Help!How to sell gear using PayPal? What is your experience?

[The Sauna]

Hello neighbors,

I recently posted a synth on Craigslist and a party in a different city wants to purchase it, using PayPal as the method of payment. I have never done this outside of ebay. What are your experiences doing this and how have you gone about doing this so that you are protected from eating it/getting ripped off?

Any tips/suggestions much appreciated.

[maz]

In my experience, with paypal, if a buyer says you didn't ship or it was damaged, if you have a tracking number of any kind that you can enter in to prove you shipped it, you're ok. But, I've heard horror stories the other way too.

Best way to go would be making the buyer purchase insurance and use FedEx/UPS so you have a signature. Also keep in mind PayPal often costs YOU 3% of he transaction, so sometimes I ask buyers to add that in to the total.

[wardshorsehead]

paypal actually works quite nicely.

use a good shipping agent (ups, usps, fedex), have a tracking number, and buy insurance. only ship to paypal verified addresses, and they protect you pretty well.

FYI...if you outright ask the customer to pay your paypal fee, or charge any sort of surcharge to cover paypal fees, paypal will not protect to integrity of the sale.

paypal has a list of rules that must be followed to be covered by their seller protection policy. one of the rules is:

Do not charge buyers an additional fee if they use PayPal

You may not charge your buyers additional fees (often called a "surcharge") if they choose PayPal as their method of payment

.

yep.

frank

[maz]

FYI...if you outright ask the customer to pay your paypal fee, or charge any sort of surcharge to cover paypal fees, paypal will not protect to integrity of the sale.

paypal has a list of rules that must be followed to be covered by their seller protection policy. one of the rules is:

Do not charge buyers an additional fee if they use PayPal

You may not charge your buyers additional fees (often called a "surcharge") if they choose PayPal as their method of payment

.

yep.

frank

wow, I knew eBay had a rule where you couldn't ask a buyer for that in your auctions, but I had no idea it was a PayPal rule!

I guess you could word it like: "$130 shipped, $30 discount for money order!" I wonder how that would go over... kinda like a cash discount at a regular store

[aishabag23]

Paypal and ebay are the same company....