What's the deal with PayPal?

Is this system trustworthy? I've spent 2 hours trying to figure out how to

recieve funds from a future online sale. If this is "this" difficult to set up,

how can I depend on it to work?

I've used it for years. HOW you use will certainly dictate your level of satisfaction/frustration. If you're trying to integrate it into a web site, you're certainly presumed to have a little bit of experience in site editing and light-duty programming. If you're going to use their system to e-mail an invoice to someone, it's really quite straight-forward.

 

The real issue is that, using it for business purposes, you want to get it glued to the correct bank info on your end, and go through with their verification procedures asap.

 

Obviously, if you're using it in conjunction with eBay (which owns PayPal), the integration is already done.

I just want to sell 1 body, and 1 lens, and use this to recieve payment. It is linked to my checking account already. Can the buyer somehow cheat me? That is my worry. At what point do I send the goods? Will I already have the payment in hand?

When the buyer makes a payment to your established paypal linked email address, paypal will send you a notice to that email, than go to your paypal account and they will provide instructions on how to claim the payment, the payment is secure as long as you follow a few simple guidelines, if you are selling on ebay, you may want to set the auction to accept bids from only people that have a paypal account, and make sure that the email that the payment is going to go to on the auction is the email that you provided to paypal, once the transaction is complete, use one of paypals established shipping, and you will be protected under paypals buyer and seller protections!

 

Hope this helps!

 

Ken.

Hi,

 

Steve..Paypal is great for buyers and usually great for sellers, however, scammers love using paypal because it is so easy to scam sellers using paypal..they just claim they never received the item, or the item was 'not as described' and they do a chargeback, which is a nightmare for sellers as paypal usually fall automatically on the side of the buyer..

 

cheers Steve.

If you only want to use it for one transaction I would forget it - just ask th ebuyer to send you a MO. I have been using Paypal for many years and it works great, but for a single transaction - No!

What Steven says can happen, but only if you do not protect yourself, document everything, pay extra when shipping the items for signature on delivery confirmation, and use shipping methods that track the package like UPS, and never ship to a Po Box by USPS "one of the methods that scamers want you to use"

 

If you follow the guidelines set forth by paypal, you shouldn't have any problems!

 

I have had at least a thousand transactions using paypal, 2/3 of which has been sales, and never once have I had a problem!

It is a piece of cake (thru eBay). I've had only 1 problem in over 200 transactions, and because I followed all the rules, everything was resolved in my favor. My guidelines involve: 1)not selling to buyers in countries which have questionable banking practices or postal issues, 2)not selling to buyers who have negative feedback or who don't have a strong record of responsible, high-end purchases, 3)not responding to potential purchasers who want to make offers outside of the eBay framework, 4)insisting on signed receipts for the items shipped, 5)insisting on Paypal only payments. <p>

The money is transferred to your Paypal account by the buyer. I then transfer the money to my checking account, notify the buyer of receipt of payment and exactly what the shipping procedures are...including tracking info and a means of contacting me if there are issues. I also ask the buyer to let me know when delivery is made and if he/she is satisfied, finally asking them to provide eBay feedback as well.

In this case one buyer is in Hong Kong?

Hiya,

 

A story about paypal...

 

...an american lawyer who is new to ebay buys several Leica R & Contax lenses on ebay in the space of one week from different sellers all over the globe, apparently to use on his new shiny Canon DSLR. He uses a PO box address in Calif near his home. For some bizarre reason after he has paid for them (via paypal with his credit card) AND after all the sellers have sent them he decides he no longer wants them..

 

...so, when the parcels show up, he refuses to accept them and sends them back..only AFTER he has done this does he bother to email the sellers to tell them..you can imagine how pleased they are. Within 4-5 days he is back emailing the sellers demanding refunds, even though none of them have their goods returned to them yet...

 

...they refuse of course...emails are sent back and forth..disputes break out and people are not happy. There is one seller in the USA, one in China, one in Germany and myself in the UK. This arrogant prat starts trying to do chargebacks to get his money back...

 

..the USA seller after about 5 weeks does get his lens back..still the others do not. After 3 months the Chinese seller got his lenses back finally but was out of pocket to some extent, the German never did as far as I know get his two Leica lenses back.

 

I lost about 60 GBP (100 USD) after he did a chargeback through his credit card company via paypal. I followed ALL of paypal procedures and they DID NOTHING TO PROTECT ME. They lamely said they would 'put my case' to the guys cc company, but the just caved in and paid them. It cost me ebay fees, paypal fees, plus paypal had the nerve to charge me an admin fee for the chargeback!

 

So..this was not a scammer, just some arrogant moron who thought he could do what he liked rather than the 'norm' and I followed all ebay and paypal 'rules' but I still lost out. Luckily my lens finally showed up about 4 days after he did the chargeback. The USPS are crap at returning items it seems...

 

cheers Steve.M. (UK)

My gripe with paypal and ebay are the pseudo scammers. EVERY DAY I get at least 5 emails (picked up as spam by our firewall and anti virus) requesting me to reconfirm my paypal credentials (I don't have a Pay Pal account) or some Ebay member asking me a question about items (I haven't had an auction on Ebay in 4 years). As long as this slime crawls the earth, I will keep my purchases to people I can shake hands with. Sure I might miss the ocasional prestoflex whizbang but I just can't deal with scum any more.

I have to agree with Mr. Moseley. I'm using PayPal less and less these days and MO's more and more. Read up here if you like: http://paypalsucks.com/

 

If you'd like further info, put "Paypal sucks" into Google and hit search.

I have bought and sold on eBay with PayPal. As a buyer I like payPal. As a seller I take the same precautions i would in any transaction, and i declare them right up front in the selling terms. I do not ship until payment has cleared and I have transferred it out of PayPal. The account that backs PayPal never has more than one dollar in it and has no association with any of my other accounts, and, in fact, is at a separate financial institution.

<I>EVERY DAY I get at least 5 emails (picked up as spam by our firewall and anti virus) requesting me to reconfirm my paypal credentials</i><P>

 

Paypal is a natural target for "Phishers" who send spam emails hoping you'll click on their (bogus) link which will then take you to a page that *looks* like Paypal's but is not.<P>

 

Therefore, <B>never</b> click on a link to get to Paypal; <B>always</b> type it into your browser's Address field to get there.<P>

 

The same is unfortunately true of most Bank spam emails asking you to confirm your account number and password. A real bank would never send you an email to do that - and neither will Paypal (Although it's technically not a "bank" - which gets it around the FDIC insurance guarantee). Common sense is your best defense against these goons.

Steve, As you have been warned the buyer almost always receives a refund if he claims. If you send the item and he claims it did not arrive he will be refunded.