onlysdad

This is a question I've puzzled over frequently.

I've been an eBay buyer. PayPal is very convenient for me. PayPal also sometimes provides buyer protection features that may prove helpful if the seller does not perform his end of the bargain.

Money orders (and I think cashier's checks) provide no recourse if the seller fails to perform his end of the deal. Also, they cost me some money, and require a trip to the PO or bank. Time is money too, lots of it!

A personal check is often held for clearing. After clearing, checks provide no recourse I am aware of. Worse, the information printed on a personal check can be misused by a dishonest person. I do not use personal checks anymore for this reason.

On eBay, I consider whether PayPal is accepted. If PayPal is not accepted, I bid less aggressively, other things equal.

So, is it just that PayPal charges sellers a small fee (that they are technically not allowed to pass on to the buyer -- one seller actually asked for a donation to help defray costs if I chose to use PayPal, and I gave him a buck on a twenty dollar purchase)?

Are some sellers worried about the recourse that PayPal provides for the buyer in case the seller does not perform?

Is unwillingness to take PayPal a possible red flag about a seller?

Onlysdad

PS. I'm now looking at an auction for a very nice looking coin, but the seller does not take PayPal nor state an explicit return policy. I'm real tempted, so I'm hoping you guys will tell me what I already know -- this one is a bad gamble.

ageka

On some european ebays it is allowed to state extra cost
Some vendors will ask 3 to 5 % extra cost if you pay PayPal
On ebay UK one of the biggest vendors started last week offering
a 2% discount NOT to use paypal

ndgoflo

Personally, I have never had a problem accepting Paypal, but I'm sure that there are a host of others here that can give you some "horror" stories about bad Paypal transactions. There is the risk of chargebacks, having your checking account fozen, having your Paypal account compromised, etc. When I am a buyer, I prefer to pay with Paypal, but I won't let me stop me from bidding if the seller won't accept it. What WILL stop me from bidding is a no return policy.

I wouldn't give any extra to a seller for accepting Paypal, that is the price of business. (it is only like 2.9%)

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MorganFred

Hi onlysdad--

I am a PayPal-only Seller and Buyer, so I'm definitely a fan of PayPal for all the reasons you stated, especially for me the one of convenience since I'm a long way from a post office. But I have also heard of and from Buyers/Sellers who won't have anything to do with PayPal. While I have heard complaints about the fees charged, I can't believe that a Seller's profit margin is so narrow that s/he cannot afford the costs. Similarly, I have heard of Sellers and Buyers who have had their accounts frozen, but I don't think I've ever heard the reasons behind such an action. I've also heard of bad transactions wherein PayPal deducts an auction's final value when a bad credit card is used, but this is understandable.

I have had no problems with PayPal except that it can't accept the fact that some of us use our middle names instead of our first names. As a result (and compromise), I have to have all transactions with all three of my given names. Frustrating, but livable.

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Metalman

Best buyers guide ever made is a gut feeling follow it !!!

I for one as a buyer will not use pay pal, I stopped as soon as I got my first phished email with the correct pay pal account number ,I no longer purchase with pay pal, and will not bid on pay pal only auctions ,,believe it or not internet fraud is illegal no matter how you pay,and theft by deception is a prosecutable offense no matter the venue or the payment type,,it is up to the aggresiveness of the person who was ripped off.

Actually if ebay functioned like my other hobby RC airplanes, when I purchase thru their auctions, my funds go to a third party,the third party then emails the seller that the funds have been recieved,, they are held until I recieve the Item and email that they are correct and as advertised,then the funds are released, this is true buyer and seller protection,

onlysdad

Perhaps any fraud/deception is prosecutable, but you have to be more than just aggressive to bring legal prosecution -- you have to be masochistic.

My 9-year old son (who got me back into this hobby again) asked me a couple months ago why eBay didn't have something like a third party escrow system (though he didn't use those words).

One does have the sense that eBay is uncommonly forcussed on its own bottom line. How many billions do those folks need anyway?

Onlysdad

Metalman

Perhaps any fraud/deception is prosecutable, but you have to be more than just aggressive to bring legal prosecution -- you have to be masochistic.


and the sad fact is that this is what the lying cheating stealing dregs of the world depend on to be successful!!!!

the days of swift justice are gone!!! but a simple small claims judgement will do the job.

cdb1950

Excellent advice!

