Brian X. Chen

There have been enough horror stories about frozen PayPal accounts to make some companies think twice about using the service.  The victims include individual sellers, start-up companies, creative artists and impromptu philanthropists. They all had to scramble when PayPal decided to hold on to their money longer than expected. PayPal, which is owned by eBay, remains the dominant global player in e-commerce, handling more than half of all Web transactions by some estimates, and it continues to grow. But some businesses who are frustrated by the company's aggressive antifraud measures are looking at other ways to accept payments.