Warning about Paypal as gift (friends and family)

The moderators would like to strongly discourage the use of the paypal "gift" or the "friends or family" options for transactions on MyTT.   If you chose those options, Paypal will not provide any type of protection to the buyer.  We believe it is unreasonable for a seller to demand this, even if it does save a few bucks.

A new member to MyTT, who is an expert on Paypal, suggests that if you link a Paypal payment to a credit card, the credit card company may provide some protection if you have to dispute the transaction.

Sellers can set whatever price they wish and if a buyer can accept the price a deal is made.  But the buyer needs to be able to protect themselves and the gift option does not allow that.

I have noticed that other websites where people buy and sell specialized items (not table tennis) have totally banned the practice of sellers requesting payment as a gift.  Here this would mean that a moderator would have to go through every For Sale thread and edit out requests for gift options.  I am not going to do that.

But I think the culture here needs to be that this is not a reasonable request by a seller, even if it adds 3-4% to the price of the transaction. 

Yeah, I agreed with Baal on this issue. The default should be not paypal as gift unless the buyer has a good reputation then the total can be reduce 3-4% with paypal as gift option. This is an open forum and there are definitely some bad bugs.  

I wonder if this would cause a reversal of risk... where trusted sellers would now have to worry about buyers that would scam.

Edited by the_theologian - 08/06/2014 at 11:24pm

angelleye wrote: Another good practice to get into is to set the funding source of the PayPal payment during checkout to a credit card.  This way even if PayPal won't honor protection for some reason, you can always call the credit card company directly and submit a dispute/chargeback.  Credit card companies want to protect their consumers, so they will give you an immediate credit "pending investigation" and I very rarely see people get denied completely when they file chargebacks directly with cc companies.

This is very good advice, and welcome to the forum!  As they tell boxers, "protect yourself at all times".  I edited my opening comment to include this.  Thanks!!!!

if buyer uses cc to pay as a gift,the buyer needs to pay fee.

Antuan wrote: kindof99 wrote: if buyer uses cc to pay as a gift,the buyer needs to pay fee. If you pay as gift there is no fee.

People can work it out as part of the negotiation.  But I would still suggest to a buyer that if a seller is demanding payment as a gift, it is an unreasonable request. 

I will no longer ask other members, unless it's one of my close buddies, to pay as $ to family/friends. It places both parties in an awkward position.

Thanks, Viva!

Edited by tommyzai - 08/08/2014 at 12:14am

Check the "warning about scam" thread above this one for a case study.  See pages 2 and 3.

Baal wrote: Protect yourself at all times, and if you have doubts about a seller don't make a deal.  Many of the people who sell here have long track records and you can find threads about them.  These are people who are scrupulously honest.  Be careful with people who are new to the forum or for whom there is not much history.  Do not use the Paypal gift option with people you do not know well.

+1

I don't think sellers are always doing this because of the 3.5% fee.  I think they're doing it because paypal offers them no protection at all on international shipments that are untraceable.

Nobody wants to pay for that. They want it po cheap but you eat the risk. It's just not feasible for smaller orders.

My only point being, I've asked customers to send as gift before, and there are reasons why. As you say, they can make the decision.