[Leica] eBay & Paypal

[leica at screengang.com (Didier Ludwig)]

Salut Robert,

I belong to the sellers which declare to accept Paypal only for 
international transactions. I also prefer it as buyer. The reasons are 
various:

- Paypal = fast payment = immediate shipping (and leading to a positive 
feedback for quick payment or quick delivery)

- intl. money orders and checks can turn into a nightmare if you don't find 
an institution (bank, post) in your country which will refund it, or refund 
it without an exaggerated fee.

- Money orders can take a lot of time. Once I sent a postal MO from 
Switzerland to Wyoming, it took 10 weeks to arrive there, forcing me to send 
a lot of appeasing mails to the seller who thought I'm a non-payer. Never 
again.
 
- Bank wire transfers can cost a lot - depending from where to where they go 
- IBAN is only free inside EU but otherwise rather costly. There's a high 
fixed fee on low amounts, and a high percentage fee on large amounts. Every 
bank has another fee/pricing policiy, which is often not visible before you 
do the transaction.

- Sending cash in insured letters is russian roulette. I have given up this 
option since an enveloppe arrived open and empty.

Having a good feedback profile is more than welcome. I have cancelled dozens 
of bids from buyers with doubtable profiles. But reading and accepting the 
payment options of a seller is another obligatory requirement fo a buyer. 
Your feedback profile won't stay perfect when you bid on Paypal-only 
auctions and then want to negociate the payment methods afterwards. You'll 
get negatives like "Did not read the payment options".

Since a buyer does not have to pay Paypal fees, and can use it without 
credit card (by uploading money from his bank account), I don't see any 
reason why Paypal should not be reasonable for most buyers. 

Bad Paypal reputation? That sounds a bit diffuse. There certainly are issues 
with the Paypal seller and buyer protection rules, and Paypal accounts with 
too simple passwords have been phished in the past (but does anyone have 
compassion for people using passwords like "abcd"?)... Personally, after 
approximately 600 Paypal transactions, I have never been involved in any 
trouble, but others LUGgers might have been. I don't want to say Paypal is 
hasslefree and without risk, but it's 100x more convenient than checks and 
MO's. 

Best regards
Didier




>Bonsoir,
>
>  Since *bay and Paypal are mentioned here every so often, I was wondering 
> if anybody (surely someone must) has an explanation for the following.  In 
> the last couple of days I was going to bid (and surely win) some items on 
> *Bay.  However the sellers flatly refused to accept a method of payment 
> other than Paypal.  My feedback is perfect.  Why would anyone actually tie 
> their hand with Paypal (who do not have the greatest of reputation 
> businesswise) and lose money?  Did this happen to anyone on this list?
>
>  Thanks,
>
>  Robert (Un chevalier sans blason)