Had that problem yesterday on Simon's store, but found a round-about way of getting to the PayPal option. Don't remember what I did, just that it wasn't obvious and seemed a bit odd.
Guys, there’s a good reason Paypal will probably be removed from Aliexpress “soon”.
Now, if you get a refund, the seller will not be reimbursed the payment fee, which is bad for us, and the sellers.
I have some news, though no explanation to go along with it.
I just tried to check out with a different order and PayPal was included as a primary payment option (no digging to find it).
However, I went back to the seller from my prior order and again tried to check out with more items; PayPal was nowhere to be found, just as before.
So, PayPal is apparently available for some sellers and not others. I had never before experienced this and have always paid with PayPal. This is true for dozens of orders over the last few years, but now it seems that PayPal might be optional depending on factors I’m unaware of.
I can’t assume anything, so I cannot say whether sellers have the option to refuse PayPal or if AliExpress has disabled it for certain sellers or their geographic locations, etc.
BlueSwordM may have a point, but I just don’t know what’s going on here as I’ve always assumed that the payment source really didn’t matter much to sellers as AliExpress is serving as the middle-man who releases their funds after shipment or whatever.
@leftdisconnected, geographic restrictions and sellers.
Can’t use it in Canada, and with certain sellers.
I don’t remember that it worked for Hungarian customers at all.
I had heard that PayPal was not available for customers from certain regions or countries, but this is the first time I’ve ever come across a seller that did not offer PayPal to me. This is why I was surprised and confused, though my issues were compounded by the repeated errors during checkout.
Thanks to everyone and I’ll avoid reporting “PayPal is Gone!” (i.e. the sky is falling) the next time this happens unless PayPal goes missing from numerous known sellers 
.
I like the extra security of Paypal payments.
If the dealer won’t accept it.
I just buy from elsewhere. It’s my money.
i hate paypal
i don;t see what the ‘extra security’ is
i was scammed on ebay about 7 years ago, they didn’t care, it was a well known scam, though i hadn;t heard of it at the time
the one where they mail a small box to an address [not yours] in your zip code
the mail man calls that ‘delivery receipt’ somehow
then the scam seller says you received it
and of course ebay and paypal are the same thing
wle
Fair enough. I’m not a huge fan of PayPal, especially how hostile their fee structure is towards small transactions (last I checked), but in this case I consider it the least worst option that’s commonly available.
I do not like giving out my real debit or credit card numbers (I would never give out a bank debit). The traditional credit card system is archaic and stupid. We know how to design secure payment systems, yet the U.S. only moved to chip cards a few years ago and even those cards:
1. Have no PIN protection (EU does, so Americans are apparently too lazy and stupid to use a PIN).
2. Have no actual security, since a skimmer can simply send an “approved” signal to the reader (even a PIN is pointless in this case).
3. Still send the actual credit card number over the wire… …in 2019.
Most API-based, escrow-like payment systems are not universally available. Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc are all unavailable for international sites like AliExpress, while PayPal is more common.
Payment systems avoid having to give out your card numbers to sellers; that’s their primary security. While it’s unfortunate that PayPal has not helped you with fraud, it remains the case that some members of this forum have been refunded thanks to PayPal claims. I have not made a claim through PayPal and thus have no experience with that, though I have had numerous small cases of fraud.
I guess my question is, what do you use instead of PayPal?
visa
never had a problem
wle
Paypal was own by Ebay from 2002 til 2015 when it was spun off. It has since then been a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ
I have never seen a paypal option on AliExpress. I used my Visa and four days later somebody tried to buy some sports shoes with my card number. My credit union caught it froze the card.
Very good.
In Hungary, if this kind of Ali page comes in at all, the PayPal option vanishes in the moment you log in.
This could be the case with other countries, and as the others wrote, with some sellers also.
I can see and use the paypal option, but the fees are not clear. For cheaper items I have to pay a paypal fee of 0.8$ per transaction. More expensive items are several dollars extra, which is too high in my opinion.
It’s great that you’ve never had an issue and I often have to give out my card number as well, but Target lost like 70 million card numbers a few years back and the problem has continued as stores are individually in charge of the card numbers. Every store that we purchase from thus obtains are real credit/debit card number and typically stores that number in their customer database.
I uncheck the box to “save card” at AliExpress and other stores that offer the option, but in reality this may be meaningless as the card number must be recorded in the transaction record for refund purposes. I seriously doubt that any merchant deletes all digital records of the number after receiving payment, even if they do not “store” the number as a payment option in your user account.
I’ve had multiple instances of credit card fraud ranging in scale from local to international. I suspect that AliExpress is doing its best to protect consumer payment information, but each store that has your card number is a threat vector. Target was not a special case; all merchants are vulnerable.
Some cards offer one-time, “virtual” numbers which you generate and give to merchants as needed. I highly recommend using this option, if available. I used this approach for awhile, but the company abandoned the software and the feature hasn’t worked (for me) in many years. Virtual numbers confuse places like Amazon, however, which “automatically” store each and every card number that you enter and offers them as payment option during future purchases.
so you trust paypal then?
i don’t…
wle
I trust PayPal.
I've been using them forever, and I haven't had any problems with them.
RobertB, The paypal option never appears on the checkout page where you actually select the payment method.
I use paypal when it's available and that's what i did for my firsts ali buys but even if PP was available on some AE shops, far from all allowed it reducing choice and even with the dealers allowing PP i was not able to combine payment for various shops and AE added (iirc) about 1.5€ fee on each PP transction so i switched to visa and after maybe 30-40 transactions i never had a problem.
I tried to buy a Wuben light on Ali a few days ago, there was no PP option, and after entering all my info and hitting the final button the site logged me out or something… no sale. I gave up.