CliffordK

It is worthwhile to look at all transactions with a critical mind.

However, there are two kinds of people in the world. The first considers most people to be basically good, with a few outliers.

The second group looks for evil around every corner. Yes, they may avoid a few bad transactions, but they may also avoid the good.

Which group you place yourself into is up to you.

tagaproject6

So...what about them Paypal scams??? What do people try to get away with besides the "friends and family" stuff?

jefnvk

A couple of my friends ran eBay drop ship businesses to make extra money in college. Drop shipping involves a customer placing an order, then the "seller" goes to their commercial account and ordering the product to the persons house, i.e. the product ships directly from a warehouse to the person ordering, they don't touch stock.

One had a guy order a subwoofer that cost well into the four digit cost. Got delivered, and the guy files a dispute with eBay and PayPal, claiming that it wasn't what he ordered. Had to get shipped back to the friend to process a return, and when it got to them, it turns out the purchaser had stuck their old subwoofer in the new box, complete with a child's bouncy ball in it, and claimed that is what they received. PayPal sided with the purchaser (as they generally do), gave them their money back, and deducted the balance from the friend's account. Free subwoofer for the purchaser, and wiped out the friend's business in a heartbeat, they couldn't afford the four digit hit. Also locked up their Paypal account so they couldn't process the subsequent orders that had come in, killing their rating, and they ended up having to pay out of their own savings to get everything back to kosher with PayPal.

There was quite a bit of other unscrupulous manners buyers got PayPal to refund them that they'd lose say $50 on every few months, too, but that was the biggest shenanigans I saw that simply made me wary of online purchasers.

TrojanHorse

I think you can affect which group you DO do business with by limiting your exposure to the environments that attract scammers.

And it's not just paypal... I read about some guy that ordered an expensive lens for his camera from Amazon. It was a third party seller, lightly used gear. Well, they shipped him some oven mitts, cashed his $1600 check and amazon sided with the seller, saying he had proof of delivery. Go figure.

Edit - found the story, slightly different from what I remembered. It's an interesting read! https://petapixel.com/2017/08/11/fel...s-scam-amazon/

CliffordK

So, return the "lens" for a refund.

There is also credit card fraud protection which the person could resort to.

I had one Chinese E-Bay transaction where I ordered a half dozen brake cables, and received a half dozen phone cables. I took a photo of the partly opened package. The seller wanted to yank my chain, but the phone cables were of zero value to me, and I eventually got a full refund (and kept the phone cables... anybody need one or two or three?)

I also had an E-Bay transaction that I ordered two car axles, and got one. I could prove that the packing weight didn't match the ordered quantity, and got a refund for the unshipped quantity.

TrojanHorse

Uh, what do you think would happen when you return a baking mat instead of a $1500 lens?

Credit card fraud protection is probably the best bet, as long as you don't wait too long. It is astounding that somebody would try to make a living shipping baking mats to a third party though.

tyrion

I think it is still possible to undo the charges even with the Friends and Family payment. If they fund the PP payment with a credit card, then later cancel the credit card transaction, PP will reverse the payment.

(this is all internet hearsay, but it makes sense - PP is not going to be stuck holding the bag if the credit card transaction is cancelled)

CliffordK

Who knows, it could have been an honest mistake. Yes, they happen.

Perhaps there were two orders, one for oven mitts, and one for a camera lens, and the seller got the two mixed up.

Or, perhaps a shipper pulls by inventory number, and doesn't inspect what actually goes in the box. It could even be worse when stuff is "fullfilled by Amazon", and one doesn't necessarily get the same seller's merchandise, nor does the seller actually control the inventory.

Nonetheless, one should be able to prove what was shipped through inspecting the packing and weights. I would think that a very expensive lens would be packed differently than oven mitts.

An honest seller would have realized the mistake, admitted it, and tried to recollect both shipments.

CliffordK

Free Friends and Family requires a direct bank transfer. Probably less dispute protection, although one can dispute debit card transactions, so maybe.

I think certain disputes of payments that you authorize require a second level of verification, so PayPal may still refuse if they show that you authorized the transaction.

IP verification?

tyrion

Ah. Ok my mistake.

jefnvk

Eh, thats why PayPal charges ontop of their processing fees. Seems like it'd make more sense the senders account just went negative though, if they chose to use CC as payment and not involve PP in resolution

Truly free on both ends does, free to the reciever can still be funded by the sender with a CC, they just have to pay the processing fee.

Gresp15C

I've had a PayPal merchant account for several years, for a non bike related business that I run from my home. I've never been scammed, and PP has worked flawlessly for me over thousands of transactions.

Every business that takes credit cards has to deal with the scammers. People allegedly buy things from Home Depot, use them, and then return them for a refund. Home Depot eats the cost of the item. An advantage of being a large scale business is that they have pretty accurate statistics on losses due to scams, shrinkage, etc., and can just bake it into their mark-up. The credit card companies, and consequently PP as well, tend to side with the consumer, because that encourages people to make more credit card purchases. Likewise for retailers, offering no-questions-asked returns gets people into the store.

The little guy is competiting with people who just consider it a cost of doing business.

That's much harder for individual sellers to do because of what @jefnvk mentions: A single bad sale can force you to fold. One solution is to only sell things that can be marked up by a large factor, but that's hard when you are selling things that are either second-hand or in competitive markets.

veganbikes

Who are you thanking 3 years later? I am baffled by the need to go through all the process to create an account to respond to a old thread that hasn't been active in a few years and while you didn't say anything negative you didn't specify anyone or add to the conversation. You do you but generally in normal online forum discussion zombieing old threads especially with nothing to add is frowned upon. However there are a ton of great active discussions going on should you be interested in bikes and such and talking about them. Welcome to the forums!

Barry2 

colin8,
Welcome to bike forums.
However as your first post..... it’s a bit weird.
You replied to a thread from 2018 and really didn’t add to the conversation.
Although not against the rules, it is frowned upon as unnecessary...... as veganbike has pointed out in his (or her) own way.
Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.

All the best

Barry

I recently considered selling a bike long distance.
Buyer wanted to PayPal me money and have me drop the bike at a bike shop for shipping on his dime.

I reviewed PayPal seller protection information.
if the buyer reverses the payment, the seller has to provide proof of shipment in order to be protected.
I would have had no proof of shipment, it would not have been paid for by me, all I had to do was drop the bike at the store.

I would have been completely unprotected from a non-shipment claim and PayPal would have refunded his payment.

I passed on that one.

Barry

La Brea Bike

So, my paypal story is more about the lack of any real protection from Paypal itself. I ordered two items from a company - a $15 one, and a $99 one. After months, the $15 one arrived only. I complained to the company and Paypal, and opened a case. All Paypal did was ask the seller if they had any shipping proof OF ANYTHING. They provided the tracking number of the $15 part, and Paypal closed the case for the selling company. I would never trust them again for buying anything of real value.