PayPal warning - what alternative do you use?

[SMcCandlish]

Fine, then revise to "most banks will not call you". The number who will is going to dwindle to nothing, specifically because of the epidemic of fraudster phishing calls. Even caller ID can be faked, which means such a call can be faked.

General good advice should not be ignored just because someone somewhere in the world can come up with a marginal exception (and a third-party service isn't the bank, so doesn't directly contract my gist in the first place).

There are fraud-monitoring services you can subscribe to as well, and they might call you, but it would be better to have them use email or text messages, and then go to their website manually to verify that the alert/report is real.

[àluinn]

I used to work for an airline travelling all over the world, crew almost exclusively sue Revolut, has a number of useful features, the first of which it's entirely run on your phone. Second, their exchange rates are almost interbank. Third for online purchases you can set up a temporary credit card to pay for that item/service alone. Forth, it's incredibly easy to use and can use your phone to tap payments. Away from your own country you can keep on top of your spending and no need for significant amounts of cash unless its a cash economy. In Europe you only really need cash now for some streetfood and public transport.

It's available in a number of countries now you just need the residency/nationality ID they ask for.

Revolut have a referral program where I'd get £50 (value changes), if you are interested I can give you a link and send you the full amount.

[Couper]

It is the gullible that inflate those numbers because of "successful" phishing scams - and create more news for the media to sensationalize.

I have been using PayPal almost since its inception. I receive payments monthly from two online galleries where I display and sell my landscape/seascape photography. I usually have several thousands of dollars in transactions via PayPal each year, but not quite enough to trigger their 1099 tax reporting. I trust PayPal enough to not only use their credit card, but also to keep a saving account with them (currently paying 3.8%).

But, one must remain vigilant.