can parse through and extract your passwords.
• If they obtain your Paypal account password from the keylogger, the job is done. However, if they can only obtain your email password, they can go to the Paypal website, request a password reset, and then access your email in order to retrieve the new password to your Paypal account.
• Another more common tactic is to send out thousands of “phishing” emails, disguised to look like an official Paypal email. You click the link to the fake Paypal website, enter your email and password, and the game is over.

How to Keep Your Paypal Account Safe From Phishing

The phishing technique is the most popular because the authentic-looking email fools so many people.  Here is a sample of one such email (I get about 2 or 3 of these a month).

However, if the email was put together by a sloppy hacker, you’ll notice that with most email applications, if you place the mouse over the link (but don’t click on it!), you’ll see the actual link at the bottom.

As you can see, “orionresidence.com” isn’t exactly Paypal.com. However, even if this bottom link does report “Paypal.com,” the easiest method you can use to keep your paypal account safe is by never clicking any link inside a Paypal email. If you want to check your account, open a new browser window, go directly to Paypal, and log in.

While avoiding “phishy” Paypal emails will protect you from the bulk of problems, there’s still the matter of hard-core hackers. These are the ones who are a bit more savvy, and will look for ways to guess your password, search your computer for login information, or install keyboard logging software on your PC. There are ways to thwart all of those attempts as well.

How to Keep Your Paypal Account Safe with a Strong Password

First, sign up for a new free email account and use that email for your Paypal profile, but don’t use it for any other purpose. Most hackers like to scour likely social networks or websites, like eBay, for email addresses that are likely also used in Paypal accounts, and then target those email addresses with their phishing or virus email campaigns. Also, change your Paypal password and the password of your email account, to a difficult-to-guess password that includes upper and lower case letters, numbers, and at least one or two special characters like an exclamation point or the pound (#) sign.

If you need some tips for creating solid passwords MakeUseof author Damien Oh had an excellent article about it earlier, see Create Strong Passwords That You Can Remember Easily.

For even stronger Paypal security, consider using a security key. When you’re logged into your Paypal account, click on “Security Center” at the top, “Security Tools” on the left menu bar, and then “Paypal Security Overview.” You’ll see the following screen.

When you click “Get Yours Now,” you can choose between a hardware key, or a mobile key. The hardware key costs $5 for shipping & handling, but it features a digital code that changes every thirty seconds. You can’t log into the Paypal account without it, and it’s virtually unhackable. The mobile key method is free. After you enable your account for it, you simply text Paypal for the code, and they text message the security key back to you.

Keep Your Private Data Safe With Portable Apps

Another method you can use to safeguard your Paypal account is to always carry around a thumbdrive with a portable web browser installed that runs directly off the thumbdrive. You can view more details on how to install portable apps from this article. Below I’ve connected to Paypal using the portable version of Firefox running off my Cruzer thumbdrive.

By using this approach, all log files and history is stored on your thumbdrive, and not on the PC itself.  This not only protects you from scripts that search typical PC locations for Internet logs, but it also provides security from the next person who uses the computer inadvertently coming across your information.

Use Anti-Keylogger Software for Extra Security

Finally, to protect yourself from keyboard logging software that may have infected your computer without your knowledge, it’s best to play it safe and install applications like the SnoopFree privacy shield, described in this article, which prevents the keylogger from accessing the I/O data coming from your keyboard.  Another approach to circumvent the keyboard completely is by using a portable on-screen keyboard to log into your Paypal account, as I’m doing below.

If you are confident that your computer is completely clean of any trojan or keylogger, simply avoiding Paypal phishing emails and using strong passwords with the Paypal security key will provide more than enough protection to keep your Paypal account safe.

However, if you aren’t certain how clean your computer is, or you’d like to access Paypal from public PC’s, it’s always best to play it safe by also using a portable browser, a privacy shield, and an on-screen keyboard.

With all of those tools in your arsenal, the only way a hacker will get through your concrete wall of security is with an atomic bomb.

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Amazon has entered the ring of online payment services which will compete directly with PayPal and Google Checkout.

