PayPal announced recently that it will expand its consumer protections for shoppers just in time for the busy holiday shopping season. 

Beginning November 1, 2010, shoppers across the Asia Pacific region will have enhanced buyer protection when they make purchases at any of the millions of merchants worldwide that accept PayPal.

• In June 2010, PayPal announced that its Buyer Protection policy would protect shoppers across the Asia Pacific region when they do not receive the item they purchased using PayPal.
• Beginning November 1st, the enhanced PayPal Buyer Protection policy will also protect shoppers across the Asia Pacific region if they receive an item that is significantly different than that described by the PayPal merchant.

PayPal is an eBay company that enables global e-commerce.  Their service allows members to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts, and credit cards in various markets.

"PayPal is committed to giving consumers a safer online shopping experience through privacy, prevention and protection.  Ultimately, we want consumers to be as comfortable with shopping online as if they had purchased the item in a real store, thus our expanded Buyer Protection Policy is another step in that direction," said Nimish Dwivedi, Regional Head of Marketing, PayPal Asia Pacific.  "When shoppers use PayPal this holiday shopping season and beyond, they will have greater peace of mind knowing that we are offering even more protection if something goes wrong."

Nimish added, "Merchants who accept PayPal will benefit, too, as they know the more trust consumers have with online shopping, the more consumers will buy, especially from overseas and unfamiliar websites that provide great deals or offer items not available locally."

In addition to its Buyer Protection policy, the company provides safeguards that are built into its global online payment platform:

• PayPal never shares a buyer's financial information with sellers, privacy is built into the service.
• PayPal provides zero liability for eligible unauthorized transactions on PayPal accounts.
• PayPal has one of the most sophisticated anti-fraud models in the payments industry, with an expertise of billions of processed transactions in the past 11 years.

With more than 87 million active accounts in 190 markets, and 24 currencies around the world, the company is proud that their technology often detects and stops fraudulent activity the moment it occurs and often before it ever reaches their customers.