[Steve at Sounds Heavenly]

Hi Beoworlders,

For anyone buying items on this forum, my suggestion is always to use PayPal so that you get protection in case of any issues. If the seller asks you to use the “Friends and Family” option to avoid PayPal fees, please bear in mind that this also removes any protection that you have as a buyer. Instead, you can use this online calculator to work out how much extra to pay via a normal PayPal payment so that the seller gets their full price, but you keep your full buyer protection:

https://wise.com/gb/paypal-fee-calculator/

Kind regards, Steve.

[YannChris]

Thanks Steve,

Wise advice 🙂

Yann.

[Robert09]

How long does the PayPal dispute resolution process usually take? and myfedloan, What is the “Friends and Family” payment option in PayPal?

[Beofile7]

Just a little story to ponder…

A couple of years ago I sold a vintage TEAC reel to reel on eeebay in UK for 1000+ pounds paid for with paypal. The buyer after a few days demanded a return for refund which was agreed to. What came back was a stripped of parts machine badly smashed up in a poorly packed wet cardboard box that offered no protection at all. All atempts to communicate with the buyer went ignored so a case was opened against him with paypal. Despite evidence and photos to prove the case paypal refused any action or protection. I have since had a similar issue with them. So paypal is no sure guarantee unfortunately.

[matador]

Paypal… Pros and Cons…

Sometimes it works at it should: safe payment, peace of mind, safety.
Sometimes it don’t. With times, people who want to fraud, fraud! They have understood that all you need to win the case is a return tracking number even if they actually returned whatever crap in the box.

I dot wanna even elaborate on what I don’t know but, would it be possible that the algorithms were something like “refund little money to keep the safety feeling, don’t refund big money because it’s not interesting financially speaking”? I don’t know.

There is countless stories o PayPal here on BW. I remember our valuable member Dillen having a lot of troubles with PayPal because of bad buyers that caused him to not use PayPal anymore. In the other hand, as a buyer, I feel safe to use PayPal because the possibility of a case just exists and it doesn’t with any other paying method. And this, even if the confusion may not be in my favor.

I “subscribe” to paypal, long ago, just because I did not want to give my credit card number to eBay. Since then, PayPal has refund me a lot of non delivered items. and even if today, undelivered eBay items find arrangement with the seller directly (because they don’t want a bad review) the original reason is still there.

So in a nutshell: When you’re a seller you may don’t like PayPal because if the buyer is a gangster you know he has ways of legally hustling you.

When you’re a buyer you may don’t like PayPal because you know sellers have ways to dismiss PayPal cases even if they are gansters.

But all in all, PayPal is what it is and, to me, still better than direct CC number.

[Author]

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