Is Payoneer safe? Everything you need to know about Payoneer

Nowadays, eCommerce is becoming more and more crucial in our life. In 2019, the global retail sales online accounted for 14.1 percent and this rate is predicted to increase to 22 percent in 2023. With the development of eCommerce, the barriers of geographical distance will be faded significantly; people can purchase the items they want from anywhere in the world.

And, this leads to the demand for processing payment online, especially with international orders. People wish to send and receive money among countries without having a bank account in each country. Luckily, in 2005, a service that can satisfy all these requirements was introduced to people worldwide. It is Payoneer.

An overview of Payoneer

Located in the United States, Payoneer is one of the top companies providing financial services for online marketplaces and eCommerce stores. With it, people can deliver payment to eStore and marketplaces and receive the payment from them.

Payoneer specifies the activities related to the procedure of business payment, receipts, and converting currencies. Thus, there are some dissimilarities between Payoneer with other currency exchange providers. These differences can be realized via Payoneer’s features, based on the relationship between their account and the beneficiary’s account on Payoneer.

Instead of serving individual purposes, Payoneer is created to help merchants, freelancers, professionals, and product or service marketplaces. Payoneer will be given multiple tools to pay directly, convert the currencies quickly, and seamlessly integrate with other applications. More than that, there are various features allowing users to pay their staff, contractors, and so on.

With a large market, up to now, Payoneer has had more than 4 million customers across 200 countries and territories with the ability to process the payment in 150 money units. This service works in the eCommerce industry and works well in various fields like advertising, stock, photography, freelancing, and rentals. Some of Payoneer’s customers can be named as Amazon, Fiverr, Airbnb, Upwork, etc.

How does Payoneer work?

With the advance of technology, people from every concern of the world are able to buy the products they want easily, even when it is abroad. However, the payment process often prevents them from deciding to place an order from international stores. Therefore, Payoneer appears as a resolution to help both sellers and buyers foot the bill to abroad shops easily.

To do this, Payoneer creates a collection account abroad for each customer. When a person or a company wants to pay, they need to send the money to this collection account. After that, it will be transferred to the currency as the client set previously and sent to their bank account. Otherwise, the client can withdraw the money from any ATM by the Mastercard of Payoneer.

As a result, eCommerce owners, particularly the owners of small stores, can freely advertise and sell their products internationally without worrying about the barrier of sending and receiving money. Payoneer will help them solve this problem. Via it, the money is not only delivered directly to the seller accounts but also transferred to their local currencies, such as: Cnadina Dollar, Australian Dollar, Euro. USD, Pound, Japanese Yen, or Chinese Yuan.

How much is the Payoneer fee?

In fact, the pricing plan on Payoneer is pretty complicated; it doesn’t offer three or four packages as other platforms. Instead, with each action, Payoneer will offer different prices which need to be charged or not. However, when understanding its pricing, merchants can leverage it to send, receive, and handle money and not spend money on such useless actions.

Create an account

At first, there is no need for any charge when creating a new account on Payoneer. Yet, if there is no transaction in the latest twelve months, users will have to pay a fee to maintain their account. This fee is called Account Fee which costs $29.95.

Make a payment

It is also free to make use of the Make a Payment button on Payoneer. It only charges users when they actually send, receive, or exchange money and the fee for each action will be calculated based on the action they do.

Pay money

In addition to receiving payments, Payoneer allows sellers to pay their suppliers, contractors, and other service providers with a reasonable price like 1% for ACH Bank Debit and local bank transfer, 3% for Credit Card. Like any platform for transferring money, Payoneer also allows users to select who will pay the fee: sender or recipient. If the recipient is from a European Economic Area country, it will automatically set the recipient as the payer. Furthermore, each country’s fees can be different since the fees we introduce above are the maximum ones.

Otherwise, it is entirely possible to pay from the user’s Payoneer balance. Merchants can use the money they receive to pay for their vendors or contractors. If the recipients have Payoneer accounts, the money will be sent directly to them with no need for fee. However, if they have no Payoneer account, it will cost no more than 2% above the market rate when the transaction happens. The money will be delivered to their recipient bank account.

