Attached Link: http://www.techtv.com/cybercrime/internetfraud/story/0,23008,3370214,00.html

Hope some of you find this as interesting as I do. This is from an article on TechTV's Cybercrime pages titled "Just Whose Pal Is PayPal?" dated May 7 (Click the link for full text); "Last year, PayPal had a backlog of more than 100,000 unanswered complaints, according to the Better Business Bureau. The backlog forced the Better Business Bureau to pull its seal of approval from PayPal. PayPal claims that many of these problems are caused by customers confused about exactly what kind of service PayPal is and how it works." Later in the article it says; "Of course, we couldn't easily find PayPal's phone number anywhere on the company's site. When we logged in under a "Premier" account, however, the phone number was located two Web pages deep. We had to click on "About Us" (at the bottom of the page) and then click on "Contact Us" (on the left-hand navigation bar). But you don't have to be a "Premiere" member and click through all those pages. We'll make it easy on you. Here's the number: 1-888-221-1161. This article is based on original reporting by "CyberCrime" freelance segment producer Lisa Huffman." I'd encourage anyone interested to either catch the actual Cybercrime episode that covers this (airing numerous times this week thru the 13th), or read the entire article at the link. I was leery about dealing thru Paypal after recieving notice that a popular Subscription News site where I was a member was going belly-up (bankrupt) because PayPal had sent them a vague Email about some irregularities and then frozen all payments to them followed by no contact or response to their (the site's) queries to them (PayPal) for days at a time. The site eventually pulled thru but no longer accepts PayPal. Another concern I had was the none of the PayPal payment pages I visited displayed the IE padlock symbol of a secured web page. I was later assured (by a vendor, PayPal never responded to me EMail) that this was due to the page displaying the vendor's logo, which was an "unsecured element" from the vendor's site (how tough would it be for PayPal to host their customer's Logo's on a secure server as a courtesy to eliminate this problem, anyway? Too much trouble for PayPal to consider, it seems). This being said, I must add that I have since then used PayPal a few times to complete several "must have" purchases from SAMS3D, PhilC, and others, and apart from a distaste for the wheedling Emails reminding me I wouldn't be eligable for their WHoop-De-Diddley-Do "Verified Status" unless I provide my checking account information (I prefer to live with the $1000.00 limit rather than do so), I haven't personally suffered any losses from the transactions. Jerry B leather-guy