Ebay advice please!

[threelittlebabies]

DH was bidding on a Sony PSP [eye rolling emoticon] and won.
He then discovers seller doesn't accept paypal, and emails him to ask if it is possible. Seller emails back immediately (within mins of auction ending) and says he's terribly sorry,but he doesn't have a full paypal account and can only make not receive payments.
Do you think this is dodgy?
So dh will have to send a cheque for £140 and then the seller will send the goods when the cheque has cleared. Is this normal procedure?
Seller has 100% feedback on 93 entries, so am I just being a bit too suspicious?

Maybe he just doesn't want to pay all the paypal charges. If he has good feedback, then I think it would probably be ok. I have won things before (although not something that costs £140) sent the cheque off, and they have all worked out ok.

I've done business w/plenty of people who don't accept PayPal b/c of the charges AND b/c of PayPal's dodgy practices - I was burned by them and a rogue buyer. I don't blame sellers for not wanting to use them.

If the seller has good feedback, it's probably okay.

it seems a bit odd that someone with that level of feedback doesn't accept paypal payments - its a pretty easy procedure to set up.

obviously he wants all the sale money rather than giving a proportion to paypal.

are the other buyers buying high priced items off of him? if yes, then I would be happy to send the money, if not probably wouldn't.

cheques were used more in the early days really, I think its mainly paypal now but you do come across people that still ask for cheque/postal order only.

guess you need to check payment details in future before bidding.

To receive credit/debit card payments on Paypal the seller gets charged. If you are only selling a few goods for small amounts it's not worth having the full account as they wack you with charges. This caught me out when I sold a few bits last month.

Ah I see. Had no idea about paypal charges take it they are only for accepting payments?

expat- thought paypal was a safe way to pay? Can I ask about your experience?

Will check his other items. No need to worry about next time, dh knows the score now I've chewed his ear off about this!

Thanks for replies

I have 100% feedback with 105 entries, but I wouldn't accept paypal payments any more.

The last time I sold something on ebay the buyer paid by paypal but to accept his payment I would have had to upgrade my paypal account, and then would have had much higher charges to pay on anything I sold.

The only reason I couldn't accept this guy's payment was because it was funded from a credit card and not a bank account. I had to email him and ask him to send a cheque, because I don't sell a lot of things of ebay (tend to buy more!!!) and it just wouldn't have been worth it.

i didt realise funding your paypal account from a credit card made a difference ... ive only ever bought on ebay, and use my credit card cause i get 1% cash back on everything i spend!

3babies
As featured on 'Watchdog', some buyers use PayPal to effectively steal goods. What they do is pay thru PayPal, then complain that the goods were faulty or defective. PayPal then, with NO NOTICE TO THE SELLER, then refunds that buyer their money and deducts the amount from the seller. Whilst the buyer STILL has the item. With no notice or opportunity for recourse for the seller.

I had a buyer who claimed a bag she was dissatisfied with was not leather, as described in the auction.

I was under no obligation to refund her money, so chose not to.

She then went thru PayPal and took the money back. AND still had the bag.

So I complained and reported PayPal to the Ombudsman and joined the hundreds of sellers who complained to Watchdog that PayPal allows rogue buyers to effectively defraud them of goods.

I will NEVER use Ebay or PayPal again.

Hi

if you have a certain level of funds coming ito your account you have to upgrade to a higher account, which lots of people don't want to- I think there may be higher charges. I bid and won a jacket for ds1 but when I paid ny paypal as advertised, she rejected it as paypal had notified her she was at her limit. I didn't want to have to send a cheque but will because in fact she sent the item before I had paid for it!!! So deffo not dodgy.

The other reason some sellers don't use paypal is because i know with myself, if i get paid by paypal i tend to spend it back on ebay! and have to fork out the p&p out of my money iykwim i can never be bothered to transferthe money as it takes a few days to go into bank account.

Yes, it takles 5 days to transfer to bank, sometimes 10.

My DH trades on ebay and the amount of his paypal fees on the accounts he did recently for the IR shocked us both. It does really add up.

Am clearly somewhat of an ebay novice!

expat that's awful, how can paypal justify doing that?

i'm another ebayer who doens't accept paypal, i will pay someone via paypal if they insist, but i don't accept it because of the charges.

paypal is an ebay comapny and i feel ebay already get enough money from seelers as it is, you have the listing fee, then the final valuation fee and then if you accept paypal they then deduct money as ahandling fee, it soon adds up. plus as others have said it is difficult to get your money out of paypal, and you are more than likely to end up spending it on ebay again, and then pay p&p out of your own money so in my opinion it is a false economy.
my feedback is 100% but i only have 40 feedbacks and i recently sold a buggy for more than £100 and only accepted cheque/postal order or cash on collection and still had plenty of bidders, the woman who won came and collected and paid cash!

I don't use paypal and have about 200 transactions so far. Just don't trust it. Cheques much simpler but prefer postal orders!