Receive money

In terms of receiving money, users are given two choices which are Via Receiving Account, Directly From Your Customer, and Via Marketplaces & Networks.

If you choose the first one, you will take advantage of Global Payment Service to receive money from various countries with different prices ranging from 0 to 1% fee each time. With such money units as Euros (EUR), Pound (GBP), Yen (JPY), Australian Dollar (AUD), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Mexican Peso (MXN), it is free but users will have to pay 0 to 1% depending on countries if their currency is U.S Dollar (USD).

With the second option, Directly From Your Customer, Payoneer will offer the billing service, making it possible to receive money through Payoneer. However, you have to pay an extra fee for using ACH Bank Debit or credit card, which is a 1% fee (USD) and 3% fee (all currencies), respectively.

In case you prefer the way to receive money via marketplaces and networks, you will be able to get your money from such popular platforms as Airbnb, Fiverr, Wish, Upwork, and thousands of businesses integrating with Payoneer. The fee for this varies since it depends on the marketplace’s fee or networks sellers choose.

Besides, users sometimes have to pay for the bank’s extra fees like processing fees, landing fees, intermediary fees, etc. The fee that your banks or any payment providers having no direct integration with Payoneer charge will be deducted directly from the amount of money sent to you.

Withdraw money

Payoneer offers users two types of pricing plans when withdrawing money, which is to your local bank or a bank with the same currency.

Withdrawing to your local bank account means that people withdraw in different currencies. In this case, it costs up to 2 percent above the market rate at the time of the transaction. This rate, in fact, is much better than in a bank but there is a way to help you lower the rate to 1.2%. By clicking this link, and you can register to get lower rate.

When withdrawing in the same currencies, you will decrease the fees in each transaction, which are $1.50 in USD, €1.50 in EUR, and £1.50 in GBP. The higher the amount of money you withdraw, the lower fee you will have to pay.

Besides, you are able to change the money unit to the one that is not available in Payoneer card’s list currency. Obviously, you will have to pay more money. Apart from the official exchange rate of the Mastercard, users have to pay up to 3.5 percent of the conversion fee for the currency you want to exchange. In addition, the local regulatory changes make it impossible to issue cards for customers having the Russian billing or shipping address.

Change currency

Payoneer empowers users to exchange their money to different currencies but they have to pay 0.5% of the amount for implementing this action. If you select the option of transferring, Payoneer will automatically estimate the fee and display it to you so that you will know the exact amount of money you will receive.

Payoneer Pros & Cons

Pros

Thanks to Payoneer, you can send and receive money to abroad accounts easily. It is no longer problematic to process the payment with people in the country with no bank account. Without bank accounts, people can easily send, receive, and transfer money to such large countries and economic areas as the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Japan, or Europe.

Also, Payoneer allows users to withdraw money simply by the ATM so that people can easily get the money from their prepaid card near their houses or workplaces. It is also free to transfer money to your bank account, and even when it is not free, the rate offered by Payoneer for each transaction is lower than other banks in the world.

Payoneer’s final advantage is its user-friendliness, which allows people to use it skillfully in a short time. More than that, Payoneer also creates an app for mobile devices so that people can use it everywhere and anytime. Trusted and used by more than five million people up to now, it is inevitable that Payoneer is a helpful tool to help merchants handle the payments internationally.

Cons

At first, individual users on Payoneer aren’t able to send funds until they receive about $5000 from companies and companies in this service are only understood like such large businesses as Amazon, Upwork, etc. This makes people, especially people with small amounts of money have to wait for a time to bill on Payoneer.

Luckily, it seems like that Payoneer has removed this criterion so that users can send and transfer money without worrying about any requirements. However, there is no certain evidence that this requirement is completely deleted so perhaps it may come back on day.

