Users of Pay Pal to sell items. Tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly.

[MAD IRISHMAN]

I use Pay Pal to purchase stuff online. So far it has been a good thing to do. Planning on selling quite a bit more of my stuff.
When I have posted stuff before people ask do I accept Pay Pal for payment. Those of you who use it to get $$ for items you sell please
clue me in on your experiences. No horror stories please.

 

[TheRktmn]

It's easy to integrate into your website.

Most people are familiar with it.

It gives the seller and buyer protections - but leans toward the buyer in disputes.

The transfers from your PayPal account to your bank account is usually pretty quick - a day or two.

If you have to refund a purchase because buyer changed mind or ordered the wrong thing PayPal keeps their fee and refunds 100% to the buyer.

They charge fees of roughly 3% on the TOTAL sale plus 35 cents per transaction.

If you are not looking for a website, just payments, consider Zelle. It's a wireless wire transfer from buyer to seller with no fees.

 

[Cleveland Crush]

Paypal (and others) reports all your $$ activity to the IRS...

 

[Doug's 73 Mach1]

95 plus % of the time good. Had one recent experience where PayPal put the payment in dispute despite there not being any. Both the buyer and I contacted PayPal numerous times advising there was no dispute. It took about 3 weeks for PayPal to eventually release the funds.

 

[Hemikiller]

Paypal (and others) reports all your $$ activity to the IRS...

They have for many years, though the original $20k/200 transactions was significantly higher than the current $600 limit. I have doubts that this will stand and become reality for 2024. $600 today is selling a couple items online to clean out your closet, not a source of income. The $20k threshold has been around for a long time, and as with most things gov't, they failed to index it to inflation.

I've used Paypal since '99 for buying and selling. They've done right by me in all situations and I have no complaints. Most instances I've seen of people bashing PP reek of them playing fast and loose with the rules.

 

[Cleveland Crush]

Just a layer of clarification: PayPal (and others) report all dollar transactions to the IRS regardless of 1099K dollar valuations; be it the current $600 threshold or the previous 20k.

They have for many years, though the original $20k/200 transactions was significantly higher than the current $600 limit. I have doubts that this will stand and become reality for 2024. $600 today is selling a couple items online to clean out your closet, not a source of income. The $20k threshold has been around for a long time, and as with most things gov't, they failed to index it to inflation.

I've used Paypal since '99 for buying and selling. They've done right by me in all situations and I have no complaints. Most instances I've seen of people bashing PP reek of them playing fast and loose with the rules.

 

[detritusmaximus]

I've been using PayPal for 20 years. Very few problems. I did some research before I started and the biggest concern was one little dispute can lock up your whole paypal bank account until resolved. Not good if you are running a business.

My solution was to open a separate bank account and use it solely for PayPal. And never keep more than $500 in it, no more than I can afford to lose.

That kept my personal account and majority of my money safe from any issues.

 

[basstrix]

I've used paypal for a very long time. Both my discover and visa will periodically offer a 5% cashback on paypal purchases. I've been fortunate in that I haven't had an issue where paypal had to get involved. Suspected scammers tend to go silent when paypal is mentioned as payment method and they tend to prefer zelle. Not sure why (zelle), but has been very consistent. One thing that's really bothersome to me is that PP doesn't allow payment of certain constitutionally supported items.

 

[Ron Tanzi]

E-bay reports to the IRS as well. I have a few acquaintances that sold pricey items on E-bay and had to pay the feds. I do not know what the reporting threshold at E-bay is. Cash is king while it still exists otherwise II just use my credit card to by things online. I never use a debit card for anything ever.

Ron

 

[Paul M]

I use Pay Pal to purchase stuff online. So far it has been a good thing to do. Planning on selling quite a bit more of my stuff.
When I have posted stuff before people ask do I accept Pay Pal for payment. Those of you who use it to get $$ for items you sell please
clue me in on your experiences. No horror stories please.

I've used it for over a decade. I buy and sell items online numerous X's a week. My problem this year is now uncle sam wants to dig his fingers into every 600.00 worth of merchandise you sell. They have already notified me more than once this year. They need more money so we can fund their lavish lifestyles.

 

[mrgmhale]

One thing to be aware of is when asked to use the PayPal friends option to save them the processing fee. Doing so invalidates remedies via PayPal if you are scammed. If a merchant you do not know asks you to use the friends option I suggest not doing business with that merchant as it is likely you are about to get scammed.

Other merchants known to me and trusted (WCCC, Hemi killer, etc) I would have no problem with using the friends option if asked. And a few others.

 

[giantpune]

Paypal almost universally sides with the buyer when there's a dispute. It is commonly used by people to run scams.

Order something
pay with paypal
item gets shipped to you
start a dispute with paypal. claim item is wrong, damaged, missing parts, never arrived, etc
paypal takes money back from seller and refunds buyer.
buyer gets to keep the item and their money. seller is screwed.

My other big gripe against paypal is their rules around closing accounts and keeping the money thats in them.
Paypal has a list of items that are legal to buy and sell, but are against their policy. If one of those things is mentioned in a transaction, from either the buyer or seller, paypal's kneejerk reaction is to close both accounts and keep the money in both of them.

Meaning, if I wanted to, I could pick somebody's paypal account from on this board, send them a $5 gift with the word "glock" or "AR-15" in the comments, and laugh as paypal closed their account and kept any money they had in it. The list of no-no words or topics is not listed publicly. There are broad topics that are known. But there is no black and white list. At times, it is completely arbitrary.

If you are selling an item, you can help avoid this my creating the invoice yourself and sending that to the buyer. This prevents them from starting the transaction and having the opportunity to add their own comments. And if you are a buyer, just dont put anything in the comments. You never know what the latest words paypal has in their filter.

Do not keep any balance in your paypal account that you could not afford to lose at any moment. If the account is closed, their policy is keep the money.

 

[detritusmaximus]

One thing to be aware of is when asked to use the PayPal friends option to save them the processing fee. Doing so invalidates remedies via PayPal if you are scammed. If a merchant you do not know asks you to use the friends option I suggest not doing business with that merchant as you are it is likely you are about to get scammed.

Other merchants known to me and trusted (wccc, Hemi killer, etc) I would have no problem with using the friends option if asked. And a few others.

Some of this applies to Ebay, as well. But I have figured out a couple of safe guards that reduce risk. One is that I will state I prefer to ship to a UPS store/facility or their business and require a signature and if that is not possible for them, then I can't be responsible once UPS/USPS says it was delivered.

The other is....Google streetview. Look up the address you are shipping to to see how vulnerable a package is to porch pirates.

On Ebay I sold a low mileage fuel pump for a 2010 Mustang 4.6. The buyer received it and everything was good. Then he contacted me to say his mechanic said the pump was bad. I had no experience with it, just going by the story I got when I bought it with a bunch of other parts. I explained this and apologized for selling a bad part. I told him to send it back and I offered to refund his money, shipping included. AND I would cover his return shipping.
He would be out nothing. What happens?....never heard from him again.
I guess the pump magically started working again.