Amazon’s new service is called Amazon Checkout. Surprised? I’m not! Big companies do well keeping things simple. That old KISS principal

I logged on and signed up. The process was pretty painless and very similar to that of PayPal and Google. The whole email, bank and cell phone verification aid in proving to the Amazon Overlords you are who you say you are. If you are familiar with the other services mentioned you have jumped through these hoops before.

You can send and request money, add additional funding sources. There is nothing here that really jumps up at you and makes you go WOW. But it does appear to be a solid service and a great alternative to PayPal and Google.

What sets this service apart from the others is when choosing to integrate it into your website you automagically gain the ability to use your customers saved data for easier processing and one click purchases will help potential buyers buy even quicker.

Amazon has built up a successful reputation and people trust them so this may encourage people to buy more.

Sure this is great for merchants – it gives people looking to spend money another option. But I hear you saying:

“What does it do for me, Joe User?”

It gives you another option as well. Options bring competition which spawn discounts and reward programs. So you should be happy even if you aren’t planning on using it.

According to this excerpt from a TimesOnline article PayPal still rules supreme… But for how long?

PayPal remains by far the most popular payment service, but does not offer one-click purchase. Online retailers using the system will typically display a ‘buy now’ button which, when clicked, takes the customer to a PayPal site where he or she has to enter a user name and password. Amazon’s service promises to allow other retailers to sell goods with one click.

Check out this screen shot of my Account – does it look surprisingly similar to payPal?

Don’t pay attention to my $0 balance as my MakeUseOf expense account didn’t allow for me to make any purchases.

I used Google Checkout when it came out – briefly… Do you know why? Well I got 10% off my first order! That was a good enough reason to sign up but I haven’t been back around there in a while.

What do you use for online payments? Let us know and why – in the comments!

(By) Karl L. Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry who wears many hats and changes in telephone booths. Karl mostly uses his powers for good and the occasional hysterical prank. Get your geek on & follow his geeky antics at NEW askTheAdmin.com today.

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PayPal Plugin (US only) – The ultimate protection for your PayPal account. And here is how it works: when you want to purchase something and are asked to fill-in credit card details, instead of giving your real card details, you can use the plugin to generate a secure single-use MasterCard number that debits from your PayPal account. And since the card is valid for only one purchase your info always remains secure.

PayPal Mobile (US, UK only) – Check your account balance, send money, request money, pay for eBay auctions and contact Paypal support team directly from your mobile phone. All the above features can be used in several ways, via mobile website (mobile.paypal.com), using text messaging or through automated phone support.

Paypal Debit Card – The fastest way to get money out of your PayPal account. You can use it pretty much anywhere where MasterCard is accepted (ATMs, Restaurants, Gas stations etc.).

Requirements:

• Have US PayPal Business or Premier account.
• Must be PayPal member for at least 60 days.
• Is a verified PayPal member
• Be active PayPal member with account in good standing.

PayPal Facebook App – There are two things you can do with this app. (1) It offers a simple way for other to pay you back. (2) You can also use to raise funds from friends for all kind of events such as parties, birthday gifts etc.

PPcalc – Having trouble figuring out Paypal fees? This online PayPal fee calculator lets you quickly calculate how much you need to charge to get the amount you’re looking for. Similarly you can also use it to calculate how much you will be charged for an incoming payment.

FatFreeCart – Free shopping cart for your website. It’s very simple to implement (simply copy-paste) and supports both PayPal and Google Checkout. No registration required, simply fill in the details and let FatFreeCart generate the code. Copy and paste the code onto your website and you got your own shopping cart. Actually, PayPal has its own cart creator but unlike FatFreeCart it doesn’t work with Google Checkout and is available to only Prremier and Business accounts.

Send Money to Skype contacts – In case you don’t know, now Skype allows you to send funds to your contacts.

Paypal Payment Request for Outlook – Using this Outlook addon you can request money from anyone with an email address. In particular, it lets you add Pay Now, Buy Now, Donate, Subscribe and Tip Jar buttons to your emails.

PayPalSucks – So far it’s been all good, but what about the negative sides of PayPal. PayPal Sucks is all about that. Here you can post and discuss your PayPal compaints (i.e. frozen accounts), see complaints from others, read about fraud stories, lawsuits, and pretty much everything that is wrong with PayPal.

Source: PaypalSucks.com

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