Paypal is one of the safest sites on the Internet. It has gotten bad publicity because of the fishers. A fisher sends you an email, they have gotten the paypal logo from the paypal site, they say there is a problem and you need to log in, they direct you to a site that looks like paypal, you try to log in, they steal your password and redirect you to the real paypal site. Never click on an email to get to paypal, always type www.paypal.com or save it in your favorites.

I have used paypal many times and I have never had a problem. The only real problems I have heard is the one described above. Because of this, paypal has gotten a very bad reputation, but it is not their fault if you give another company your password.