I have never bought or sold any cards outside of eBay and am wondering about the procedures for transacting with Paypal. I’ve read about buyer and seller protection on Paypal’s website but am wondering if I could draw on experience here to find out about some good practices to follow as a buyer (and also as a seller) to ensure an honest transaction. For example, is there anything I should do or any records I should keep so that Paypal will associate a particular payment with a particular transaction? Thanks to anyone who takes the time to respond.
Buy insurance for all buys and sales should protect you and your trading partner best.
Most important rule of thumb is, send via goods and services, not via Friends and Family.
You get buyer’s protection with Goods and Services, but you do not with Friends and Family.
Most sellers,especially on sketchier market sites (like Facebook, instagram, etc.) will pressure you into doing Friends and Family, because they are out to either scam you or save 3% (cost of G&S) on their final product cost. Don’t do it!
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Those two aren’t the only reasons for requiring f/f.
99% of my private sales are friends and family.
Some sellers are trying to stay under the 200 Paypal transaction threshold (or the 20k) for tax purposes.
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Of course Gary, you’re very trusted, part of Efour and I wouldn’t bat an eye sending f/f to you.
However, my best guess with crow is that he/she’s completely new with buying in general, and with that he/she would most likely lack strong connections and can’t tell the honest sellers with the dishonest ones. That’s why I prefer giving this type of blanket statement or else, like my other friends who does buying and selling off of reddit, facebook, instagram; they get ripped off hard because they assume a “popular” (aka lots of followers) seller means they are trust worthy. Unfortunately some are, but many are not. Of course efour is also a major exception, but my interpretation of crow’s posts is hinting that the transactions are occurring outside of members of efour.
I’d rather tell him/her to start being paranoid, then trust a select few people (or community) instead of starting with trusting everybody and then being paranoid after getting a few unsatisfactory transactions.
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The 20K/200 is not some threshold for taxes, its just for Paypal to actually send a 1099K. You can still be audited for tax evasion if you sell any amount and don’t report it.
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Thanks for the responses. I am planning on making a buying thread here but am waiting because I am traveling for the next two weeks. I haven’t done any transactions on the internet (outside of eBay) since I was a kid trading/buying/selling Score DBZ cards before Paypal’s IPO and acquisition by eBay, when people relied purely on a forum feedback system and often would mail cash, which is obviously a poor model for how things should be done today. I have never even insured anything in the mail. I think my concern about buying on an established site like this when I’m a new member and have no idea how reputable people are (beyond the metric of post count and general level of activity 
) is toeing the line between having adequate protection and offending legitimate sellers or losing out on opportunities due to needless suspicion. But it is always helpful to me to collect general advice and information.
How does paypal not bat an eye at one account receiving 10’s to 100’s of thousands of dollars through friends and family from dozens of different accounts?
I mean it is obvious the implications can be huge because not only do you save 2.9% plus 30 cents but you can save whatever your tax rate is if you fail to report those receipts as income (Usually 15%+). It would be easy not to though because they don’t show up on a 1099.
I will never buy a card if the seller requires F&F, but I always cover the PayPal fees so they don’t have to.
PayPal has been cracking down on F&F sellers on virbank…Every other day you hear of someone having their account locked. Mostly due to the buyers putting their address in the message, which is a really easy way for PayPal to notice you’re avoiding fees.
Duh.
And they can audit you for tax evasion even if you don’t use Paypal at all lol.
Some people simply don’t want to raise red flags for whatever reason.
You’re allowed to have friends and they count under friends/family. I signed up for Paypal in 1999. I’ve sold to friends thousands of times without any PayPal interference.
Those savings are normally passed on to the buyer but if they would rather give it to PayPal that’s fine. Buy for 3000.00. Pocket the 100.00 or give it to PayPal? Whatever;)
Just trying to help the spread of misinformation. 20K isn’t going to throw up too many red flags either, they likely aren’t going to chase such low amounts, but people believe that 20K/200 is the minimum required to pay tax, which just isn’t true.
So PayPal F&F payments dont go towards that 200 $20,000 tax?
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Also keep in mind some states will send out a 1099-K regardless of how much you sell. I got one this past year and I only sold 1.5k. However if you don’t have a business and you’re just selling items that were in your collection, there’s no need to report the 1099-K.
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Well actually this isn’t true. If you are SELLING something to ANYONE friends or not it’s still considered a payment that should be made through goods/services as PayPal in providing a place for the transaction and protection on both ends. Recieving a payment for an item you are shipping to a buyer and have sold through family/friends is not the correct way to sell. Family/friends payments are just a way to send money not to purchase something. Plus for any sellers out there family/friends payments are very risky as if they claim an unthorized transaction or charge back PayPal will NOT protect you! But if you Sold under goods/services to the buyers PayPal address with tracking you will be protected. Just my 2 cents.
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“Isn’t true”? What are you smoking today;)?
Over a 1000 f/f transaction over 19 years (as well as hundreds with our co-members here) kinda makes me an expert about what’s true with me lol.
I never suggested anyone else do it.
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Another thing to note…if you get a payment thru ff you are wasting your money buying insurance. Reason being is if a package gets lost and you have to open a claim say thru Usps they are going to ask you for a copy of the money you received from the buyer for proof of value for how much you insured it for. If it’s a friends and family payment USPS won’t accept that because you can’t prove that’s the guy that ordered your item since in an ff payment there is no place to upload your tracking number. Basically go thru goods. It’s worth the PayPal fee for peace of mind and protection. Also anyone looking to do this long term should do more thru goods and not ff since ff you do run the risk of PayPal locking your account in they think you are using ff for business.
Not sure what your experience is but I’ve had two f/f losses with insurance and collected on both. Both were printed on Paypal and the names (payment name and shipping label name) did have to match…which they did. Oddly, on one the usps double paid lol.
What he’s saying is if you talk to PayPal they will tell you if you ever ship something it “should” be done thru goods. Doesn’t mean it has to they are saying that cause that’s where you have your protection Incase something gets lost or damaged. Sure you can ship ff and anyone can technically be your “friend” but you are running the risk but it’s your choice. Ff was really just made to gift someone money not for shipping out items.
That’s good you got pretty fortunate on that one glad to hear that lol it usually doesn’t work out like that.