Be very careful about any emails from anyone that tells you your account is messed up in some way and you need to click on a link to web pages that ask for your personal info, checking account number, SS number, PIN's, etc. These should ALL be treated as frauds! No reputable company will ask you to do that. Instead, they will recommend that you go to their web page to do business. This can appear to be from any financial institution, Ebay, or department store account. Very deceptive, and the folks perpetrating these frauds are learning better english, so they become more difficult to detect.
You are describing an escrow service and this option is available through Paypal/Ebay.

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ndgoflo

Sounds good, but how long does it take to fully complete a transaction? With Paypal, I can have the money in my pocket within an hour or two, and the buyer can have the merchandise within a couple of days.

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JBK

Paypal is a minefield for the reasons already stated. Yes, it is darn convenient, but.....

The buyer may have protection, but the seller has none. A buyer can do a charge back for unjust cause and screw up the sellers account. Also, PAYPAL is not flexible in many ways. For example, I had no street delivery at my address in the US, and so used my PO Box for everything, including setting up my PAYPAL account But, they would not issue a check to a PO Box. A real Catch 22. Send it to my street and it gets lost or returned, as there is no mailbox there. Ask for it to be sent to a PO Box, and they say no.

Also, PAYPAL might be the payment of choice for some sleazebags. They can get a quick buck, cash out, and be gone. No sure how easy this would be, but in any case, fraud is still possible with PAYPAL.

Metalman

Time is not an issue with the escrow service i have my Item before the seller has their money, now I dont know about you, but for the seller to know that the money is paid and the buyer to know they got what they paid for is more the issue.

satootoko

If only that were true. Take it from a guy who litigated several thousand cases over a 30+ year career in corporate legal departments, very often obtaining the judgment is only the first arduous step on the way to getting your money. Bankruptcy, distance, and limitations on the right to levy on assets are only a few of the problems. When I retired there were uncollected judgments for at least a half-million dollars in my files. Luckily, I collected enough settlements and judgments along the way to keep my job.

Getting back to the question: other posters have given most of the fundamental reasons, all of which have some merit to them.

Personally, I ask if the seller will accept escrow at my expense before bidding more than $1,000 if I don't already know and trust the seller. If not, I don't bid. On potential bids of $500 or more, I consider escrow on a case by case basis, and on smaller purchases IMHO the risk of no escrow is outweighed by the extra cost and hassel. But then, I carefully check out what I am bidding on, as well as the feedback on sellers I haven't previously dealt with, including reading the first 15-20 negs and neutrals. (More than that, and no matter how many positives are listed, I look for somewhere else to do my buying.)

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Speedy

Well I for one will not use paypal for anything...I don't use it to send payment nor get payment...I guess if the coin to complete my collection was on e-bay with PAYPAL only I would ask my brother-in-law to get it....I find that money order is just as good a way to send it and they don't hold it till it clears and I've never had a bad seller yet...I once bid on a auction that I didn't see said PAYPAL only and the seller was super nice and said I could pay with money order but I was outbid so it came out nicely.

Speedy

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Aidan Work

Well,here's a link to a website regarding Paypal; www.paypalwarning.com .

tradernick

I bought some gold eagles today and sold them for a $10 profit per coin. Paypals cut on a $435 coin would have been almost $13.00.
There's lots of $300+ coins that I buy/sell regularly and make $15-$25 per coin. Ebay/paypal is not the place to do business with those types of margins. Bags of 90% silver are often traded with $100 or so profit...care to figure the total ebay/paypal fees on $4500?

I haven't accepted paypal in over a year and I've been delighted. 99% of all problem auctions were paypal transactions. MANY buyers chargeback small amounts and hope that the dealer is too busy to pursue small things. Some buyers threaten chargeback if the dealer doesn't provide a partial refund, saying the coin isn't as nice as they hoped, has an extra scratch or ding, etc, rather than just returning the coin. Note that with ebay customers, some people use the negative feedback threat similiarly, which has prompted many dealers to post feedback only in reciprocation.

No, paypal has no place in my world. Read the websites paypalwarning.com and paypalsucks.com...actually I think they're the same site. Read the paypal discussion board on ebay...it's filled with stories of frozen accounts, seized monies, honest merchants losing the item AND the payment to dishonest buyers. And an equal amount of stories of buyers getting stung by sellers who collect the funds and disappear. And yes I fully realize that many such stories are often untrue, but consider this. Even is only 1% of the thousands of horror stories are true...are you comfortable trusting your checking account and/or credit card to paypal? I am not.

Nick

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