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I listed my bike on Craigslist and a buyer 3.5 hours away wants me to ship it to him. We spoke on the phone I would take it to my bike shop and ship it to him. He said to send him my PayPal account. He is going to pay for the extra costs and I will not to pack and ship until I receive the funds.
I haven't used PayPal in several years.
Any scams I need to know about?
I thought I needed to send him a bill through PP vs. sending him my account?
Once the funds are in my account, am I good to pack/ship?
Thanks for your help.

jj1091

No, you don't want to send him your account info, just send him a Paypal invoice like normal. Anything else is a scam.

Lucillle

To me this amounts to theft. Not only does 'friends and family' take away any PayPal protection from both sides, but the fee PayPal charges is how they make their $, how their employees feed their families and not paying it amounts in my opinion to stealing a service that should be paid for. PayPal has provided the F&F as a gift for those who ARE friends and family, not a way for those who are not to take advantage.

jefnvk

In general, unless someone is selling a rather rare or high end bike, I pretty much view most Paypal requests for CL listings as a scam. And even in this case, being three hours away, if it were rare or high end, I'd personally just drive to see it myself.

It is also a great way to not be scammed once they have your product and file a dispute to get their money back. There is no method to get your money back on a F&F transaction from PayPal.

Milton Keynes

NO NO NO NO NO!!!! Never use "friends & family" for transactions, or use it to send money to someone you don't know. True, they don't charge fees for F&F, but if there's a dispute you have no recourse to get it settled. And Paypal's TOS say that F&F is never to be used for sales transactions, only a personal way to send money to people you know.

Milton Keynes

One scam I know of is that they will send you a fake email purporting to be from Paypal showing that the amount has been added to your account. Make sure you actually check your Paypal account to ensure that the money is in your account before sending the bike.

Lucillle

Sounds to me like you are rationalizing theft. Just like bike stealers rationalize that bike owners have plenty of money to buy new bikes if one is stolen.

rgconner

No, he is just explaining the business logic behind what PayPal does.

SOUND business logic, if they want to stay in business.

Just imagine the crap they would get into if Auntie June sent Billy $500 for this semesters books and he spends it on Cannabis. Auntie June gets mad, puts in a claim because Billy was "fraudulent" in saying he needed the $500 for books not dope and now PayPal has to:
1. Get in the middle of a family dispute
2. Pay it out, or not pay it out and get bad press.

Gonna lose no matter how that goes down. Billy or Auntie June is going to pissed, and PayPal's insurance gets more expensive. (Or if they are self-insured, it comes out of their profits)

Instead PayPal has F&F, which is like June handing Billy $500 in cash. Not their problem.

Lucillle

I have presented this issue to the PayPal community, am interested in their input.

jefnvk

As in you asked this question to their forums and are asking their opinion? What the heck do you think PP forum moderators are going to say :rollseyes:

I just spent about 10 minutes digging around PP's site. No clear rules or definitions on F&F, other than it is for giving F&F money. I mean, I can interpret the F&F rule to mean that any payment outside of a true gift is not allowed. When I PP'd my buddy my share of a hotel room, I was technically paying for goods or services, and he should have been charged a fee. What if I was PayPaling a family member for that bike, should I use commercial or F&F?

If you are a local shop using F&F to conduct business, I agree with your premises. A one off sale of an item on CL? Not really worth an argument. Buyer and seller beware, you aren't protected.

CliffordK

The PayPal ID that is required is simply your E-Mail address (that is registered with PP). As long as you have a good password, this is reasonably secure.

There are apparently PP scams where a person will receive an item, then automatically file a dispute (and keep the item). Perhaps claim the item was lost in transport.

As a seller, "Friends and Family" may actually be a benefit as it reduces the chances for the buyer to file a dispute.

Anyway, some users of PayPal are legit. Some aren't. It is up to you to sort out the two.

Lucillle

https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/...1521999#M15969

The first reply made to my presented question which I thought was well thought out :

A friends / family (or gift payment) is intended as a transfer of funds from family or friends to one another. For this reason, there is no processing fee when payment is made with bank or PayPal balance.
However as it is a “gift” payment, there is also no Buyer protection as no goods or services should have been exchanged.

If a seller does use that option when selling then they risk having their Paypal account limited as its against Paypal rules.

Thats why we get a lot of folks on here complaining their paypal accounts have been limited and they did not know why and then said they were using f/f payments for selling !!

Also whilst it stops buyers opening a Paypal dispute as they had no 'buyer protection' they can open an unauthorised transaction dispute OR do a chargeback via their card issuer if they funded their Paypal payment that way and the seller would lose as they would have no 'seller protection' as they were using the f/f option.


Advice is voluntarily given.
Kudos / Solution appreciated if I helped you.

Lucillle

Forums are generally not answered by mods, they are answered by the community. In any case if a reply is thoughtful and contains good information, why would you worry who makes it?

jefnvk

Because in this case, it would be the equivalent of going to a Chevy forum and asking for advice about a friend who tries to tell me F150s or Mustangs are better? I.e., the responses aren't going to be anything but cookie cutter predictable, and in this case, people toeing the company line or risking losing their account?

