Paypal

Personalized Payment Page: PayPal.Me

PayPal has been widely used by freelancers and other businesses to send and receive money. Over years many such payment gateways have emerged and still PayPal is a prominent tool for most people.

Personalized Payment Page
Now you can set up a personal page(Payment Profile Page) to receive money from your clients. Visit PayPal.Me and create a username and upload a profile picture, so that your clients know who they are sending money to. Make sure the username(vanity URL) reflects your business(my personal view) For example: My username is technotip which reflects my business name. If you’ve built or trying to build personal branding, then go with your name(and sure name, maybe) Ex: book authors.

Payment: One click payment
Once you create your payment page, you can append the amount along with the URL of your page and send it to your client. For Example: My page is at PayPal.Me/Technotip If I want to charge my client with $25, I would append it with the URL like this PayPal.Me/Technotip/25 and send it to him/her. Client can click the link and pay using his/her credit card or debit card or his/her PayPal account.

Why Personalized Page?
Some times we might type wrong email address / PayPal id and send money – this leads to days of back and forth email exchange to get the money back. I’ve an email ID with .org extension but sometimes(even after explicitly specifying it to clients) clients send money to .com extension and think I got the money. We need to bug PayPal support team to get back the money and channel it in right direction. With Personalized Payment Pages I can simply send the link and they can pay me in few seconds without any hassle.

PayPal Rules For Indian Users

How To Open/Create PayPal account ?

This could be the question people might start searching answer for in some months or years time. Because new users may not know all the information needed to open and start making use of PayPal account.

If you are an Indian PayPal user, then you have a different set of rules than PayPal users of other countries.

Here are the basic things to keep in mind while opening a PayPal a/c:
These are mandatory things to have, to open and enjoy the benefits of PayPal a/c.

1. PAN or Permanent Account Number
2. Purpose Code
3. Bank account in India

According to new PayPal rules, you should not keep any balance in your PayPal account for more than 7 days. It should be withdrawn to the bank a/c which is connected with your PayPal a/c with in 7 days, what-so-ever the conversion rates be on those days 🙁

PayPal also has auto-withdraw option available for Indian users.
Goto Profile -> Add/Edit Bank Account and click on “Make Auto Withdrawal” button.

Add PAN Number:

Your PayPal a/c -> Profile -> My Details -> Click on Add next to PAN.

Add Bank Account:

Your PayPal a/c -> Profile -> My Money -> Click on Add my bank next to Bank accounts.

Add Purpose Code:

Your PayPal a/c -> Profile -> My Money -> Click on Add next to Purpose Code.

Note: I’m a blogger and freelancer, I have added “Freelance journalism” as my purpose code.

Add Your Current Postal Address:

Your PayPal a/c -> Profile -> My Details -> Click on Update next to the Address field.

NOTE: One thing to know clearly is; From now you will not be able to pay for any product, service or anything using the balance present in your PayPal a/c. You should pay only by the credit card that is connected to your PayPal account. i.e., You have to first transfer the balance amount in your PayPal a/c to your Bank Account, and then pay from your Bank Account via your PayPal account! Now you may ask, whats the catch ? This is the rules RBI has set for Indian PayPal users, so we have to follow it.

Amemeber: All In One Solution For All Your Online Selling

I have seen many plugins that cost from a range of $95 to $800 that are used for creating membership sites, or some sort of sites that allow accepting payments.

Every other software script is built to solve any one particular problem. That is good, if someone has only one problem to solve and has a lot of money to spend!

But what if you want to create a membership site and also sell your ebook on the same site. And you have multiple income streems and you don’t want to depend on a third party website service to accept payment for you and then send it to your paypal a/c.

Amember is the solution. It doesn’t cost you a whole lot,.. its a great script which costs ( ~~$199.95~~ ) $179.95 – for single domain license. You will also get a license key for installing this script on your local machine(local host — wamp, mamp, xamp ).

