A lot of people messaged me, asking if I’d take PayPal on eBay, and it generally seems to very popular for German Buyers. I’m very reluctant though because of all the horror stories I’ve read about where a buyer just claims some random bullshit and gets their money back.
Is there any precautionary measure one could take to make sure the buyer would lose the case, or at least give me, as a seller, good/better odds of winning in such a case?
Very interested in hearing opinions, especially from European or maybe even German Sellers.
Either buyer pays f/f (most likely won’t happen) or have tracking and signature confirmation of the item to ensure it arrives to buyer and upload the info to the transaction on PayPal. If you want to be even more safe record a video of yourself packaging up the contents and even mailing the item too just in case a case is opened on PayPal. For me, if a buyer tries to buy an eBay item from me and wants to do an offsite transaction I just say no now. At least eBay can intervene as well if you took all safety measures and you probably have a better chance of winning the case.
What about if I offer PP in eBay itself? That automatically makes it not F/F, right? I’m planning on sending all my stuff via registered mail, the more expensive via insured mail. But wouldn’t that only protect me from “card didn’t arrive” claims, and not “card is damaged” claims?
A little offtopic question:
If I accept a offer to get paid on PayPal via F/F, is there any way to check if it has been sent via F/F or not?
If you decide to offer Paypal as payment method on ebay all transactions will become goods & services which gives buyer possibility to get their money back.
About friends & family payments, when you get one Paypal shouldn’t take any fees from you since buyer takes care of them ( + buyer has no option to open case, this is obviously something you can’t see in transaction details ). Also you don’t get delivery address of buyer from friends & family payments.
You can look at the transaction details and see if there were any fees, if there are fees then it was a goods and services payment because the receiver of the funds pays the fees on that method and they’re taken from the money paid. If there are no fees it was paid via friends and family.
There is no recourse for a buyer paying via friends and family so it’s safe to accept f/f payments as a seller. As a buyer I wouldn’t use it unless you’re confident you won’t get ripped off as like I said, you have no recourse if the seller decides not to send the item.
As for people asking to pay for a transaction outside of eBay, I do this a lot for high end cards. The main reason is the seller won’t lose 10% fees to eBay and instead it’s just the 3.5% fees via goods and services payment, so you can often negotiate a better price. Eg $2000 card on eBay, I might message and say if you sell me the card outside eBay and send me an invoice through PayPal for it I’d buy it right now for $1800 since you won’t have to pay the fees to eBay. (Just an example fees are different based on if the seller has a store etc.). Saving a few hundred on a card can make the difference between an ok buy and a great buy.
Wait…why do >they< save money? Doesn’t the Seller take the fee hit? I just looked at my PayPal and saw I had someone buy cards that added up to 189€ from Switzerland and I had to pay 10€ in fees. >.< ; And for having to pay such a high amount of fees my reward is being able to lose that money if a Buyer makes a BS claim within 180 days? :I
They save the money because if a card is listed by you on eBay for $100 BIN you’ve already accepted that you’re going to lose $10 of that in fees and most sellers would have accounted that into their sale price. Even if a seller hasn’t though, they’re going to lose that money to fees anyway.
The buyer saves the money because if someone contacts me and offers $90 to pay directly through PayPal to circumvent eBay fees and they’re paying f/f then it’s not different to me than if they bought through eBay, I’m just guaranteed the sale so why wouldn’t I pass on the $10 saving to them, I’m going to lose it anyway if the card sells through eBay. If they’re paying by f/f you’re not going to lose either way as a seller because they can’t open a dispute.
Unless I sell via eBay I only accept Friends and Family. PayPal Goods and Services is something I only use when paying to someone international. PayPal always sides with the buyer and I’ve had an instance where someone literally sent me an empty envelope and kept the $40 card they claimed was played when it was minty. People are scum.
I, like a lot of people on this forum, have built up my reputation across many different platforms. I have no issue with someone asking for f&f if they are reputable. When you see someone like @garyis2000 with an unquestionable track record why wouldn’t you send f&f and save some money on both ends?
I also investigated this a few days ago, but I found out that if you use PayPal f&f that the buyer can still do a chargeback, albeit it only if he paid using his creditcard. So from that point of view goods and services would offer more protection to the seller for expensive cards.
But I don’t live in the US and I’m not sure how aggressive of a move a creditcard chargeback is.
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