I'd love to hear what they say about my situation. If you are selling a bike to a friend, should you use F&F or commercial? If the answer is F&F, what practical difference does it make if you aren't regularly in the business of sell and sell to a stranger?

TrojanHorse

I'm not saying this is going to be a scam, but he could easily file a claim saying you sent him something other than what you sold him. He keeps the bike and gets his money back.

Craigs list actually has some verbiage about shipping and doing business with people other than face-to-face and discourages it for those reasons.

Skipjacks

Don't do it.

Craigslist is a "show up and pay cash" deal. Anything involving shipping or PayPal has a high chance of being a scam. Doesn't mean it is, but it has a high chance of being. So why risk it?

If it is a scammer they have done it before and know how to work the system better than you. So if it's a scam you're going into a fight against someone better prepared to fight. So right from the start you're at a disadvantage.

The protections PayPal offers are HEAVILY weighted towards the buyer. Just like eBay, PayPal will basically represent the buyer and be the judge. You're fighting an uphill battle as the seller if something goes wrong.

The common eBay scam (that would also work well on PayPal) is the buyer buys your product. You ship it honestly. Buyer says he got something different and demands a refund. PayPal agrees and forces you to issue a refund. He ships back an empty box with tracking so he has a tracking receipt proving his return package arrived at your house. PayPal sees the completed return receipt and refunds the buyer's money. Buyer now has your bike and the money.

Lucillle

You saw the response I posted from them, well written and factual.
You have the link to the thread. Ask.

CliffordK

I think I've on occasion paid by PayPal, and had Craigslist items shipped to me. A lot of sellers ignore out of town buyers.

Craigslist has started giving statewide searches by default (which I used to use SearchTempest for). However, since I'm car-free now, I tend to only look at local ads, or perhaps anticipate where I'll be heading in a week or so.

Another member in southern Washington (Vancouver area) frequently drove to Seattle to pick up interesting stuff.

CliffordK

Can one consider all Bike Forum members as "Friends"? Literally thousands of friends...

Oh, one could imagine friending people on Facebook and Twitter.

jefnvk

Actually based in opinion. You can bold what you want if you are a "volunteer adviser", a link to the rule itself would be much more relevant. If no goods and services can be part of a F&F transaction, I can guarantee you 98% of the transactions that go on there shouldn't, and the whole option is rather pointless to even offer. Also, you'll notice that post pretty much covers people in the business of buying and selling using such a transaction, not a one off rare transaction.

Not to mention, if we are going to talk about who is stiffing whom, why the heck can't PayPal pay actual staff, why is such a large company relying on volunteers to answer community questions?

Lucillle

You are funny. First you kvetch because those who answer might be affiliated with PayPal, now you kvetch because they aren't. I think you've got it covered, lol.

jefnvk

No, I implied anyone hanging out on a PayPal forum is going to give you a rather biased answer. It amuses me to find out that one complaining about PayPal not getting paid a few cents via a transaction has no issue with PayPal not paying their staff they are asking questions to for clarification on rules, though.

In any case, I see no point in continuing this, we both have our views. If PayPal wants people to follow rules to the T, they need to lay them out in a clear and easy to read manner instead of me hunting around for them. Until then, I fail to see any practical difference in paying a hockey teammate for a hotel bill via F&F, and a one off sale to someone on CL.

ttusomeone

As others have said, them asking to pay via PayPal doesn't automatically make this a scam. Just check your actual PayPal account to make sure the money is there. There's always the risk they pay you, receive the bike, then open a claim with PayPal saying they didn't receive the bike or it wasn't as described, and then get a refund without returning the bike or they take components off when they return. PayPal should protect you from this too though if they pay via Goods and Services. This same risk exists when selling through eBay or anywhere else. Also remember PayPal will take 3%.

The flip side is if you talk them into paying via Friends and Family, and you verify the money is in the account, then there's no way for them to scam you at that point. They as the buyer have no protections though.

Lucillle

"Also whilst it stops buyers opening a Paypal dispute as they had no 'buyer protection' they can open an unauthorised transaction dispute OR do a chargeback via their card issuer if they funded their Paypal payment that way and the seller would lose as they would have no 'seller protection' as they were using the f/f option"

CliffordK

As far as PayPal offering "Friends and Family", the cost to them is very minimal since it is direct withdrawl from your bank account, somewhat like the supermarkets that allow you to pay with a debit card plus get cash back.

They likely in fact still make money on the transaction. For small time sellers, the money received in PayPal likely stays in PayPal. And, thus earns interest for PayPal by sitting there, and gets recycled into other PayPal transactions (at fees).

It is likely only some of the large vendors that actually make significant withdrawls.

In fact, I doubt it would raise any flags for PayPal if you get a $1000 FF income and turn around and spend that on E-Bay.

You could get flagged if you repeatedly get $1000 FF transactions from multiple individuals, and immediately transfer the money out of PayPal.