Furthermore, the account fee of $29.95 is the element that makes users annoyed. It is also impossible to process the payment with large amounts of money on Payoneer. This prevents businesses, particularly the large ones, from billing their transaction at a time. Sometimes, it is the reason why these companies avoid using Payoneer.

In the past, Payoneer’s security was pretty low since it didn’t provide any virtual gateway at the beginning and the end of each transaction. It has recently been improved when Payoneer sends a code to users’ mobile phones for each transaction to verify.

Payoneer also receives a variety of complaints about its customers services. Payoneer is quite slow in responding to customers’ queries, which forces them to waste lots of time waiting for them. Fortunately, this case has decreased considerably nowadays.

Is Payoneer safe?

Founded in 2005, Payoneer is a top company in terms of the financial service provider. It is invested by the same investors of large companies as Facebook, Dropbox, and Expedia. After five years of operating, Payoneer has now had more than 1000 employees and 14 offices worldwide. This platform is trusted by thousands of businesses, marketplaces, and people for sending and receiving funds.

Moreover, Payoneer also signed up as a US Money Service Business and it is certified at a PCI Level 1 Data Security Standard. This certification is a reliable source to confirm that Payoneer the standard of the network and system security on Payoneer is high.

Besides, Payoneer generates multiple processes to increase the safety of all the data physically. The protocols are also updated frequently to fix any possible errors, which minimize the likelihood of losing information due to being stolen, suffering from fire, or any other accidents. Via the virus detection system and firewall, this platform can protect all the access points, which helps users avoid being hacked or tampered with. Each year, there is also a PCI audit that examines carefully and strictly whether Payoneer’s IT system is qualified.

During each transaction, Payoneer also equips complex techniques and firewalls to prevent hacking, cheating, stealing people’s identities, as well as other kinds of attacks. By sending emails or messages to announce in each transaction, users will soon be aware of any new changes and transactions on their account. Therefore, if there is a problem with it, people can rapidly report to Payoneer and have a suitable resolution.

With the high standard of security, Payoneer achieves a certain status in many large economic areas of the world like the United States, Europe, Hong Kong, India, and Japan.

Can I get scammed on Payoneer?

Unfortunately, you can be scammed on Payoneer.

Like any services and platforms for payment, being scammed is always regarded as the top risk of people, especially merchants in the field of eCommerce when almost all their transactions happen online. Therefore, in any payment system, not only Payoneer, people should be cautious with all the strange actions happening to them to prevent scammers, hackers, and thieves.

However, carefulness is not enough; people need to be conscious of what they do. There are numerous cases of being scammed happening due to the lack of knowledge from Payoneer users. Hence, they have to acknowledge all the warning signs and some helpful tips on this service to protect themselves.

Some advice to be safe on Payoneer

Be careful with links on emails

There is a term called phishing, which is the activity of cheating people to acquire their account numbers like the username, password, credit card, bank account, identity, and more via the Internet or email. This kind of information, then, can be used to steal money from the owner.

With Payoneer users, email is always prioritized by the scammers. They will send you an email that is similar to the one from Payoneer to be more likely to believe the message on the email and do what they force. Regularly, these emails will include a link that directs to a fake site of Payoneer. When you type your account information to log in on this site, the scammer will immediately know and start to steal your money.

Payoneer often sends emails to their users in some situations, confirming that the information in a new account is authentic, or users send or receive the funds.

If you find out any attempt of phishing, you can report it to Payoneer via the email address: [email protected].

Keep track of your balance

Due to some personal reasons, people can share the information to log in their Payoneer account to other people but forget to change the passwords afterwards. In some negative cases, this will create great opportunities for people to steal money from your account. Instead of withdrawing a large amount of money at once, they can withdraw small amounts one by one with the hope that you will not realize. Therefore, keeping track of your Payoneer balance is never redundant.

Take care of your devices

To login your account, accessing the Internet is the first step and this action is only conducted when you have a device like laptop, desktop, mobile device, or tablet. Consequently, protecting your devices is also as important as your credential information.

