paypal family/friends scam? on the buyers side?

[rockwind1]

i've been on here a long time, in my opinion, and not sure if it is still the case, but it seemed paypal f/f was the go to payment method for quite a while. i believe paypal f/f was used because, no fee but also because it was very similiar to paying with cash as there was no way to dispute it. however, my question is that recently i sold something to someone, not on this forum or even firearm related. he seems legit, but no phone call, andquite a few messages, he paypal f/f'ed me the agreed amout BUT he put in a message tied to the payment a detailed description of the item ( a kite, in this case) and his address. i have heard of buyers disputing charges with their credit card they used with paypal when using paypal family/friends. as in scammers as BUYERS, who then try to keep the item and get their money back. in fact the message pretty much said, "joe, here is the $xxx for the kite, please send to "buyers address"

it seems like he is setting it up as a goods/services type of payment but without the fee.

has anyone else heard of this or had it happen. i mean, where a buyer disputes a paypal f/f payment on their end? i am probably a little too paranoid

 

[W54/XM-388]

As the "Seller" or money recipient, PayPal can always screw you over and will always prefer to screw you over if the "buyer" or money sender really wants to steal from you and knows how to work the system. Doubly so if they used a credit card to pay the PP payment.
F&F is nice, but it's not all that much more protection if the "buyer" or "gift giver" wants their money back.

The entire system is pretty much rigged against the seller / money recipient from the get go because the big payment companies act / feel like monopolies and are like "So what, we don't care, tough luck."

 

[Nik H]

I don't believe F&F has any type of protection because you agree that you are just sending cash as a gift. That is the whole point of F&F. You are not supposed to use it for buying or selling goods. As a matter of fact, if you send someone a payment using F&F and you use a credit card to pay, PP automatically adds the fee to the the amount you are sending. You only can use a debit card to avoid the fee. When you use a debit card, there is no recourse because it is a cash transaction.

This isn't a PP problem. It is a consequence of using your debit card.

Whenever a seller states use F&F, I send them a normal PP transaction for goods and bump the amount so the seller doesn't get less than they wanted.

 

[papershredder]

When a person sends money f/f, there is a notice that the sender agrees to f/f being a non-binding transaction when they click to send money. That notice pretty much waives paypal of any legal obligations to the personal transactions that f/f was made for. Paypal will more than likely file 13 any complaint made by f/f senders. Especially considering they are loosing $ on every transaction that goes outside of goods/service purchases.

To alleviate any paranoia; just save all massages, take good pictures with time stamps of the items being sent, send via tracked methods and save those receipts.

 

[Milo 2.5]

Sorry but describing a transaction in the comment box just highlights you as a seller. When people do this to me if agreed on F&F, I hit refund, usually takes around 8+ days to get their money back.

 

[DeathBeforeDismount]

Just use Venmo or Zelle instead. As a seller you are protected from charge backs.

 

[rockwind1]

Sorry but describing a transaction in the comment box just highlights you as a seller. When people do this to me if agreed on F&F, I hit refund, usually takes around 8+ days to get their money back.

yes, it did sort of make me nervous, not sure what to do yet.

 

[rockwind1]

I don't believe F&F has any type of protection because you agree that you are just sending cash as a gift. That is the whole point of F&F. You are not supposed to use it for buying or selling goods. As a matter of fact, if you send someone a payment using F&F and you use a credit card to pay, PP automatically adds the fee to the the amount you are sending. You only can use a debit card to avoid the fee. When you use a debit card, there is no recourse because it is a cash transaction.

This isn't a PP problem. It is a consequence of using your debit card.

Whenever a seller states use F&F, I send them a normal PP transaction for goods and bump the amount so the seller doesn't get less than they wanted.

well,, the problem with that is it puts the seller in a bad position paypal wise. although i have had 100's of fine paypal transactions, i sold a watch on ebay, the buyer used it for a month,, then complained it had a scratch on it,, paypal of course sided with buyer so i had to eat the shipping both ways and get back a much more used watch than i had sold. needless to say, i am no longer a seller on ebay, only a buyer, and i don't take regular paypal. my post was about avoiding a similiar possible buyer scammer who might try it something similiar with paypal f/f. who will use something for weeks or months, then make a seller pay to have it shipped back. have you actually bought items from folks on here using that method?

 

[Holliday]

My business is quickly phasing out PP. The abuse of FF (which is against PPs terms of service) is being subsidizes by businesses in the way of much higher fees.

We used to have a decent negotiated rate, as did many businesses. They scrapped that program to pay for people abusing FF payments.

They raised their cross-border fees so much that we stopped using them for International sales all together.

They have also raised their instant transfer from 1% to 1.5%.

They also stopped refunding fees on refunded sales. So now if a customer cancels an order through no fault of ours (delay etc.) we don’t refund the fees.

I find it compelling, that a demographic that talks so much about honesty, responsibility, accountability, free market and the right of businesses to dictate how they do business, so blatantly lies and cheats by shamelessly using friends & family payments for goods and services. It strikes me as about the same a marxists peacefully ”looting” in broad daylight. I guess somehow, you feel Paypal owes you something, free.....

 

[W54/XM-388]

My business is quickly phasing out PP. The abuse of FF (which is against PPs terms of service) is being subsidizes by businesses in the way of much higher fees.

