How safe is E-Bay/Paypal?

[floppybootstomp]

I've just sold a camera on E-Bay to a Spanish customer and the cash is in Paypal.

Basically my question is - is it safe to post the goods?

If Paypal shows the cash in my Paypal account is it secure?

I have started the process of transferring cash from Paypal to my bank account but that will take 3 to 5 working days which is a complete week.

I'd rather ship the goods now though, so should I?

 

[nivrip]

If Paypal shows the cash in my Paypal account is it secure?


I'd rather ship the goods now though, so should I?

I think it is safe once it's in the Paypal account so I think it should be OK to ship.

 

[crazylegs]

I hope you read this in time Mr Flopp's..

I would wait until you have the money in your account Mr Flopp's..The ebayer could do whats known in the trade as a chargeback and recover the money from your paypal account that they paid in..Meanwhile your goods are on the way or they already have the goods and they have there money back aswell..

Be on the safe side and let them know via email the buyer and just tell them the goods will be shipped once payment has cleared throught the paypal system and your bank.. If they are genuine this will not be a problem as long asthey are kept informed of the situation every step of the way..

Caution is the order of the day here...Not paranoia..

Hope that helps, you can take my advice or you can leave it makes no odds to me..

 

[floppybootstomp]

Ok, thanks. I have already told the buyer I was going to wait for the money to transfer so I think I'll wait until the money is in my bank account.

For how long after a sale can a buyer exercise this 'charge back' thingie? I'd never heard of that before.

 

[crazylegs]

Anywhere up to a week..

Its a naughty situation that Paypal should have closed the door on a long time ago, but didn't! They are getting better though and ebay as a whole are slightly more cautious around security issues, but thats only because millions of ebayers have left there system..

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks for the info.

I may very well leave their system myself, the combined charges of E-Buyer & Paypal don't leave much profit.

When I advertised my camera originally with Gumtree for £450.00 (new it costs £700.00+) and somebody offered me £300.00 I scoffed at them. I should have taken that offer as even though I sold the outfit for £350.00 on E-Baythe eventual selling price was under £300.00 after the listing fee, E-Buyer commission and Paypal commission.

An absolute ripoff.

I've also been selling lots of audio CD's and was initially listing them with a starting price of 50p. If they sold for 50p it worked out I was actually giving them away, so now I start the bidding at £1.00.

The way I'm figuring this, the sale of around 25 audio CD's so far has covered all my fees.

A poor state of affairs, really. And there's also the several trips I've had to make to the Post Office to consider.

Think I'll try Gumtree for the other 180+ CD's.

 

[Ian]

I'd echo crazylegs comments - be careful with paypal. Be sure you've got the money in your bank first, and make sure you keep all postage receipts. Without wanting to sound paranoid, I'd be very very very cautious sending anything abroad via e-bay as it leave little recourse should anything go wrong. Did they have good feedback?

Paypal is great when it works, but a nightmare to deal with when things go wrong. I sold a laptop on ebay years ago, and for some reason paypal set my account to -£500 for seemingly no reason. Luckily the buyer was just as confused as I was and I got the money back - but paypal were useless in the process.

Just done a search and found the thread - posted in one of the news article threads:
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1879943

I don't mean to scare you, I just would hate to see you ripped off.

 

[Ian]

Just seen this too, W_F had a similar experience:

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=12686561

 

[G~MAN]

PayPal is a dodgy site, a lot of scammers about!

When you post your item make sure that it is recorded delivery and you keep all of your reciepts, I think the buyer has upto 90 days where they can dispute an item! (this may be wrong, defo the case when not using ebay)

 

[floppybootstomp]

I remember WF's post, which is why I always send everything, no matter how low-priced, by recorded delivery.

For an audio CD first class recorded delivery is £1.65 on average, a jiffy bag costs me 12.5p and with the cost of the label and printing it (I use Avery adhesive labels, L7165) I charge £2.00 to send an audio CD. So only about 10p profit on postage.

E-Bay take a slice, Paypal takes a slice so there's very little profit.

I'm obviously quite worried now, the buyer has only one sale mentioned in his history as well.

I offered three methods of shipping - 1-3 days; 3-5 days & 5-10 days and added a fiver to each to cover my fees. All of them through the Post Office, all of them recorded delivery and all offered as a method on E-Bay.

The seller chose the cheapest method and I have recieved the correct amount together with the payment for the camera as one sum. He also asked me if the parcel could be tracked but I'm not sure yet whether it can be or not.

The delivery method chosen is named International Standard Delivery.

Here's a link to my listing: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&item=230335961813

I'll keep you all posted and thanks, everybody, for your advice.

 

[Ian]

Just checking, when you say Spanish Customer - do you mean a customer in Spain, or someone Spanish in the UK?

 

[floppybootstomp]

Just checking, when you say Spanish Customer - do you mean a customer in Spain, or someone Spanish in the UK?

Somebody in Spain.

 

[Ian]

I've had a quick read of the paypal seller protection policy and you need to be able to track the parcel to be covered. I'd be very careful when dealing with someone in another country for something expensive.