There are various plugin’s which support integration of amember with WordPress, vBulletine, phpList etc. Below is a complete list.

aMember Pro ($179.95 for lifetime license with 6 months of free updates)
WordPress plugin (Free lifetime subscription)
“One-Time download” plugin ($30.00 for 6 months)
4Images plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
@Mail integration ($60.00 for 6 months)
CopperMine plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Dokeos plugin ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
DruPal plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Expression Engine plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
FusionBB ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
I-Rater plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Incremental content plugin ($60.00 for lifetime subscription)
Invision Board Plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Joomla plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
ListMail plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
MamboServer plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
OpenRealty plugin ($70.00 for 6 months)
OsCommerce ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
PerlDesk plugin ($20.00 for lifetime subscription)
Phorum plugin ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
PhotoPost integration ($40.00 for 6 months)
SMF plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Serendipity plugin ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
Vanilla Integration ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
WowBB plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
XOOPS plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
e107 CMS plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
phpBB3 plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
phpFox plugin ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
phpList Integration ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
phpNuke Plugin ($40.00 for 6 months) details
phpWebSite plugin ($40.00 for lifetime subscription)
punBB plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
vBulletin3 plugin ($40.00 for 6 months)
Facebook integration gate (new)

Some of these plugin’s cost $30 or $40 and the license in for lifetime. But WordPress integration plugin is free and its licensing is also for lifetime.

If you ever decide to sell something online make sure you check out amember, you will surly love it and save a lot of money in the long run of your business. See it as a good investment.

I wanted to explained how to install the script, but I advice you not to try this yourself. If you run into problem it will be difficult to analyse the root cause for the problem and solving it may take a lot of your valuable time. The good news is, you need not spend in hiring a professional to install it for you. In fact, once you purchase amember software you will get a one time free installation service.

Some of the things to know:
1. Security: Amember is a secure software for accepting money online. But I still recommend not to use this to accept credit card payments if you are on a shared hosting. If you are serious about your business then go for a dedicated server.
2. Troubleshooting: When you run into trouble with your script, contact amember support team directly. I had a minor issuse with my php.ini and Alex from amember sorted out the problem very quickly. And with all those email exchanges I had with the staff, I feel that their support staff is technically very strong.

Amember For Membership Sites:
Recently I setup a membership site for one of my clients and used amember and wordpress alone to create a very good, simple to navigate and maintain membership site.

You can run membership sites with recurring payments and also sites where you have multiple levels of memberships like: Silver, Gold, Platinum membership etc.

Basically I had installed WordPress two times. One in the root and the other in a directory called members. The root WordPress is like anyother WordPress powered blog. Its intended to be a public blog. Another WordPress installation was protected using amember and the access was allowed only to registered members. Its so simple and easy with amember.

Affiliate System To Boost Your Sales/Bussiness:
Amember also has a built-in affiliate system, which doesn’t seem to be as powerful as the dedicated affiliate system software out there. But it does its main job properly, that is, tracking the incoming affiliate traffic, setting the cookie and assigning the commission. What I would love to see is a graphical stats(pie chart, bar chart in the stats for visual representation) and some option to convert any link on the website into a affiliate code.
For example, people should be allowed to link to news letter page instead of sales letter page using their affiliate code. There are manual ways to do that of course, but a automated tool would help.
What I like the most about amember affiliate system is, we can assign affiliate code automatically to everyone who is signed up as a member(we can enable or disable this option easily in the admin area).

On the administrator side of affiliate system, it does a lot of great job. It has option to set first month affiliate payment percentage and percentage for rest of the month etc – we can even set subsequent months payment to null. This model is very helpful where members pay monthly fees and affiliate get commission for each of the payment their referrals make in the subsequent months.

Members area of amember:
In members area, members will have the option to manage their news letter subscription, there is a news letter archieve page, and affiliate statistics(that is the number of clicks, conversion etc).

With all these nice experience with amember, at one place I was stuck-up and felt like a stupid myself! That is, when I forgot my admin panel password and there was no way to recover it 🙁
I think amember purposefully have not included a option for password recovery for admin panel(other members who have signed up for your service have option for password recovery. Its only in the login page of admin panel that doesn’t have a password recovery option.)

That’s just a lesson for rest of you, don’t forget your admin panel password – you will be in trouble!

Things I like about amember:
1. Costs less.
2. It has a super easy DB backup system.
3. Integrates with a lot of open source scripts.
4. Has a lot of payment options. Including the popular PayPal.
5. Sophisticated mailing system(You can integrate it with aweber using plugin. But it works just fine even without aweber.)
6. Simple affiliate system.
7. Free installation(very important!)
8. Report import/export option.
9. DB repair option.
10. Recurring billing.
11. Good Support.
12. Active forum.
13. Good Documentation about all the features and options.
14. Members area user interface is very simple, easy to understand and get use to.
15. 30 days free trial.(very important)

What I don’t like and want to be improved:
1. Not so pleasing user interface in admin side.
2. Would like to have visual representation of stats in affiliate system.

Server Requirement:
PHP 4.3.0 or later
MySQL 3.22 or later
Unix/Linux hosting

Before you purchase any membership software or any other software for selling your products, go ahead and download the free trial of amember and try it. Remember, you get a 30 days free trial of amember.

