As you prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, take a moment to consider how you will pay for your gifts. Consumers Union reminds us that:

• When you buy with a debit, rather than credit, card, you won't have as much limited-liability protection, the right to dispute a charge, to hold up payment, or withhold payment while in dispute.
• If you use PayPal and it is linked to your checking account/ debit card, the same lesser protections apply. It suggests changing your PayPal account to draw from a credit card, to get this extra level of protection. The same goes with Google Checkout. Some WalletPop readers have had poor results from PayPal's Buyer Protection feature, so if you depend on this program to backstop your purchases, I'd suggest reading the fine print carefully.
• Before you select a "Bill Me Later" option, consider that you're opening a new credit account, which will result in a "hard inquiry' to the credit bureau. A number of hard inquiries can drop your credit score and raise the interest rate when you finance a large purchase such as a car or house.
• Also, those "90 days same as cash" offers often carry a hefty interest rate penalty if the minimum payment is late.

Hopefully, you've been saving up your pennies all year and have money in hand for your holiday shopping. I'd suggest depositing it to your credit card account on the way to the mall. You can then use your credit card without worrying about running up debt, as long as you keep a running total of what you've spent. If you don't have a pocket calculator, put that at the top of your list!

Chalk up another public relations problem for eBay, the uber-successful company that can't seem to get it right anymore. Oh sure, eBay is still raking in money hand over fist, but who knows how long that will continue if the company keeps alienating its bread and butter.

Last week eBay announced a fee change that could likely entice more sellers to the site: Sellers will now pay 35 cents to list as many of the same fixed price items as they want, instead of charging a fee to list each item separately. This sounds good, although critics say that this new move favors larger sellers and puts very small sellers at an economic disadvantage.

This change was paired with a nother controversial change that may turn off some sellers and buyers. Starting in mid-October, eBay will only allow sellers to accept electronic payments, including credit card, PayPal, or ProPay. Sellers will not be able to accept cash, check, or money orders.

Word on the street is that eBay is trying to be nicer to its customers in order to win some of them back. Ticked off buyers and sellers around the world have made it no secret that things at eBay haven't been good for a while.

One example: eBay has gone "PayPal only" in Australia, and people think that's a sign of things to come in the United States. By allowing only PayPal to pay for auctions, eBay has suggested things will be safer. Customers know better. All that will happen is eBay will make more money.

The latest eBay idea is to offer "more" buyer protection. (I put more in quotes, because that sentence suggests that buyers are currently protected, and there are plenty of unhappy eBayers who might say differently.)

Although New York is definitely not the book wonderland that it once was, it still has quite a few places for the hard-core bibliophile to curl up, search the stacks, and find a great book at a great price.

However, as a cheapskate and recovering bookaholic, I tend to check out books from the library first, choosing only to buy the ones that I really, really need. By following this method, I've managed to cut down my yearly book purchases to only a few dozen volumes; by my standards, this is just a small fix, a little something to get me through.

This, by the way, is the bibliomaniac version of methadone treatment.

Have you ever purchased something on eBay, paid with PayPal, and felt good because you're got their "buyer protection" guarantee? Unfortunately, buyers aren't as protected as they might think they are. Sure, PayPal agrees to help resolve disputes between you and the seller, but that doesn't mean that you're going to win your dispute, even when all the evidence is in your favor.

Witness this story from a WalletPop reader who was scammed by an eBay seller, and then felt victimized a second time by the lack of results from PayPal:

My consumer scam involves PAYPAL which is a ruthless, money grubbing Ebay company. They get to operate like a bank, allow consumers to think they ARE a bank, pretend to offer "Paypal Protection," when it is all a scam to get and keep consumers' money as long as they can.

Let me start out by saying that I am a small time Ebay Powerseller, with 100% positive feedback. I have been selling small vintage and antique auction items fairly regularly since 2005. I have used Paypal to receive and send payments early on so had always been a great customer and independent agent for Ebay and of Paypal.

