It's interesting how the experience of global companies varies across countries. In Germany, it's quite the opposite. Klarna has an abysmal reputation for buyers, while PayPal is seamless, trusted and popular.

On the flip side, they may have been doing something super awesome for the vendors, since it's so widespread that it's used on almost any web site.

I used to work for a competitor to Klarna, and looked fairly closely into how their services work. My understanding is Klarna was originally built on BankId in Sweeden, which is a pervasive gov backed payment id. Since they are working with an established system, the friction is lower for customers there.

I found my experiences more in line with yours, payment is clunky, and seems dubious.

Not my experience with PayPal and I'm very happy that we now have another option.