Ebay and paypal questions

lorraine

Hi everyone, I have just sold a mobile phone on ebay, the seller has paid, straight away, now my brothe,r who is a bigger seller on ebay than me, said Paypal can be a bit dodgy at times, he said that although the money is in my paypal account, it can take several days to come out of the buyers account, so you send of the phone and then paypal take the money back out of your account as the buyer didn't have sufficient funds,:eek: leaving the seller out of pocket.

Is he winding me up??

If not, I take it I'm entitled to wait until the funds are fully in my bank account before I send the phone.

I will be sending the phone special delivery as its an expensive phone.

I haven't used ebay for ages due to scammers etc I just worried I will get scammed my self, The buyer has feedback of 9 and hasn't any recent transactions.

MTIA

Lorraine

Hintza

Hi Lorraine,

Once the funds are sgowing in your account they are yours so don't worry about that...just check your Paypal account.

However only send to a confirmed address and make sure you post it via Special Delivery.

If it is a fraudulent transaction then they could reverse the money but this would be weeks down the line.

So once the money is in your paypal account then you should post the item

Hope that helps.

lorraine

Hi Hintza, Thanks for your reply so I should send the phone today, they paid this morning, there address is confirmed but they are Non-US - Unverified does this make a difference

Tirian

Hi Lorraine - there's a lot of threads on this board discussing Paypal payments and chargeback. (e.g. this one) Try doing a search on the forum for "chargeback" and have a look through the threads that come up.

Many people will say you shouldn't do this, but I would say that you are safer to withdraw the funds to your bank account before you send, especially if they've given an unverified address - that basically means that they can claim their money back and there will be nothing that you can do about it.

However, even if you have withdrawn the money, the buyer could still chargeback the amount and Paypal would put your balance in negative. They will then demand that you upload the money, and may threaten to send debt collectors if you don't. However, at least you will be dealing with the situation from a position of the money being in your bank account, not frozen somewhere in the Paypal ether.

There will now follow about 4 replies telling you the complete opposite, so you just have to make your choice ....

Perhaps the best thing to do, if you are worried, is to ask the buyer to verify their address on Paypal before you will send - and tell them that if they cannot verify their address then you will refund their payment and ask them to pay via another method.

soolin

Also please remember that you often don't have time to withdraw the money to your account. It can often take over a week for funds to get from paypal to your bank but if you wait for more than 7 days in total to send you lose your seller protection on paypal anyway.

If you delay too long the buyer may think you are a scammer and be tempted to chargeback on day 7 which then gets messy.

Sugar_Coated_Owl

What Tirian has said does make sense. However, as it can take up to a week for funds to transfer from PayPal account to Bank account it's likely that you would lose your PayPal seller protection (if you qualify). PayPal say that a payment is completed once it has gone from one account to another and you should therefore post the item.

greenstreetprince

if the funds are in your paypal account then you should post straight away, the buyer has fulfilled their obligation to pay, you shouldnt really wait until the money is in your bank account.

as long as you have proof of postage you are covered under seller protection policy, whether or not the address is confirmed or not

Tirian

greenstreetprince wrote: »

as long as you have proof of postage you are covered under seller protection policy, whether or not the address is confirmed or not

I think you'll find that there are hundreds, if not thousands of eBay sellers who could tell a very different story. Proof of postage will get you no protection at all. Even proof of delivery doesn't get you anything if they buyer decides to claim that the item is "substantially different" than described, and does a chargeback on that basis.

The fact is, if you take payment through Paypal, you expose yourself to fraudsters to certain degree. And the "seller protection" policy, while nicely worded, doesn't amount to much in reality.

frivolous_fay

greenstreetprince wrote: »

as long as you have proof of postage you are covered under seller protection policy, whether or not the address is confirmed or not

Sorry, but you're way off here. Confirmed addresses are vital with expensive goods, AS WELL as proof of DELIVERY - proof of postage is only helpful if your item is worth under £32.

soolin

greenstreetprince wrote: »

if the funds are in your paypal account then you should post straight away, the buyer has fulfilled their obligation to pay, you shouldnt really wait until the money is in your bank account.

as long as you have proof of postage you are covered under seller protection policy, whether or not the address is confirmed or not

Proof of postage is meaningless as far as paypal or ebay for that matter are concerned. All that matters especially for paypal is proof of delivery using one of their accepted methods of posting:

https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help-ext&eloc=1866&loc=1862&unique_id=95937&source_page=_home&flow=

The sellers on here, myself included always suggest getting proof of posting merely so the seller can claim back in case RM lose the item in the post, it serves no other purpose.

lorraine

Right I posted the phone off yesterday so only have 45 days to see if they are scammers, I'm such a worrier, but hopefully all will end well, thanks coming to all those that replied