PayPal-Safe or Unsafe?

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The reason for this question is the talent agency I work through for voice overs has been pushing me to start a PayPal account to receive pay for my work. But hearing all the stuff about 'hacking' and internet crimes, etc. I'm leary of sending bank account info electronically. Any thoughts on this?

I thought PayPal was mainly for people who use eBay.

Tim

According to the agency I work through, PayPal is a generic pay method. But I still have concerns about that. The only site that has my bank info (their security is better than the VA) is amazon.com where I purchase dvds. etc from.

I haven't had any trouble with paypal - you have to watch out for spoof emails from people attempting to get your information from you based on the fact that you have a paypal account, but otherwise they seem really good . . . my ebay account got hacked twice (but to ebays credit they caught it and changed my password very quickly) but I've never had a problem with paypal . . .

You'll be accepting money, not sending it - right? I was thinking for extra security you could use your credit card instead of your bank account, but that won't work to accept money . . .

Before I would start an account with PayPal. I think I should ask someone from where I bank first. Then go from there.

My only experience with paypal has been this: My husband went to the bank one morning to withdraw our house payment. He phoned me in shock. Our account had been drained. To make a long story as short as possible, my daughter's then-boyfriend had opened up a paypal account using identity theft, and charged a lot of stuff to our bank account. I won't go into how we found out it was him, but luckily, we caught it in time to get our money back.

The moral of this is, always lock up all your bank statements and other information. We had always kept that type of stuff in a desk drawer, and had never thought that a person we allowed to live with us was low enough to steal from us. It was a learning experience.