Update: Alex informed me that, there is a nice tool to recover admin password. Here is the link aMember CP login/password.
It can be reset using this tool: FixAdmin

PayPal Teaching Security Measures to Its Customers

Many days ago we had received an email from paypal@something.com, which said to click on a link and enter my credit card information by loging into PayPal account. We knew that the email was not from PayPal(by looking at the from address of the email), but still we clicked it to test(not recommended), and the link took us to a fake website resembling PayPal. And to our astonishment, the fake website was almost an exact clone of PayPal website. Newbies and ignorant people would just do everything the email had stated them to do and you know what will happen next!

What I did was, just entered some wrong username and password(to loginto that fake PayPal like website), guess what? Any random, wrong username and password will longinto such websites. The next thing was, it prompted us to enter our Credit Card number. There also I entered some nonsense numbers. And finally it poped up a hearty message saying “Thank you”.

We do not recommend anybody to try what we did with the phishing email link. We did all those things at our own risk.

And as this was our first experience with such phishing email, we just informed about the email and the fake website to PayPal team. And got this reply email from PayPal:

Dear Satish,

Thanks for taking an active role by reporting suspicious-looking
emails.
The email you forwarded to us is a phishing email, and our security
team is working to disable it.

————————-
What is a phishing email?
————————-
Phishing emails attempt to steal your identity and will often ask you to
reveal your password or other personal or financial information. PayPal
will never ask for your password over the phone or in an email and will
always address you by your first and last name.

Take our Fight Phishing Challenge at https://www.paypal.com/fightphishing to learn 5 things you should know about phishing. You’ll also see what we’re doing to help fight fraud
every day.

————————-
You’ve made a difference.
————————-
Every email counts. By forwarding a suspicious-looking email to
spoof@paypal.com, you’ve helped keep yourself and others safe from
identity theft.

Thanks,

The PayPal Team

——————————————————————————–

That email really made me think PayPal as more secure. As the secure feeling was still in my mind, another email was spotted in my email. Now I forwarded it to spoof@paypal.com. Now, this time I got still better reply from PayPal, which was more informative:-

Dear Satish,

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

At PayPal, we care about the security of your account. Therefore, we
would like to offer you a number of Security Tips.

The tips will help you protect yourself against various types of
Internet fraud, such as ‘spoofing’ and ‘phishing’: the act of collecting
personal and financial information through fake emails, websites and
phone calls.

Using this sensitive information, the perpetrators will try to commit
identity theft, credit card fraud and various other illegal activities.

So please read the tips below, for your own sake, and in the interest
of all PayPal users.

Emails – Make sure they are sent from PayPal

1. Always check the greeting. We will never address you with Dear
PayPal User or Dear PayPal Member. Instead, we will address you by your
first and last name, or the business name associated with your PayPal
account – except in some automatic responses.

2. Look for strange links. When you’re asked to click on a link in
an e-mail that looks like it’s from PayPal, be extremely cautious.

3. Does the e-mail ask you to enter sensitive information? If it
does, it’s not from us. PayPal will never ask to you enter:
o Bank account numbers
o Credit and debit card numbers
o Drivers license number
o Email addresses
o Your full name

4. Check for attachments. PayPal will never send an attachment or
software update to install on your computer.

5. Take your time, don’t be rushed. Spoof emails can contain a
threat: You must take action, and do it now. If you feel undue
pressure, don’t respond. Simply log in to your account, and check your Resolution Center.

Website pages – make sure that they are hosted by PayPal

1. Check the URL when you log in. When you use the PayPal service,
make sure that the URL at the top of the browser is
https://www.paypal.com/. This means the website is secure. If you see a different URL, close your browser – even if it contains the word
PayPal.

2. Look for the lock. The lock symbol that appears in the bottom
right hand corner of your browser means it is a secure site.

Passwords – keep it on PayPal

1. Last but not least, create a unique password for your
PayPal-account. Don’t use this password on any other site and don’t
share it with anyone else.

2. Change your password every month.

If you think you have received a fraudulent email, forward the entire
email, including the header information to spoof@paypal.com and then
delete the email from your mailbox.

Click the “Security Center” link on any PayPal webpage for additional
tips and tools for staying safe online.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us
again.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey
PayPal, an eBay Company
————————————————————————————————–

I was very much happy that PayPal is concerned about its customers.
Now PayPal has taken yet another step to teach its customers, to make them authority of online fraud detection and prevention techniques.

