Buyer offering to just pay through Paypal so save fees?

[flowerygirl]

I'm selling a dress that's worth a lot. Someone has messaged me offering a good buy it now price which I would be happy with. But they've offered to pay me direct through Paypal to avoid fees.

Does anyone know if there is any risk to doing this?

Well, i don't have any experience but, thinking about it....

At what point are they offering to pay you, before you despatch the goods (so they take all the risk) or on receipt, so the risk that they don't pay is yours? What happens if something goes wrong, they say they haven't received the goods (or claim they haven't) or change their mind and then return them damaged?

Those sort of things.

I had someone offer this when selling a car. It's a scam, they will send you a fake email from PayPal. You have to question why they are so keen to save you from paying fees! If you look on Google there are many stories about this. I thought it was only cars though.

not a scam - but they are trying to avoid eBay fees which is against eBay rules

and perfectly - nobody takes paypal for a car, so that is a scam, well known.

OP p lease send fully tracked such as Hermes whoever you sell to - standard signed for won't be enough and is useless anyway as they hardly bother to get a signature anyway

Presumably OP's buyer wants a discount on purchase price, too?

OP invoices the buyer thru paypal.
Item gets paid.
OP dispatches.
Buyer would have to go thru Paypal dispute procedures to claw the money back.
Anecdotally, although paypal allows disputes up to 6 months after purchase, Paypal is said to be generally kinder to sellers than Ebay is.

yes I would say they want to buy it now at cheaper than it would achieve at auction.

If you want to go ahead with it just send them an invoice via PayPal. When they pay cancel the auction, but you can't cancel within the final 24 hours of the auction.

Ebay won't let you send messages with email addresses in them, so if you want to go ahead send them your mobile number and ask them to text you their email address so you an send the invoice.

There is no more risk than an eBay sale, but eBay aren't keen on you concluding a sale outwith their site, for obvious reasons. I've never heard of anyone being caught tho and if they did I'm pretty sure you'd only get a warning.

It's up to you if u want to do it, I have a few times and I don't think you've anything to worry about!

Thanks everyone. I think the ebay user is a bit dodge to be honest and I agree with you perfectlybroken, why would the buyer care if I have to pay fees or not? I guess he's just trying to make it more appealing to me...

Regardless, I replied saying I would only sell through ebay. Five minutes later I've had a bid from someone else anyway! If he's that bothered, he will bid.