Don't be dumb, never pay for your coins using Paypal's gift payment

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I've done it too geek, though I always figured if something went wrong I had only myself to blame. (The lost would have been minimal.)

 

I have no problem paying pp gift to people I trust, and a lot of people don't seem to have a problem sending me PP gift. The keyword is trust.

 

Gift payments are almost as bad as mailing cash to someone. The risk are too great.

 

As a seller, it's easy to calculate the 3% fee into your price. As Peter says, don't ask your buyers to send you "gift" payments, and always ship with tracking. It does make you look like a scammer if you're not willing to ensure the delivery of your goods. Whenever I see sellers asking for gift payments, I just keep moving.

 

Okay, but no one has ever asked for it from me.

 

Thank you, Peter.

Honestly, I think that this should be a rule for this site. Sellers should be responsible for including the cost as part of their selling price. I have often wondered if PayPal monitors transactions looking for abuse of the "gift" option, and I don't want to risk losing my PayPal account over something like that.

If sellers want to list something as "$100 for check / money order or $103 via PayPal" or something like that, I guess that would be okay? It's fair, it's full disclosure, and it doesn't try to circumvent PayPal's policies.

 

I agree its a good warning Peter. ALl new members should know Paypal gift is not a normal course of business.

While I agree with it, I treat it like the advice to "never clean coins". Fine, sturdy, helpful advice for new people. I will admit I do Paypal gift to a few people on here I know and trust, but that is because I have seen them and talked to them on here for a few years at least. Once you get to know someone fairly well, I do it as a courtesy just to maximize their profit on the transaction. I knowingly give up my protection because I know the person.

 

Paypal does look for abuse, but you won't lose your account, they'll just shut off the ability to send/receive gifts.

Sending someone a check or money order isn't much safer than paypal gift.

 

I'm with John Anthony on this one. I just move on. I wonder if the seller's realize how many potential sales they miss by requesting gift certificates? If you accept or pay with them because you personally know the individual, that is a very limited market you use them in. I don't know anyone from this site that well myself.

 

I don't want people to get the wrong idea from Peter's post above, so please allow me clarify a couple points.

To anyone who may be considering scamming people using PayPal Gift: Intentionally taking money from a person and not delivering the goods promised is a crime, regardless of the method of payment used. It's not just a policy violation that will be handled internally by PayPal. It is not a civil matter. It is a criminal offense.

Given the nature of the Internet and PayPal, if you fraudulently advertise goods for sale here and receive payment through PayPal, that would be a federal crime. The postal inspectors will not investigate if the postal system was not involved, but the FBI will.

All that being said, it's better to be safe than sorry. Unless you really, really trust the person you are buying from, do not send funds via PayPal gift, or cash, or Western Union, etc.. Sure, the FBI might give them hell for it, they might even get a conviction, but you may never get your money back.

I'd also go so far as to say don't use PayPal to buy from people here unless there is at least some level of trust, and the dollar value at stake should be appropriate to the level of trust established. For example, I might be willing to use PayPal to buy something for $10 with a person who has only been here for a month, but certainly not $1000, and absolutely not via PayPal Gift.

 

The only reason people are going the "gift" route is to avoid the fees. In my opinion, if you can't afford the fees (or don't want to pay them) then don't use the service. You can't call up VISA or Mastercard and ask them to waive their fees because you don't want to pay them... why should you treat PayPal any different? Try getting a merchant account so you can accept actual credit cards and see how much that costs!

Peter, the reason I suggested making it a rule here is that way PayPal can't decide to come after you / this site as a "facilitator" or someone who supports attempts to circumvent the proper use of PayPal. I don't see it being that big of a deal. Simply police the advertising section (which is being done already) and remove any listing that requires PayPal gift as payment.

What goes on behind closed doors is another story, but at least that way it doesn't look like CT is implicitly endorsing the practice.

 

Great advice. I see this all the time...and it's something to avoid doing. It opens you up to huge risk.

 

That directly violates paypal's policys

 

You're right. From the PayPal web site:

Also note:

... which is exactly what this thread is about.

 

Paypal user agreement section 4.5:
4.5 No Surcharges. You agree that you will not impose a surcharge or any other fee for accepting PayPal as a payment method. You may charge a handling fee in connection with the sale of goods or services, as long as the handling fee does not operate as a surcharge and is not higher than the handling fee you charge for non-PayPal transactions.

b. If you are selling goods or services, you may not ask the buyer to send you a personal payment ("gift") for the purchase. If you do so, PayPal may remove your ability to accept personal payments.

 

So should we start reporting the threads that want paypal gift so that the mods can edit that part out of the listing?