I think I'm being scammed

Huh?

Eaby automatically adds the Final Value Fee when the item closes. The ONLY way to get them returned is if both buyer and seller agree to cancel the transaction.

As for Invoices sent straight to your PayPal account, is it a Pay Pl Invoice?? If it is, then just pay it. Why should you care?

 

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In my humble opinion he is trying to avoid the ebay fees or buyers protection thingy....

 

Agreed. The way he is doing it just sort of pushing it on you instead of discussing with you is rather off putting especially since you aren't even getting a discount from it. It's pretty standard to take the fees off the price when doing it that way and there actually it is making the transaction more expensive for you without getting a discount since you lose out on the ebay bucks.

 

I agree. He cancelled the order in the end. Something just didn't feel right about it so I'm glad I did. Thanks for the help everyone!!!

 

If I may ask, how much was this would-have-been purchase? I'm just curious as to if the theory he was trying to avoid fees was feasible.

 

A little under $200. So not massive, but not pocket change.

 

I don't see this as a scam against the buyer. The seller seems to be avoiding eBay fees by wanting to solely go through PayPal. You get protection through PayPal, so I wouldn't worry about that. But, you'd lose out on the relative ease with going through eBay, feedback score, etc.

It's not like you get a discount from the seller by going through PayPal (unless you are?), and eBay definitely loses out if you go through PayPal (not sure how I feel about this, given eBay's increasingly strict rules against sellers without much seller recourse than leaving eBay's massive marketplace altogether).

 

Personally I couldn't care less about ebay in the same way they didn't care about me when I got scammed twice, with that said it just makes no sense as a buyer to give up the ebay bucks without a discount being applied for using paypal only

 

Oh that's a good one.

eBay Bucks are nice if you spend enough to earn the Bucks every quarter.

Otherwise, I see this as a form of protest against eBay by sellers, whether or not that's what that particular seller is actually doing. The current climate on eBay is not too friendly to sellers. I see it like this: if a significant or a majority of the country's population finds a rule or law to be bad or ridiculous, then they should protest, even if it means breaking the law to protest. That's how laws change. If we tended to accept ridiculous or "bad" laws without sufficient reason or compromise, then Americans would be British citizens of America today.

Mods: sorry if the above is too political. Please remove as you see fit.

 

If you've purchased from a seller before and you're comfortable with them, it's ok if you (the buyer) wants a paypal direct invoice. But for sellers who are insistent in trying to deal off ebay, you should probably walk away.
I've been selling on ebay a long time and many of my 10+ year customers still send me checks, and some just email me with their order and I send them a paypal invoice. I'm fine with that because we've done so much business together. But I'd never try to push anyone into doing something off-ebay because it's inappropriate, and against the rules, and dangerous. Heck, selling ON ebay is dangerous enough lol.

 

Agreed, buyers can basically do no wrong in their eyes and sellers are forced to just eat losses sometimes because of it. I basically stopped using them entirely after the second time they told me to bad. Now with the 30 day return requirement for top rated status sellers are basically fronting people their inventory who have a month to shop it around and return it if they wish. I don't blame sellers for wanting to cut them out and think that will become more and more common if their policies continue to treat coins like they're a used DVD I just don't think that sellers should surprise buyers by trying to force it to paypal only without them agreeing to it like what happened here. A lot of buyers will actually be the ones who make the request if it will cut the ebay fees off the price for them.

 

Yes, if the seller is provoking the buyer, then that would be a different scenario altogether, which this sounds like it is given the two times it was asked. I'm assuming that the buyer/OP never asked for PP direct, nor a further discount.

 

No, I didn't. He just refused my ebay payment and kept sending me invoices from paypal.

 

I had one seller I'm sure didn't like the price I paid for his item. He simply would not ship the item no matter what eBay did. I had to take a credit on it but I don't think he even cared. Possession is 99% of the battle.

 

I wonder what the percentages of negative deals are for each category of items sold on ebay. Are coin collectors or sellers consistently at the top of the complaint list, but much lower in profits to eBay?

 

Lower in profits but I would bet money there are categories that get far more complaints. The cheaper items are the more problem buyers they seem to attract.

 

I can only say as limited experience, but looking at other areas, most dealers have 98.5 - 99.5 feedback. When I look at coin dealers, 99.5 is a low feedback.

 

For low volume seller like me, one negative can really lower the feedback score though.