Now you can see an ad on the HomePage of PayPal and which will take you to https://www.paypal-promo.com/safety/ when clicked.

paypal-security-measure
This site is made of flash and its visually appealing and gives full information about online fraud detection and prevention techniques.
It involves “Training Center”, where it tells about online theft and protection measures etc. And next is, it has an “Safety Exam” section where you will be presented with some questions and answers(in the form of options) to test your levels of understanding about online fraud detection and prevention techniques. Next is the “Safely Calculator”, calculates “How safe your PayPal account Is?”, by determining your answers to some of the questions.
And there is also a section called “Safety Products”, which lists some of the safety products developed at PayPal Lab — Take a look at it, they may be for you.

One thing which we never knew and came to know from this website are:
PAYPAL SECURITY KEY
All agents need gadgets. Customers in the US, Germany and Australia can use the PayPal Security Key, a small electronic device that generates a unique security code every 30 seconds.
You use this security code when you log in to your PayPal account, giving you an extra layer of protection against identity theft and account takeover. Hope this feature will be available soon in all countries where PayPal transactions are allowed. And for those who are deprived of this feature presently can make use of one of their Plug-In which offers an array of security features by generating a single-use MasterCard credit card numbers to help keep your financial information’s secure.

In India RelianceMoney demat account holders have been using such Security Key to generate new password for their account every 30 seconds. PayPal taking such measures creates an healthy, secure feeling in its customers.

Update:-
Please do not even click on the suspicious links found in your phishing emails. Because now a days the scripting(script programming) has become so powerful that, if you click on such links, a worm can be placed inside your computer(which may track your activities later). Clicking on such links is just like permitting the script to access your information.

Get 20$ FREE Advertising credit of Bidvertiser, using paypal a/c

We could see that, many people use their paypal account for the internet transaction, than their Credit Cards. And many people contacted us about this issue, after reading this “Best Pay Per Click Network- Bidding System” article.
So we thought of writing about it, for more clarification….

We could see that, many people use their PayPal account for the internet transaction, than their Credit Cards. And many people contacted us about this issue, after reading this “Best Pay Per Click Network- Bidding System” article.

So we thought of writing about it, for more clarification….

There is an option to use PayPal. (In case you use PayPal, there is a minimum deposit of 20 USD in order to claim the 20 USD free bonus).
bidvertiser-add-fund
To fund your account, signup as Bidvertiser Advertiser. Goto “Advertisers Center” tab and hit the “Manage funds”—>”Add funds” tabs. Then select the amount that you want to transfer from your PayPal account. You can fund 20$ or 50$ or 100$ or 150$ or 200$ or 300$, the choice is left on your budget.

Select the amount and then click on “Add Fund” button. Then you will be taken to secure payment server of Bidvertiser, there you click on the ” prefer PayPal” link in the top of that page. Then you will be taken to PayPal billing page or you can login to your paypal account(see below screen shots) to fund your Bidvertiser account.
bidvertiser-paypal-funding

Once you start advertising and your 20$ + 20$(Free) gets finished, then you can just pause all your ads.
bidvertiser-paypal-login
Do not miss this opportunity to advertiser with Bidvertiser, with FREE 20$. You can actually get lot of benefit from Bidvertiser Advertising, as you only pay when somebody clicks on your ad. No CPM costs will affect your money and you can display your ads on thousands of websites. Signup as Bidvertiser Advertiser and get one of the best Adverting deals.

Best Pay Per Click Network- Bidding System

Technotip.org uses AdSense, Bidvertiser and Chitika as PPC advertising.
But I feel that bidvertiser has some very good features that I miss in both AdSense and Chitika.

Technotip.org uses AdSense, Bidvertiser and Chitika as PPC advertising.

But I feel that bidvertiser has some very good features that I miss in both AdSense and Chitika.

*You get 20$ in free clicks with Bidvertiser, using which you can advertise on our blog(and on any blog using Bidvertiser)…to use it click here.

Get 20$ FREE credit of Bidvertiser, using paypal a/c

Bidvertiser has the following features(some of these are present in AdSense, but not all):

1. You can display eBay ads, which gets more CTR.
bidvertiser-ebay-ads

2. Endless customization. We can customize the ad to the look and feel of our blog/website. Color, size(we can create any width and height of our choice), font size, format, ad open in new window or in the same page)…etc.

3. We can track the clicks by logging into our account.

4. Bidvertiser for feeds. We can also monetize our feeds, by integrating the easy to use Bidvertiser for feeds. It can be integrated with any feed service.