What worries me is that you've got listed that you only ship to the UK, and yet someone wanting delivery to Spain has managed bid on it. It should filter it out automatically. Does their account say they are from the UK when you view their detailed profile?

As a chargeback can technically be issued after you've got the money in your account, I'd make sure you do everything by the book (i.e. tracking etc...) so that paypal can't claim anything from you if things go wrong.

It sounds a bit fishy if they are from Spain and bidding on a marked UK only auction with only 1 feedback. It might be worth giving them a ring to double check something (like tracking) to see if they sound reasonable. If you've got any doubts, you can refund the paypal with a few clicks (and get refunded ebay/paypal fees). After all, you say you can only ship to the UK in the listing so you shouldn't get any negative rep from it (even if he tries to neg. rep. you, ebay would agree that your terms state you only ship to the UK).

 

[Anon_F]

A friend found Gumtree really good to use & great if your London based.

 

[crazylegs]

Just had a look at your listing Flopp's and its a very nice piece of kit you got there, and obviously a very nice kit for a scammer..

Be careful on this one..

 

[floppybootstomp]

There doesn't seem to be any detailed information about him.

He has one feedback where he's bought something from The Phillipines and that's it.

Get's worse dunnit?

I did wonder about selling only in the UK but as I hadn't mentioned it in my listing I thought it was open to all-comers so bit the bullet. But I see now I have that option ticked for all sales.

The buyer has both my mobile and fax numbers, I sent them to him.

Is it easy for me to cancel transfer from Paypal to my bank account/cancel sale/get fees returned?

I'm a bit green with E-Bay (as you can see ) so any advice/help as to how to do that would be apreciated.

I think I will cancel the sale if I can, too many doubts in my mind.

The listing cost me around £9.00 as I added three extra pix and put a reserve of £350.00 on it.

But I can relist it again for free I believe, or is it at a reduced cost to relist? I don't know.

But all things considered I may put it on Gumtree and take £300.00 for it if anybody offers.

There again I may even keep it cos I used it recently and it really is a nice bit of kit.

The outfit cost me a total of £653.00 as it came from America (Forum member James brought it over for me) and at that time I saved around £200.00 on the cost in the UK. But all the seperate parts now only cost £712.00 total. Still, to sell a camera less than two years old for less than half price hurts.

What would you folk do? Cancel the sale?

 

[floppybootstomp]

A friend found Gumtree really good to use & great if your London based.

I've used Gumtree before, I do believe it was yourself who pointed me to Gumtree originally.

I also mentioned it in this thread in a previous post.

Generally, Gumtree's ok, I did sell a few things but I also had a lot of enquiries by e-mail and consequently got heavily spammed until Mailwasher finally deterred them.

So all should be aware that Gumtree is a favourite place for spammers to harvest e-mail addresses.

And when I offered the camera for sale on there previously I was also approached by Nigerian spammers who Uncle Flops gave the standard two word answer to

 

[guest_9323wk]

Hi Flops,

If it was me and someone brought an item of that value from me and only had 1 feedback received, I would probably cancel the sale, I don't think its worth the risk. As for the fees of the listing I am not sure if you get a refund of them, I would had thought so but I am not sure, I am pretty new to Ebay as well its worth contacting ebay and saying that you are concerned about sending an item to Spain that you only listed it for the UK, you could also ask them to check out the buyer and see what they say.


I have already had problems with Ebay, a couple of months back I listed a brand new phone on there within 3hours of listing it, someone had just signed up to buy it and had no feedback at all, I was asked to post it to an address in London, then I never reviced payment for this item, a few hours later I was asked to ship to it Nigiria, by that time I knew this wasnt right, so I reported them to ebay, and then they started e-mailing me 3 times aday asking me to ship this item out to them, and that the moeny was on its way but there had been a techincal problem in processing it yeah right. Ebay were not that helpful either its as if this sort of thing happens all the time on there, they even expected me to pay all the listing fees for this item and the final vaule fees in the end they refunded it. After all that I have never trusted Ebay as much.


Think thats the longest post I have ever written on here, LOL

Regards

 

[crazylegs]

Well I would get in touch with the buyer tell him of your reservations about the sale and his lack of feedback.. I would state that you will not be sending the Camera kit to him unless he pays the full price for the postage to spain and the cost of any Tracking first class, (as 5-10 days is too long for me and will give any scammer the time to do what they want scam wise..)

If he agrees to this then there should be no problem and you will be covered every step of the way..He could also be genuine..
If something tells you that somethings not right Flopp's follow your instincts mate..

If he refuses then refund him his money and get your fees back through paypal and relist stating in your ebay description you only post to the UK..

 

[nivrip]

It was always my understanding that once the money was in the Paypal account that you were OK and that they then carried the can if anything went wrong.

However, after reading about this charge back thing, which is news to me, I would hold back until the dosh is in your bank account.

I have read today allsorts of bad reports about Paypal. My dealings with them have been fine and on one occasion they were very helpful and managed to get me my money back after a scam.

But, things change and caution is the obvious thing.