I recently sold my forks to some kid who was very keen to make me post them to him so they arrive by the weekend. He paid by paypal gift and i transferred the money to my bank account on monday night. Just checked my account online and the money still isnt in my bank account. WIll i be fine to post the forks to him today, i.e. he wont be able to reverse the payment and the funds are definitely going to go through to my account (i'm very suspicious of being scammed) Or should i wait until the cash has arrived in my account (and in the process piss him off with late delivery).

Any advice is greatly appreciated,
James

Make sure the cash is in your account first, better to p* him off than get fleeced. Paypal and ebay would not defend you. People try this all the time so wait for your money. Looks like the weather's rubbish this weekend for riding anyway! If he was that desperate he'd have gone to local bike shop.

Pretty sure he can't claim it back – especially as it's a gift. Paypal take ages to pay money into your account ime.

any more opinions? still not sure how the whole transfer thing works. have paypal actually got the money in their account when it shows in my balance or is that just a 'pending getting the money from his bank' balance. I don't want to post them for paypal to email me tomorrow saying they weren't able to get the funds from his account and have hence cancelled the bank transfer to mine.

As long as the money has been in your Paypal, it's yours. Yes, they do take a few days to transfer it, but there's no way that I know of he can claim it back. Especially not if it was a gift payment.
Send the forks!

I was under the impression you had to either have funds in your account, a linked bank account, or a card attached to the account with which you make a payment. So paypal will have already taken the money off him in some way.

so ill be fine to send then?

cant claim a paypal gift back, so as long as the money was in your paypal account your ok, it takes 3-5 days to transfer to your bank from paypal and show in your account EDIT so yes you can send them as long as the money was in your paypal account

I would send them.

ok cheers guys.

If he/she does try to claim back the money it won't matter whether it's in your paypal account or your pukka bank account. IIRC Paypal will 'debit' your paypal account, which will in turn either get the funds out of your current account/credit card if there are not enough funds in your paypal account.

But I think with a gift it's unlikely to be reversed. You've got the money, post away!