Originally Posted by
JohnDThompson
I would suggest that for any high-dollar item sold to someone you don't personally know and trust, avoid PayPal "friends and family." Yes, you'll get charged a transaction fee, but you also get PayPal's buyer protection if things go bad. Only accept "friends and family" reimbursement for amounts you're willing to eat if things don't work out.
There could be different opinions about this, and I don't fully understand the details, but... I've read that if you sell something as merchandise, then you have to show proof of shipment, otherwise the buyer can claim that they never received the item. I've been a PayPal merchant for years, and have never had a bad transaction, but I've also read about some of its potential failure modes.