No offense, but I don't really understand the purpose of this thread. If a seller has certain selling practices you don't care for, then it's pretty easy not to buy from them. And if a seller prefers a certain set of selling practices, he or she isn't going to change those practices because of this thread.
I ask for Paypal funds to be sent as Gift payments on occasion, largely for reasons that involve the infuriating interactions between my Canadian Paypal account and the US Paypal accounts most DPFers have (certain types of payments work differently for international transactions). Nobody's arbitrary concept of what is and isn't "a good seller" is going to change that.
-JDG
Hello Gloomy, thanks for your input and I hope I can help clarify the actual purpose for starting this thread, and I understand that it will probably not make a difference in your selling habits, but that's ok because it was not an attempt to try and change any seller here who already has his/her own selling practices well established.
Actually, the purpose of this thread began when I first started buying pins on the DPF many months ago. I purchased pins from a seller who never sent them to me, but luckily, I had not paid using the gift option on PP, and I received my money back without any problems. Soon after this incident, I noticed a few sellers here requiring payments for any pin from them be sent through Paypal, and to be marked as a gift. I paid the way they asked a few times, but I kept thinking about the fact that I didn't know anyone here, and what would have happened to my $200+ if it had been sent as a personal gift! I decided to check with PP, and found that I would have been
without the pins, and without my $200+. From then on, I decided
not to buy from sellers who requested this form of payment simply because I couldn't afford to loose my money. That was my decision then and apparently no one suffered from me not buying pins from them.
Then, the other day I happened to read a post from a very nice sounding buyer who had, in good faith, paid for a pin with PP and had maked payment as personal. She went on to tell that she had not received the pin after several weeks and was wanting to know what she could do. And there was nothing she could do, and her money is probably gone. Her post made me think that there must be other buyers who do this without understanding that
it may not be a wise decision to pay using the personal option on Paypal when sending money to an unknown person. The reasoning behind my arbitrary concept, as you called it, of a bad sellers remains that there are sellers (even on this board) who would defraud buyers by offering pins for sale, and then leave DPF without completing the transaction. Not only this, but also the fact that pins get lost in the mail, stolen, and damaged, and because not every seller is as honest as you probably are, caused me to want to let other buyers know that they could be risking their money by making the decision to send payment using the personal or gift option in PP. My original post here was not intended as a guidline for sellers, but as a warning for buyers.
I also know that when you sell here, and use Paypal's sevices to receive money from a sale, and then require a buyer to mark payment as a gift, you are taking away the buyer's only means of getting their money back if something happens to you or to the pin. Not only that, in all reality, you are asking the buyer to lie and tell Paypal it was not a purchase but a gift to avoid paying a fee. Maybe this type of selling practice wouldn't classify someone as a "bad seller", but rather a frugal seller (still at the possible expense of the buyer, though).
If you already have certain selling practices in place (such as not wanting to pay PP's fees in exchange for the convenience of you having your money immediately available as soon as you get paid by a buyer) then I would think it would be much easier, maybe less stressful, and perhaps a little more honest to require your buyers to send you a check or money order to begin with, especially if you feel the fees are too high.
I certainly take no offense in your reply because I realize it is your opinion, and I'm sorry you thought I was trying to tell you how to sell.
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