Agent Plissken

Ok. SS paypal once again… I need your advice.
I sold an item on fleabay ($300+) and the buyer paid with an unconfirmed address. (My auction stated confirmed shipping addresses only for paypal.)
I don’t want to ship the item, because if the money they paid with turns out to be stolen, and I ship to an unconfirmed address, I will lose the money AND the item.
So my question is this. If I accept the payment and ship the item, and withdrawal the money to a different account, if their payment turns out to be bad (which I really have no reason to suspect) will paypal take this money out of my linked account?
This really is BS because by money showing up in my paypal account, it should be “mine” now.
If it is still not clear if the payment was legitimate or something, it should be in a ”pending” balance or something.
That way a seller could just wait until the funds were guaranteed to be secure, then ship the item.
But the way that it is set up, the money can show up in my account, I ship the item, then paypal takes the money back out so that the seller gets frauded instead of paypal getting frauded!
Anyway, what should I do!?

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chrissy

refund the money and ask them to confirm their address and resubmit payment to you after they are comfirmed as per the payment requirements in your action.

If they refuse, file a NPB after the 7 days to get your fees back.

If they do confirm and you ship, buy insurance - it's for you not the buyer and ship using paypal. That way your delivery confirmation is free.

Thesifer

I always just follow the letter of the law of the auction. If you stated "confirmed account" only, you are not required to send it, so it's up to you. Since paypal isn't a real bank account, they get away with a lot more then normal.

They are more like a "cheap escrow" company.

I have had a few occasions where I accepted payments from people and later on those people called their credit cards that funded their Paypal account and complained, and got the money back, AND I was stuck with the $10.00 chargeback fee.

So it's definitely Pro-spender on Paypal and not Seller.

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Agent Plissken

Thanks for the quick response. I had already refunded the money, because there is no way im taking a $300 loss for some paypal technicality. But anyway, the buyer claims that her address is already confirmed, so I suggested she try to pay again, and I can always refund it again. If that doesnt work, I am willing to wait for an alternative payment through the mail... what should I suggest.
If they dont want to do that, I will have to do the NPB through ebay to get my fees back.

How does the insurance work in a situation like this? If it arrived to the destination and paypal took my money, I wouldnt have grounds to file an insurance claim would I?

Agent Plissken

Were these customers addresses confirmed and did you qualify for seller protection? Or are you saying these few times, you didnt have seller protection?

chrissy

A lot of times, if a buyer notices you didn't buy insurance, they can claim that it was damaged and want a refund -OR- if you didn't buy delivery confirmation they will say that it never showed. This protects you because the PO will investigate the package. And you will get your money back through the PO. And it always helps if you are suspicious of the transaction to be really concerned because if a package shows delivered and they say it hasn't arrived that tampering with mail is a federal crime

As for alternate payment, only take a USPS money order. Checks can bounce after they clear your account - even after the 10 days and money orders can be frauds. With a USPS MO, you are there to mail your package and cash it at the same time. IF they say it's not real, you still have the package

Agent Plissken

USPS MO... maybe I have one more problem then, they live in Canada... Whats the next best option, or should I just refund and relist the item?

chrissy

Ohhh you got me. LOL I don't sell out of the US.

Cross your fingers and hope for the best? Maybe search on the ebay boards? There are a lot of people in the know there.

Jeffbx

Or ask for a MO or personal check & make them wait 10 days for it to clear FULLY.

With a money order scam, they send a fake MO, you cash it at your bank & deposit the money or take it as cash. The bank sends the money order along with all of the cancelled checks etc. to their HQ to be validated & sorted. THIS is where it will be caught if it's a fake, usually not at the branch you cashed it at, and it will be several days to a week after you've received the money.

At this point, you're liable to the bank for the money they gave you - they'll either take it out of your account, or bill you for it.

SO, if you give it a week to 10 days, you can be 99.99% sure it's legit (I'd never say 100%, 'cuz you always hear about that one time...)

Agent Plissken

That’s good advice. BUUUT, I haven’t heard from them since I refunded their paypal, so ill give it another day and file a NPB and relist I guess… oh well.

Paymaster

She may be right, it may have been confirmed at one point. There are some actions related to changing credit cards, bank accounts, etc. on file that will cause the account to lose confirmed status (and she may not realize it). I confirmed my account a long time ago, but it is no longer confirmed, and the methods to confirm it have changed, so I haven't gotten aroudn to fixing that. I don't even know when I lost the confirmed status, and it isn't obvious unless you go check your profile.

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