We should be used to this by now. Yet another money grubbing directive has surfaced from mother eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), As covered in a story in The New York Times, eBay has decided to test market the strategy of allowing payment for transactions on its site solely through its wanton money portal, PayPal. The company intends to run this test on Australian eBayers. I wonder if our mates Down Under would be willing to tell us how they feel about this strategy?

eBay is claiming that this change in operating procedure will lower the incidences of fraud on the site. That's funny coming from them, when you consider that the worst eBay fraud nightmares generally run through its own PayPal system. I can believe that eBay's own fraud exposure might be cut by funneling everything through PayPal, but that's about eBay's bottom line. It's not about the bottom lines of its loyal patrons. The matter is further examined in this Associated Press article.

BloggingStocks reports that, as it stands right now, PayPal collects 2.9% from every sale which runs through its system in the U.S., plus another .30 cents for any sale under $3,000. The picture gets even gloomier for Australian eBayers, where PayPal charges 4.4% on sales, plus the additional .30 cents. What percentage of eBay Australia's sales currently run through alternate payment means? That's what I want to know.

If this change is enacted by eBay against the entirety of it's operations, it will be just one more step in the inevitable creation of "Wal-Bay", a site where large volumes of foreign made junk will be peddled by a thin crust of well protected sellers. In the meantime, alternate online selling strategies continue to take hold and grow as eBay's own growth has stalled. eBay can fake revenue growth for just so long. It's only a matter of time before things really start to get ugly over there.

Deal of the day for Wednesday, March 26th, 2008- If you are planning to fly Northwest Airlines between April 1 and June 14, 2008, you can save $50 off of a booking of $250 or more. In a joint promotion with Paypal, the airline will refund $50 of this booking if paid for via Paypal, Ebay's on-line money exchange system.

To qualify, you'll also need to be a member of the airline's frequent flyer program, WorldPerks. There is no charge for this program, though. The refund will be credited to your Paypal account within 6-8 weeks. Tickets must be purchased in the U.S. through nwa.com.

Haven't used Paypal before? It's a very convenient service with a well-designed interface. I use it to buy from Ebay and Amazon, and collect freelance writing fees through it when the client declines to pay the invoice by mail. Paypal takes a pretty deep cut of my incoming money, though, so I prefer to use it only on purchases. Your account can be tied to a credit card or checking account.

I used to love PayPal. So did a lot of people. It was (and I suppose still is) a convenient way to send and receive money. It was especially good for eBay sellers, who could easily get paid for their auctions. Until eBay took over. Now I've lost count of the PayPal horror stories. Let's face it, the fees are high. Then you've got the issue of waiting to get your money. Never mind the issue of fraud. They make it sound so easy to resolve a fraudulent transaction. From everything I've heard, it's not easy at all.

There's now a new player on the scene: Revolution Money Exchange (RME). Quite simply, accounts are issued by First Bank & Trust, Brookings, SD. It works essentially like PayPal, in that you can receive and send money to other account holders just as easily. But (as of right now) there are no fees associated with the transactions. None. Zip. Nada. Even for "business" accounts.

The only "catch," if you could even call it that, is the other party needs an account of their own in order for you to transfer money back and forth. But right now... that's easy. Anyone who completes the sign-up process gets $25 in their account. No catch for that either. So go sign up and get your free $25. And you can get $10 for each friend you refer who establishes an account! I love free money!

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

If you're an avid email user, you may be used to the typical spam messages that look like they're from PayPal. Usually they begin with some dire security warning, saying you've been locked out of your account because there's been a hacking attempt. You're asked to reply with all sorts of personal information, including a social security number, a PIN number, and plenty of other private data. Hopefully, you didn't get sucked in by this scam.

But now is the time to pay attention if you get a certain PayPal email. This one's not a hoax, according to the hoax-busting website Snopes.com. The email is to inform you that information about your account has been turned over to the IRS because of a court order requiring PayPal to do so.

A lawsuit started in 2006 in the Northern District of California has caused PayPal to turn over account information for taxpayers whose PayPal accounts are linked to bank accounts, credit cards, or debit cards from certain foreign countries. The IRS is on a fishing expedition to collect banking information related to countries known as tax havens. That is... it wants to know if you're banking overseas in order to avoid paying taxes in the U.S.

If you get this notice, it does not mean the IRS is investigating you. It merely means that your PayPal records were turned over to the IRS. If you are investigated, you'll be contacted directly by the IRS.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.