A Paypal Offer - Is This Secure?


Hi All,

I am selling a CAT amplifier and have a paypal offer from a buyer who has very little feedback (only one transaction) and does not speak english well and communicates only small bits of information at a time. I am nervous about this. I spoke with paypal and they told me that as long as:

1) I am selling something of substance
2) I ship to the paypal address, no other address
3) I can document the shipping of the product

I am protected as a seller. If this is true, I should be able to accept his offer and make sure that I am shipping to the address listed in paypal, and I should be fine shipping pilot air insured (with tracking and all, including photos of packing, etc). What do you guys think? Is this too much of a risk, or not really a risk at all?
peter_s
Peter, I got a chance to respond to the Paypal dispute. What I said did not seem to matter, even though I had a timeline and was telling the truth. Supposedly my buyer produced documentation to them stating the DAC was broken. I never saw any, even though I asked.
Again, I got the DAC back in good working condition. It was however missing a $200 cable and some inner packing.
I tried to start my own dispute about this but Paypal "declared" case closed.
Fortunately Audiogon took my side in all this and I was able to leave negative feedback. Some consolation, but a nightmare over all.
Read your Paypal user agreement. You have no recourse to Paypal's decisions, whatever they are. If, for example, you sell to a customer, the customer receives the item then cancels the credit card transaction they used to fund the paypal transaction, paypal will not be able to collect from the customer and they will chargeback the transaction to your account.
Thanks all for your input. Ultimately, I decided not to go with Paypal and convinced the buyer to pay with a wire transfer. Once he realized it was the only way I'd be willing to sell it to him (given the vagueries of the deal and lack of conformity with typical procedures), he stepped forward for wire transfer and all went OK.
Totally agree with Elizabeth.

With PayPal and eBay, they always prefer buyers no matter what the truth may be, unfortunately. You can write a novel about your honest sale but they hardly even take a look at your ad and photos on it. eBay as a third partner is not neutral. PayPal is not safe for sellers, as they can freeze your money whenever they want and you can´t do anything about it. Normal action in business? Hardly, it´s illegal if you ask me. I´ve been selling for ten years on eBay with 100 % score of 800+ transactions and now been freezed by a help a random fraud who has score less than a hundred and very little history. After having read a few horror stories about PayPal fraudulence I don´t trust them at all anymore.
Bank Transfer is the ONLY safe way for sellers. If things get really bad, with PayPal seller can lose all his money + his items and nothing can help it. So seller loses EVERYTHING. I wonder who cares for sellers business anymore. Customer is always right is a myth. Actually this is the biggest problem with doing normal business today.
Agreed with Buconero17.
SECURE YOUR FUNDS IMMEDIATELY after they clear.
Make sure to use prepaid debit card instead of your credit card or bank.
You can't get less than zero balance on your prepaid debit card.
That's the trick.