Protecting myself from fraud on paypal

January 23, 2013 6:06 PM

How can I protect myself from buyer fraud selling something through paypal?

I just sold something and the buyer sent me payment via paypal. (not ebay though)

I am shipping the item soon. I noticed that my paypal said that as long as I ship it to the confirmed address and get signature confirmation, I am protected from the buyer saying they didn't receive it.

Hopefully this would never happen, but what can I do to protect against the buyer they received it, but that something was wrong with it or it was defective?

What does paypal do in those types of situations?

I haven't boxed the stuff up yet, so anything I can do to protect myself would be great.

how can I document or protect myself from a buyer possibly making a fraudulent claim?

posted by skjønn to law & government (5 answers total)

What kind of thing are you shipping? Depending on what you sold and how much you sold it for, it might be worth your while to get it professionally packed -- that way, not only are you protected by the fact you've used a verifiable service, but UPS has a Pack & Ship Guarantee.

Document, document, document. Photos of the item before it was packed, whatever documents UPS/FedEx gives you. Cheerful followup.

For what it's worth, I buy through PayPal all the time. Lots of stuff. I have so rarely had a problem that I can't even recall one.
posted by Medieval Maven at 6:17 PM on January 23

Unless things have changed in the last five years, you can't.
posted by procrastination at 6:22 PM on January 23

Make sure you document with pictures both the item and the packaging. My brother had a claim made against him recently that he won. In his case, the buyer said the items were not as described, had a high use count and were badly shipped even though my brother drove three hours to meet the buyer's brother-in-law who arranged shipping. The buyer had not asked about count when making the deal and shipping was with his designated shipping company. Paypal decided quickly in my brother's favor.

Keep any emails between you and your buyer. If there is some element where someone is likely to lie about your product, document it.
posted by shoesietart at 9:36 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]

As far as I've been able to ascertain, you can't. It's trivially easy for the buying to say something "wasn't as described", and they don't even have to send the thing back, so you'll be out the money and the item!
posted by zug at 5:59 AM on January 24

Make sure you actually request "signature required" (and even fine tune it to "adult" or "direct" or "indirect"), but also note there might be a surcharge for that. Some delivery companies and/or service levels don't automatically require a signature.
posted by Dansaman at 8:14 AM on January 24