I've been very wary of PayPal given the vocality of those who've had issues, but I've used it a couple of times, in a couple of different ways, and have seen no issues.

I've used PayPal to:

    * Buy/sell things from eBay (~$2k in transactions)
    * Send money/receive money from friends (~$5k in transactions)
    * Use their PayPal card abroad as a pair of primary cards
      (one in my name, on in my girlfriend's name) ($~2k in 
      transactions in various foreign countries)

I even had to settle a disputed transaction from eBay on a sale I made, and though they returned the ~$140 USD to the buyer, since I provided proof of delivery in the form of a tracking number, I was "covered" under their sellers protection policy, and didn't lose any of my money.

Hey, he stopped having any influence on PayPal behavior years ago. Similar to how Apple decays into senescence when Jobs is not there running it.

Maybe so. On the flip-side, let's not pretend PayPal was this once benevolent entity that's been corrupted since Musk departed. It has always been sketchy and the subject of much complaint.

When did he get out? PayPal is misbehaving since essentially forever.

Sometime in 2002: PayPal was acquired in September of that year, and he'd already founded SpaceX in June. So, more than a decade, which is pretty "forever" in this industry.

Wasn't it Max who worked on Fraud detection/prevention?

That would imply PayPal started out good...