Hi everyone, I'm new to this whole 'selling stuff using paypal' deal, and I was wondering what I, as a seller, can do to protect myself on paypal.

Once the person has sent the money to my account, and I ship the item, if the money is still in my paypal account can they do a 'chargeback' or anything like that? If I am selling to a person that I dont know very well, should I wait until the money clears my personal bank account before I ship?

I'm not really aware of the abilities that the 'scamming' buyer may have, because I've never been one ;D

Any input would be appreciated!

You'd have to ask Kenom & jayrob, they're big sellers. Kenom only uses paypal AFAIK.

the money is deposited into your account, you get it with your bank account. but i havent ever sold anything via paypal so idk much

Yes, the can do the equivalent of a chargeback. Paypal has all this talk about how safe it is for everyone, but in the end they will only do what they want to protect their ass - its easy to get scammed in both directions on paypal. If someone buys something they can dispute it and sometimes the disputes will go through even if you delivered the item = lost money. Even if it fails, your money is still taken and tied up until the dispute is closed. However, if your buyer does file a chargeback with THEIR CC company, it pulls the money from paypal. Paypal, the greedy bastardss, will oten then go and take the money from you whether they have a right to or not.

So yeah, you normally don't need to worry too much, but paypal is far from a foolproof method for buyers or sellers - watch out for shady characters.

There is no real foolproof way for "amateur" (don't know the appropriate English word) buyers or sellers period. Even when talking face to face and using hard cash, a buyer can still get ripped off by getting a bad product which of course only turns out much later, and the seller is unwilling to repair, replace or refund. If he at all responds or can be contacted for that matter.

A seller can get ripped off by a buyer when that buyer claims all sort of non-existing (or self inflicted) defects and starts legal action to get some $$.

The threshold to start those Paypal disputes is indeed quite low, lower than for instance legal action. But I wouldn't get too worried. My girlfriend sells lots of stuff via eBay and/or Paypal for years. So far only one problem which could be solved.

I have LOTS of experience with paypal as I used to be a huge power seller on ebay (but got banned for selling lasers, hence my website)

there is a limited protection for sellers using paypal, if the buyer pays with a "Confirmed" address and you ship it to that "Confirmed" address, if the buyer does a Dispute the seller will always win as they have proof they shipped the item. It doesn't even matter what you ship, just the fact that you ship something is good enough for paypal as they don't deal with the Quality of items sold.

on the other hand, if the buyer calls up their credit card company and does a Chargeback (which can be fraud if they actually bought the item and got it), the money is immediately reversed from sellers account, if they had already withdrawn the money, paypal dips into your bank account, if thats empty, it goes for your credit card. there is nothing you can do against chargebacks and its a risk you have to take.

summary: use [link=http://checkout.google.com/sell]Google Checkout[/link] lower fees (~2%, compared to paypal's 4%) and lower chances of a charge back occurring as they check the buyers records before letting the buyer pay.

Banned for selling lasers? That's a bit weird, since there are lots of eBayers that sell laser without problems.

Banned for selling lasers? That's a bit weird, since there are lots of eBayers that sell laser without problems.[/quote]

ebay removes laser listings left and right, i was stubborn and kept trying to sell them as I had a bunch of diodes that I wanted to sell. they got fed up and i was banned.... i tried another account and used it for about a week then was banned again. i just use friend's accounts now to buy stuff and don't sell on ebay anymore. i get enough traffic to my site that I think i could sell anything on there.

Knock on wood I haven't had too many problems with Paypal....however, one thing (that hasn't been mentioned) to be wary of is when someone pays you from a checking account. Don't ever ship the goods until their check has cleared and the money is actually in your Paypal account. I hate when someone e-checks me on Paypal not so much because it might not clear but it takes forever.....sometimes a week or more! >

the next step is make sure you document everything. When it comes to the point of resolving a dispute on paypal submit all that proof with your counter claim and things usually work out great. Paypal also gives you the option of paying for the shipping and shipping the item directly from paypal, which is a very good idea if it's a valuable item. Then you have a tracking # to follow up on. In the end it mostly comes down to your word against thiers and if you have submitted the documentation to them to begin with it usually turns out in your favor. But like my recent fiasco with a buyer of a functional diode that he ended up blowing up by trying the kipkay mod, and installing a"p.o.t." there was no way I could prove that the laser diode was functional prior to my shipping it (even though he claimed in his emails to me that it did put out 170mw) and I was screwed out of money that I fairly earned. There is NO sure fire way to prevent scams. You can read up on paypal's frequent asked questions, and ebays as well to do all you can to prevent them.