Copyright © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2020
Merchant Savvy is a division of VUBO Ltd (Company Number 09017066).
Address: Spaces, 9 Greyfriars Rd, Reading, RG1 1NU.
Summary
Skrill is an online payment platform that gives PayPal a good run for its money and the two regularly go head to head. You may have come across Skrill before, back when it was called Moneybookers, until the firm rebranded itself in 2011.
Since then Skrill has established itself as one of the fastest growing payment firms to come out of the UK. It offers fees and commissions that work out considerably cheaper than PayPal and it’s clearly on a mission to capture the EU market – although it’s attracting clients worldwide in the process.
With more than 30 million customers on board, progress is good too. We’re sure those prices are winning over plenty of business owners to begin with, but there’s always more to payment firms than pricing. So can Skrill match its price promise with the kind of services that will make it a genuine PayPal competitor? Let’s find out.
Skrill is the firm that pioneered a system which allows shoppers to pay for goods using only their email address and password. Since then the company has expanded its services to maintain its competitive place in the industry.
Wallet Solution
International payments
VIP club
Skrill certainly doesn’t offer the widest range of services, compared to many firms, but it has a unique system that makes payments incredibly convenient for your customers.
Skrill has a very transparent policy with its pricing structure – something more common with online payment firms than traditional merchant account providers. Skrill has a dedicated page for fees, which clearly marks out what you’ll pay for usage, although there is some small print you’ll want to pay attention to.
Although Skrill doesn’t quite offer the full range of merchant account services, the main upside is you don’t have to worry about any contracts or termination fees. That’s a huge plus with any firm in the payments industry – and for online businesses that don’t need the additional services, a huge burden off your shoulder.
We’re also pleased to announce Skrill doesn’t use any third party sales agencies to promote its services. Instead, the firm mostly markets itself via its website and traditional advertising. As usual, this rules out customer complaints about deceptive quotes, false promises or pushy sales tactics, which we always like to say about a payment firm.
The only real downside is some merchants have complained about Skrill’s fraud prevention and withholding policies. We’ll cover this in more detail shortly, but part of such complaints is that the firm could make its fraud policies more clear to merchants before they sign up.
Things start to go down hill a touch when it comes to customer service, if customer reviews are anything to go by. There are plenty of complaints to choose from too, but most of them come down to fraud and withholds, as we mentioned before.
Whatever the complaint, merchants have to contact the support team and this is where poor customer service often adds to the list of grievances. Many say it’s difficult to get hold of anyone in the first place and those that manage to aren’t exactly full of praise.
It’s not all bad press for Skrill, though, and you can find some positive reviews if you dig deep enough. This is pretty standard for online payment firms that have huge customer bases – just take a look at how many negatives PayPal has, for example.
“I’ve had over 50k of gambling transactions in the last 7 years through Moneybookers and never had a problem (and the one time I had a problem with a transaction which wasn’t even their fault, they refunded). When I did the verification process I found it pretty straight forward, certainly no worse than PayPal.” – jaydeeuk1, Money Saving Expert forum.
You’ll find similar comments in the same forum thread that mention a long history of using Skrill without problem. Though, admittedly, they are pretty spread out between complaints that fill most of the page.
Search for Skrill reviews online and you’ll see just how condemning the feedback can be. The words “scammers” and “thieves” come up quite a lot, which would be enough to put any business owner off – something the firm surely needs to address.
That said, many of the complaints you’ll come across are from customers who say they have been ripped off by other companies using Skrill. For the merchants, it’s those funds withdrawals, suspended accounts and Skrill’s customer service that have business owners fuming.
“I have been a Skrill Merchant account holder for over a year now, within this year the customer service levels have gone from poor to completely diabolical. My company has turned over a six figure sum in the last year so they have made good money from my custom, the least I would expect in return from them is a response to any queries/problems within 48 hours.” – Jay, UKTrustPilot review.
You’ll see customer service is raised time and again, not only by merchants but personal account holders too.
The best measure of Skrill as an online payment firm is to compare it to its closest rival PayPal. Both serve a huge pool of customers and both come into plenty of flack from negative online reviews. In terms of features and overall service there isn’t a huge amount between the two. Pricing means Skrill tends to work out cheaper for European firms, but it gets a little more complicated once you throw international payments into the mix.
Skrill and PayPal merchants typically complain about the same things too – withholding of funds and poor customer support. Clearly, both firms have a challenge on their hands in dealing with so many customers and trying to keep on top of fraud protection.
So, if you’re a European merchant that mostly operates online then Skrill is certainly worth a look. Or, if you’re on the hunt for a genuine PayPal alternative, then this will be one of the first options you’ll want to consider.
You may also be interested in checking out our guide to the best payment gateways for UK businesses taking online payments.
Copyright © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2020
Merchant Savvy is a division of VUBO Ltd (Company Number 09017066).
Address: Spaces, 9 Greyfriars Rd, Reading, RG1 1NU.
One Response
Skrill stole from me
Terrible company to take care of your money for your website store
We installed there payment checkout page and account was set up in Sterling pounds, there was a bug with there own module and they charged my customers euro so we lost money as it’s English pound sales, also they charged 42 customer a service charged for the euro conversion even though it was supposed to be sterling. We have lost over £900 pounds in sales because of the loss as we got paid it euros
Also giving refunds to customers For conversion charge
Skill I have been emailing for months now and they only have give us £42 refund, they cannot be trusted to take your payment online. I have proved it’s there fault from reports from our developers but they still refuse to pay us our losses.
I gave them proof of all 42 customers charges but they refused to refund us.
Do not use this company to take your Online payments
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