I just recently signed up with paypal mostly to buy stuff from people on this board.

The most annoying thing is that there is a fixed amount of money I will ever be able to spend there because (a) I only gave them one credit card number, and (b) I refuse to link in a checking account.

You think this would be good enough since that credit card will cover anything I need to buy. I won't give them any more credit cards to limit the possible extent of fraud due to their (potentially) crappy online security. I won't link in a checking account because if anybody pays me I'll have them issue me a check (too many horror stories about paypal draining people's checking accounts).

So they gave me some randomly assigned initial limit which gets decremented with every purchase I make. When it's done, I'm done (unless I transfer money for them to hold for me (yeah, right)).

The second most annoying thing about paypal is that they regularly accost me with email and with a message every time I log in, letting me know that I need to be "verified" to lift these restrictions. I.e., link in my checking account, provide them with my social security number, and give them my Mother's maiden name.

Fat Chance, Buddy!

They are very very eager to get their hands on my checking account. And I don't trust them any farther than I can throw a truckload of shredded Enron documents.