So i’ve read about lots of issues regarding paypal and money recieved being taken back out of the sellers account, so i normally request larger payments to be made via bank tranfers to avoid this, smaller stuff i’m happy to accept paypal gift.

But i’ve been offered £250 for something i’m selling and the buyer wants to pay via paypal so that he can use his credit card. Should i be worried? and what’s the safest type of payment via paypal for a seller. The seller has said he’d pay any fees too.

I don’t want to be £250 + postage out of pocket, and i also don’t want to have to fight for the money to be returned in the future.

If you wanted 250 quid off me and refused paypal, I wouldn’t be paying you. Why would the person buying want any less security than you do.

I see your point and i’ve not refused Paypal payment, just looking into the best methods. But it would be quite easy for someone to cancel a credit card payment once they receive the item and the PayPal transaction would then be reversed. It’s fraud but it wouldn’t be difficult to do.

I’m not wanting to put the risk solely on the buyer, just protect myself in case this guy is not genuine, and looking to scam me.

….maybe I’ve just spent too much time reading negative PayPal/classified threads

I don’t think they can cancel a CC payment just like that, they would have to report it as a fraudulent transaction to get it reversed.

There have been cases of paypal direct debit payments being reversed later when it turned out there wasn’t enough money in the payers account to cover the transaction. I am not sure how that works though as when I have been payed this way it states that the payment is not cleared, and I don’t post until it is.

I think with PP that’s the point of the status of payments. In the US you can do electronic cheques by paypal and the company I worked for got stung a few times before we adapted the system to read the status messages to only provide services when they were cleared.

if its a credit card payment ‘outside’ of a normal paypal payment (ie you dont have to log in) then you are safe. I paid by paypal in this way to a shop, goods didnt turn up, and three weeks later Paypal keep telling me they have no record of the payment and dont seem to understand their own systems or how they work.

In the end I claimed back through my credit card – took 5 days!