5. It has a top class referral program. You can see many “A” grade bloggers using Bidvertiser banners to promote bidvertiser. This is because, Bidvertiser provoids a very good income for referring it to new advertisers or publishers.

Earn money by directing users to signup with BidVertiser

Place a Referral button or a text link on your site and you will start to earn money when a user clicks on your button or link and signs as an advertiser or a publisher:

When a user signs as an advertiser and first spends $10, Bidvertiser will credit your account with $5. When that same advertiser spends $50, you will be credited with an additional $20.

When a user signs as a publisher and first earns $10, Bidvertiser will credit your account with $10. When that same publisher earns $50, you will be credited with an additional $40.

Your earnings will be tracked in your Referral control panel, including clicks, sign-ups and conversions.

6. Minimum target to get the payment is $10. Bidvertiser pay monthly, either by check or instantly through PayPal, and the minimum target to get payment is 10$.

7. Simply display the BidVertiser text ads on your website and let advertisers bid against each other!. And the highest bidder will be allowed to advertise on your blog and hence you will be getting maximum benefits from each ad spot.

8. Have your bidding steadily improved over time
You will see a constant improvement in your bidding over time, as both your visitors and advertisers will be exposed to the opportunity of bidding against each other on your ad space.

9. Block any unwanted ad
BidVertiser enables you to filter-out any unwanted ads. Prior to your own filtering, each ad has to be pre-approved by Bidvertiser editorial team. This mechanism gives you a peace of mind with regards to the ads displayed on your website.

10. BidVertiser does NOT accept websites that:

Produce, provide or link to:
- Adult content
- Sexual content
- Excessive profanity
- Illegal drugs or related content
- Hate speech or hate graphics content
- Click frauds are taken very seriously and strictly.

I am just using one 125 x 125 ad spot in this blog and that itself is yielding me good payment each month. The revenue share that I get for each click is more than that I get from AdSense. But the only problem for me to have all Bidvertiser Ads on my blog is, its not highly contextual. The Advertiser who bids on our ad spot, will be allowed to show his ads until he wishes or until he is outbid by some other advertisers. So its difficult to get contextual ads.

And as I have seen, it requires time to get more exposure among advertisers. I have an old website with just 2 or 3 pages, and Bidvertiser shows ads all the time in that website. But Technotip.org is still a new blog, so sometimes there will be default advertisement(referring advertisers to advertiser on my blog, with free clicks of 20$).

And the main advantage is, advertisers get 20$ in free click, to advertise on any site using Bidvertiser. And this is a great advantage to refer any advertiser to Bidvertiser. And by referring advertiser you get the referral income too.

When there is no ads to server to your ad spot, this default advertisement referring advertisers to Bidvertiser will be shown.

And Advertisers get these features:

Site-Targeted Advertising
With BidVertiser, you decide where your ad will be displayed. They allow you to either browse through or search the categorized directory of sites and select only the appropriate ones for your business.

Traffic Origin
BidVertiser allows you to display your ads within a geographic range you determine. Simply choose your geographic targeting and your ads will be shown only to users located anywhere in the country or countries you selected.

Ad Creative
With pay-per-click model, you only pay for clicks you receive. The user that sees your ad knows exactly what you have to offer and only if he finds your offer appealing, he will willingly click on it to visit your site.

Advertisers can also Drive Buyers to their eBay Listings and Stores, using the free 20$ clicks.

So whatelse do anyone want to get started….?

Your earnings depend on your smartness. How well you integrate those ads into your blog/website. Your skill to bled the ads. Selecting the right ad formats which suites your site template…etc.

I always use customized size(width and height) on my other blog. This has given me high returns.

We have heard this many times, in many blogs — “Do not put all your eggs in single basket”. So just using one advertising network is not advisable. You can atleast use the referral program of Bidvertiser to earn a lot of passive income.

Bidvertiser can be used in overcoming the disadvantages of automated systems Content Match, where neither the advertiser nor the publisher has any control of the advertisements’ quality, pricing and timing. Bidvertiser On-Site Bid Per Click offers website owners with the ability to sell their ad space, automatically, to the highest bidder, on a price-per-click basis, where the price is mostly effected by the quality and popularity of their website. Advertisers can place ads directly on sites of their choice and pay only when a visitor clicks-through their site.

We will be writting about bidvertiser and some strategies to improve the earnings through Bidvertiser. So please keep comming back and signup to our email or rss feed.

So, if you want to signup as Bidvertiser Publisher, then click here.

And if you want to signup as Bidvertiser Advertiser, then click here.