To Self Collect or Not | Ramblings of an e-trader

Saturday 10 January 2009

To Self Collect or Not

While I subscribe to the belief that we should avoid making purchases online for high priced items so as not to be a number in the statistics of scam victims, PayPal, on the other hand, encourages people to use PayPal to pay for their eBay purchases to qualify for Buyer protection and not pay by cash, direct bank transfer or other means of payment. Hence, the title of this post.

Now, as a buyer, I don't buy high price items, like I said. However, I did bought an item before which cost me slightly more than a thousand Ringgit. What I did was to self-collect it and pay cash. Of course, only after I have checked the item was in order and as described in the auction listing. I was pretty lucky that the purchase did not give me any problems.

The problem arises is when a Buyer insists on paying by PayPal or credit card but comes over to self-collect. Now wouldn't that pique your curiosity why anyone would make payment in a roundabout way when he could bring you the cash when the item is collected?

The reason that one would do something is that you should suspect that he's using a hijacked PayPal account or stolen credit card number, paying you wil stolen money and collecting your item, and then when the real account holders file complaints, money that had been paid to you will be returned and you would not be covered under Seller protection plan because you will not be able to prove that the item had been delivered. Sad case, right?

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