My dealing with PayPal has been mostly as a seller and it only gets worse.
In the month of August I had 3 separate attempts at fraud originating from E-Bay which involve PayPal payment,
The first was for a $3500 vintage AP. Buyer immediately pays with PayPal and it shows the address as CONFIRMED.
I ship the watch at about 2 P.M. the same day. At 6 P.M. I get a message from E-Bay that account holder claims their account was hacked. I immediately call FEDEX and request the shipment not be delivered and returned to me. At this point my expense is about $50. E-bay denies any responsibility for my cost. I would think that a person who allowed their account to be hacked be responsible for my cost or E-Bay. I call PayPal and they tell me they do not cover this as a matter of business but because of my 20 years history are willing to look into it if I provide invoices for shipping cost. Several days later I get another buyer on E-Bay. This time the $1100 purchase is flagged fairly quickly by E-Bay as fraudulent, yet PayPal tells me the buyer... paid and the address is CONFIRMED. I return the funds as previously. Third time a buyer buys a $6000 watch and immediately pays with PayPal, CONFIRMED address!! Now I am more vigilant. The buyer's E-Bay account is several years old and shows 0 feedback. I immediately go to E-Bay and CANCEL the sale as "Problem with shipping address" .
Now my question to Forum members: Have you ever had a chargeback problem with PayPal when receiving payment as gift for an item shipped to buyer?
So now I am thinking of instituting a policy of asking all buyers using PayPal to send a scan of their government identification document.
Recently I have come across someone using my website name to open a Gmail account and offer watches for sale on couple of forums... It is a minefield out there for sellers.

 

Do many people do this? Personally, I'd never send my Passport/ID scan to someone over the internet.

 

Yes, this has happened to me. CONFIRMED address, then eBay sends me a message telling me NOT TO SHIP after the watch has been paid for. Buyer's account has been reportedly hacked.

But then, buyer at the same time (and on the same day payment was made) then files ITEM NOT RECEIVED claim.

 

How are you protecting yourself?

 

and that would be your prerogative.

 

On my last sale, the buyer wanted to pay by check. I gave him the option of sending me a photo of his government-issued ID and waiting until the check cleared, or using a cashier's check, or Paypal. I figured there was a good chance he would change his mind, but he didn't, and provided everything I asked for. Everything was on the level, and he got his watch once the funds were verified and the check cleared (a week later).

He was a solid buyer, but I won't be doing that again. It puts the buyer in a bad position having to pay and wait for the item to ship, and the seller can still be left holding the bag in spite of their best efforts to verify ID.

 

"I would think that a person who allowed their account to be hacked be responsible for my cost or E-Bay.”
I’ll remember this next time somebody “allows their account to get hacked.” Are you for real?

 

You have to understand one thing, many buyers decide to connect their E-Bay user name and password to PayPal for immediate payment. Had they not done this there would be another layer of protection. The fraudster would need their PayPal password as well. More difficult.
When they are careless and answer a phishing e-mail thus revealing this information to hackers, they or E-Bay should bear the cost of their mistake, not the seller. Why do you think the seller should bear the cost??
In situations where big corporations had their private database hacked, they bore the costs, not the consumers.
Credit card companies take the risk for fraud. They do not go to the sellers and say we take this money back from you, do they.

 

It’s called the cost of doing business. We all pay it, get used to to it. You are not immune. I don’t like it, I acknowledge that everything sold is priced higher because of theft and or fraud.

 

My post was intended to be a warning to sellers here, not to get into an argument with you or anyone else.
I am done.

 

So being a victim of fraud is "The cost of doing business"? What kind of logic is that??

So if we go by your stupid logic, it should be true to all of these:

Carjacking is the cost of owning a car.
Burglary is the cost of owning a home.
Rape is the cost of being a woman.
Murder is the cost of living.

 

Happened to me yesterday.

Aug 9th purchase ($600).
Shipped to confirmed PayPal address. (delivered Aug 13th).
PayPal chargeback yesterday (Unauthorized charge, PayPal account goes into negative -$600).
Luckily since the item was under $750.00 and did not require signature, PayPal returned the funds to me once I called them and provided the tracking number which showed "Delivered" (to the confirmed PayPal address).

Honestly I have no problem shipping items to buyers once I get paid through PayPal.
If the item is over $750 signature is required.
If it ends up being fraud, I am 100% covered by eBay/PayPal "Seller protection" and they are the ones that eat the loss. Good luck to them!

So yeah, a scammer "Buyer" ends up getting a free item. But I got paid, so I couldn't care less... eBay's problem now.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stupid

 

Thank you for your replies. Do you think E-bay would cover you for a $6000 watch sold there?
They did not want to pay just my shipping cost of $50.
I ship everything by FEDEX and insure with ParcelPro. All shipments to private residence require signature automatically and it adds another $5 or so to the shipping cost.

I posted asking specifically for replies from sellers and get unsolicited replies from others with opinions...
What the hell, people do not read anymore?

 

If you ship according to their seller protection policy, yes they will. They have to.

I also once shipped a $5,000 Guitar to a buyer in Asia.
Buyer did not pick it up from FedEx because he needed to pay the import duties and FedEx wouldn’t release the package to him until he paid his account balance on previous import duties (for other shipments) he failed to pay to FedEx.

Long story short, after about a month being stuck in customs, the Guitar was returned to me along with a $750 charge on my FedEx account for the return shipping and the import duties which the Buyer failed to pay.

I called PayPal and they asked me to forward them my FedEx invoice showing the charges and they covered them.

 

That’s probably because you did not let the whole thing play out and immediately decided to trun the package around.

 

You may be right, I did not want to take the risk. Besides E-Bay notified me not to send the item or if sent to try and stop it from being delivered.

 

Gave up on eBay a long time ago, not worth the hassle.

 

May be true for you but E-bay still has more viewers and buyers than any watch forum. I have been selling there well into 6 figures annually for 20 years. Beats the bullshit one comes across on watch forums. I do not mind the commissions, it is the uncertainty that often worries me.
I used to sell a lot overseas as the watches are more expensive there but stopped that because I do not want to take PayPal from overseas.
At least in the U.S. I can go after the fraudster legally if I choose to.