Paypal is outdated, Google should replace it

PAYPAL is one of my favourite pet peeves. First, the online payments giant continues forcing lots of people outside the US to get a US bank account - or risk it on a paper cheque - if they want to be able to withdraw cash from their "virtual" paypal funds. The company's "approved signup countries" page includes a notice that reads:

"Users in these countries can withdraw funds by paper check or to a U.S. bank account, but _cannot withdraw funds electronically to their local bank account_".

Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Ecuador
India
Jamaica
Uruguay
(...)

But this is not really news, as I wrote about this sad situation back in 2004, and absolutely nothing has changed since then. Sometimes I wish that a company whose management understands there's intelligent life outside the US borders - like Google - would just end up buying an e-payment company that focuses on the "rest of the world", like Ikobo, to give Paypal some deserved kicking. Until that happens, sometimes there's no choice but to use Paypal when dealing with US based online sellers.

The straw that broke the camel's back, this time, was Paypal not letting me add my Visa debit card to my account as it is too long lived. How? Well, my Visa card expires in 2016, and Paypal's "drop down" box for "expiration date" only goes up to 2015. So here we have an example in stupidity. Visa issuing cards that expire in 2016, and Paypal thinking they know better and restricting the values even more, so that customers can't add their credit card data. Isn´t this great?

Also notice that as of today, you are offered the option of entering credit cards that expire in 2004 and 2005 as well. Isn´t that a bit... useless? Is someone getting paid to update the forms and he/she isn´t doing his/her job?, we wonder.

Card expires in 2016. Paypal only allows 2015 as highest value

I hear you all saying: "OK, big deal, just report it and they'll fix it". Yes, that's what I thought. So I clicked on the Help section, "ask your question", selected "credit card" as a topic, "Add Credit Card" as a "subtopic", and summarized the problem "in one sentence" as requested, so the underpaid overworked drones can grasp it, I guess?: "I cannot enter my Visa expiration date because it expires in 2016 and Paypal's form only goes up to 2015". So I clicked on "continue".

Trying to report the problem using paypal's contact form...

The result? A red warning box at the top of the same form that reads "You have requested an outdated PayPal page. To continue, please choose a topic and subtopic of your question from the list below". An outdated Paypal page?. Yeah, right! I went through the forms in circles, and there was no way to get the contact form processed. So I gave up.

"You have requested an outdated PayPal page". Oh really?

If someone at Google is reading this, could you P-L-E-A-S-E put us out of our misery and partner with Ikobo or a similar existing e-payments service that caters to an international audience and give Paypal some seriously needed kicking where it hurts?. If these alternative services haven't reached a wider global audience yet is because of "Paypal inertia" and Paypal's mindshare. With Google's mindshare and advertising, they would be a serious threat to paypal's current market. µ

See Also
Paypal, internet banking systems use wrong kind of sockets, plugs