We used to have a decent negotiated rate, as did many businesses. They scrapped that program to pay for people abusing FF payments.

They raised their cross-border fees so much that we stopped using them for International sales all together.

They have also raised their instant transfer from 1% to 1.5%.

They also stopped refunding fees on refunded sales. So now if a customer cancels an order through no fault of ours (delay etc.) we don’t refund the fees.

I find it compelling, that a demographic that talks so much about honesty, responsibility, accountability, free market and the right of businesses to dictate how they do business, so blatantly lies and cheats by shamelessly using friends & family payments for goods and services. It strikes me as about the same a marxists peacefully ”looting” in broad daylight. I guess somehow, you feel Paypal owes you something, free.....

Take everything from your enemies and give them nothing.
About sums up why I feel really nice and righteous about working around PayPal fees.
The more you can stick it to those bastards the better.

Their evil greed of keeping fees from themselves on refunds and screwing over sellers had nothing to do with F&F transactions and everything about some folks wanting to get richer much quicker.

 

[Holliday]

Take everything from your enemies and give them nothing.
About sums up why I feel really nice and righteous about working around PayPal fees.
The more you can stick it to those bastards the better.

Their evil greed of keeping fees from themselves on refunds and screwing over sellers had nothing to do with F&F transactions and everything about some folks wanting to get richer much quicker.

Give me a break ! That type of BS rationalization doesn’t cut it. That’s the same BS that the folks who loot and call it reparations use. The same BS that folks who say that all the businesses that got burned down “have insurance”. Like Insurance companies don’t jack their rates on everybody when they suffer losses.

Like somehow it’s news to you that businesses subsidize lost-leaders by jacking prices elsewhere.

Hey man, I’m not telling you to be a saint but if you are going to openly lie, cheat and steal in the name of some vendetta, don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining….. You’re no better than the rest of the folks justifying that behavior.

 

[W54/XM-388]

We used to use PayPal for our business until they came out with the refund B.S. then we switched to Square which is a slightly higher rate, but the refund issue more than makes up for it.

It costs PayPal next to nothing to process transactions, so at worst I'm denying them extra profits and I feel great about it.
I could even prove the brand recognition they get from people using their stuff even if they don't happen to make a profit is well worth the cost in advertising and user numbers.

Sorry you feel you owe evil 2A hating corporations any kind of respect.

 

[rockwind1]

My business is quickly phasing out PP. The abuse of FF (which is against PPs terms of service) is being subsidizes by businesses in the way of much higher fees.

We used to have a decent negotiated rate, as did many businesses. They scrapped that program to pay for people abusing FF payments.

They raised their cross-border fees so much that we stopped using them for International sales all together.

They have also raised their instant transfer from 1% to 1.5%.

They also stopped refunding fees on refunded sales. So now if a customer cancels an order through no fault of ours (delay etc.) we don’t refund the fees.

I find it compelling, that a demographic that talks so much about honesty, responsibility, accountability, free market and the right of businesses to dictate how they do business, so blatantly lies and cheats by shamelessly using friends & family payments for goods and services. It strikes me as about the same a marxists peacefully ”looting” in broad daylight. I guess somehow, you feel Paypal owes you something, free.....

i think this is a little off the topic but i think rather than blame us blue collar guys on the hide for paypal's decisions, that it could just be the new natural evolution of finance and the internet reacting to market forces. myself, i would rather feed the family than give money to the tech zillionaires but that is just me. i think over the years on ebay, paypal has (and ebay) has taken a substantial amount of money from me by forcing me to use paypal so i don't feel so bad,,, plus on top of that, for years, on this and other forums, paypal f/f was like the only payment accepted. personally, i thought paypal f/f was just there way of competing with venmo or cash app or zelle, which apparently do not have a fee. i've been coming across more and more stores that want venmo.

anyway, hopefully some other slightly more helpful comments might appear and get back on topic,, which is---have any sellers been somehow scammed by a buyer using paypal f/f

 

[NateSavannah]

Take everything from your enemies and give them nothing.
About sums up why I feel really nice and righteous about working around PayPal fees.
The more you can stick it to those bastards the better.

Their evil greed of keeping fees from themselves on refunds and screwing over sellers had nothing to do with F&F transactions and everything about some folks wanting to get richer much quicker.

Im with you. Paypal is the enemy. Many years ago I had a listing on gunbroker. when you set up the listing there were boxes to check as to what forms of payment you accept. Paypal was one of them.
I sold the shotgun. Guy paid w/ paypal. Put shotgun in what its for. Paypal banned me for life and I spent 6 months trying to get my money from them.
They pulled out their fine print that says they are antigun communists and are allowed to keep your money and ban you for life if you accept any money for guns or gun related items.
Fuck Paypal.

 

[Basher]

Sorry but describing a transaction in the comment box just highlights you as a seller. When people do this to me if agreed on F&F, I hit refund, usually takes around 8+ days to get their money back.

This. If PayPal catches wind that you got paid for a good/service and they didn’t get their cut, they could nail you. I’m VERY direct about no comments. If someone includes a comment, I refund and move on because they’re clearly unable to follow simple directions and I don’t have the time to mess with that kind of crap.