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Tale of Two PayPals: Great for Buyers / Awful for Sellers
In Response To: Re: ebay-paypal : the story continues ()

It's been a while since I worked through the fine-print / legal terms, but I am still of the view that PayPal is great for Buyers (people sending money), but can present huge risks for Sellers (people receiving money).

Let's look at the fundamentals:

  • eBay is scary . . . the Buyer must send money to a stranger
  • in order to give the Buyers confidence, eBay and PayPal have gone to great lengths to protect the Buyer, in the form of broad charge-back rights, when the Buyer funds with a credit card
  • this protection of the Buyer comes at the expense (risk) of the Seller / recipient of payment, who faces emormous charge-back risk
Until something changes in the legal terms, I would never accept PayPal for a high-dollar item. Buyer may end up with your wonderful watch; you may end up with the nightmare of a charge-back on your PayPal account. Maybe someone can tell me that I am wrong, or that something has changed in the legal terms . . . until then, I will only accept bank wires or checks for expensive items.

Jeff

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

: They tried to make the Australian eBay site an all-PayPal system-
: no other option. The local Competition Commission ruled that
: out.

: I have to say that PayPal is not perfect- but sitting here in HK,
: there is no easier, quicker way to send money to Europe or the
: US. Its far from perfect- for example, its annoying that the
: hold on to your cash when you've made a sale (and opens you up
: to fraud).

: Hate to say it, but If I was running eBay, I'd be doing the same as
: them.

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