BeeDeeDubbleU - 10:59 am on Nov 5, 2010 (gmt 0)

Getting a real merchant account with a bank would be a nice step if you find you don't want to deal with the irritations and loss of reputation a third party payment service will bring you.

This is not a defence but nowadays you are more likely to damage your reputation if you don't use Paypal. Many people now expect to be able to use it and many major companies are now offering it. This opinion that Paypal is anything other than a "real" payment method tends to be held by people in the web design and ecommerce community but certainly not by the general public.