Hi Ralph,

If they can hack Paypal, then they could just hack your bank and/or credit card company directly. They would have no need to acquire credit card or banking information directly from you.

But in order to accept a Paypal payment the vendor must have his own Paypal account. That means the vendor never sees any of your credit card or banking information. So if he or she set up an online store for the purpose of acquiring people's credit card/banking information, they're out of luck.

You really should understand, however, that it is extremely unlikely that any given online vendor exists for that purpose. More likely any credit card theft, or other misuse of information, would be a crime of opportunity for the person working for the vendor and who handles the information in the course of their otherwise legitimate function. And once again Paypal prevents any such opportunity.

Finally, it's not that I dislike Paypal. In fact I have a Paypal account, mostly for buying and selling on eBay. That said, I do have a pet peeve against Paypal. They make it super fast and easy to get money into your Paypal account, but if you want to get it out then that's another matter. You either have to spend it through Paypal activity (e.g. via online payments or the use of a Paypal credit/debit card), ensuring that they get a cut, or you have to wait for them to cut a check and send it via postal mail. I think if they can instantly transfer money out of my bank account, they should be able to instantly transfer it back in as well.

Joe