You can set passwords for your device to make sure that other people cannot unlock your device without your permission. Furthermore, you shouldn’t install any root applications on your computer. These softwares can consist of dangerous viruses or softwares which may steal your details.

When you implement a financial transaction, it is inadvisable to access through the public wifi. When you do it, you allow the third party to read what you do online when using their Internet to use the information for bad purposes. Instead, you should use the mobile data of your devices. Enabling a remote wipe feature is another tip we would like to introduce to you so that in the worst-case scenario, you can remove all the data without worrying that bad people will exploit it.

Keep your login information secret

We highly recommend you to keep the username and password on Payoneer for yourself since it is directly related to your finance. So, don’t share it with anyone.

Payoneer also never asks for your login credentials via chat or email so if you receive any messages or emails asking for your login credentials, it is definitely phishing. Refuse it and report to Payoneer. This case is also mentioned many times on Payoneer, so don’t forget.

Set strong passwords

Easy passwords is always a bad idea for any account of payment. These passwords can be easily guessed so that your account can become the target of cybercrime. Hence, try to create passwords that are hard to guess but still easy to remember.

You should never set the password of your name or birthday, instead, your boyfriend or girlfriend’s name will be more ideal. If you don’t like this, you can consider these following factors to create strong passwords for yourself. A strong password should have both upper and lower case letters, numbers, special symbols and more than 8 letters. You should also visit WholHostingThis for more detailed information.

Activate two-step verification

Two-step verification is an optional step for Payoneer users, which are responsible for enhancing the security of users’ accounts. When activating this feature, you add a new layer to your account, making it more difficult for others to know your passwords.

Besides typing a password each time logging in, users must enter the code that will be sent to their phone every time they log in, and the codes are never similar to each other. Moreover, the expiration time for the code is also limited, which is from 1 to 5 minutes, so that people cannot make use of this code after this period of time. Therefore, if someone wants to open your account, they have to have your phone and passwords, which is never easy.

If you want to turn on this functionality on Payoneer and receive this code, what you need to do is turn on it on the Settings. In this section, you will see the Security Settings, click on it and the button named Two-Step Verification will be displayed to you. Then, click on Turn On and this feature will be activated. However, it is not done. You have two options: select the same phone as to when signing up or add a new one by clicking on the edit button and changing the phone number. After completing all these steps, a code for verification will be sent to your phone to confirm that your phone is valid. Please enter this code, and it is done.

Only use Payoneer on trusted websites

There are multiple sites and platforms that allow people to foot the bill online but not all of them are safe enough for you to do that. It is ok to receive the payment on Upwork, Fiverr, and so on but with strange sites, you have to be careful since what you do can straightforwardly affect your budget.

As a result, ensuring that the site you are going to process the payment like sending or receiving money via your Payoneer account is reliable is the first compulsory step for any Payoneer. This will help you prevent the case of leaking your credentials and being stolen money.

Avoid using public Wifi

With a view to providing convenience for the customers, there are a variety of places offering free wifi for customers like restaurants, airports, hotels, and more. However, you should only use it for entertainment purposes and if possible avoid using it. In these networks, people often refuse to use the leading encryption technology to save money.

This creates opportunities for hackers to attack vulnerable devices and access points. One of the most common attack can be named as man-in-the-middle attack. In this type of attack, hackers will access the network and then relay and change the communication content without letting them know that there is a third party involved in the conversation. Since public wifi is not equipped with encryption technology, it is considered the ideal condition and hackers. They will insert themselves as the man-in-the-middle and then can easily get all the information from you.

Final Thoughts

In short, Payoneer is a helpful tool for people to send and receive payment and transfer currency with ease. Via it, users can handle any finance problem related in every overseas transaction and withdraw money simply. Although it is possible to be scammed on Payoneer, it can be prevented when users follow the tips to be safe on Payoneer.

If you are interested in this service, read its advantages, disadvantages, and pricing plan carefully before making any decision and leverage it as much as possible.