[ForSale-Swap] paypal

[Don Merz]

Let's get this straight--a USPS Money order is USELESS
to the person purchasing the money order. If anything
bad happens, your money is GONE FOREVER just as surely
as if you had paid in cash. The USPS will NEVER DO
ANYTHING to recover your money. 

OTOH, a USPS MO is GREAT for the seller--it's the
equivalent of cash--a guaranteed payment. But WHY
would anyone ever BUY a money order when all the
benefit of it goes to the recipient??

Here's an eBay money order story from 5 years ago: I
won an auction for a hard disk recorder, sent the
requested $330 MO to the seller in CA. Nothing ever
came. E-mails not answered. Other eBayer's contacted
me and indicated that they had also been taken. One of
them was a Baptist Church. We all banded together and
filed a USPS claim. We had the guy's correct address
and home phone number. We could call him on the phone
and he would just grunt and hang up. Or if one of his
kids (?) answered, they'd ask us why we kept calling
and we told them that this person (Dad or brother or
???) stole from us. We'd hear him yelling in the
background "Hang Up." We gave it all to the CA
Attorney General, the guy's local police and to the
so-called Postal Inspector--and you know what we
got--you guessed it--NOTHING.

By contrast, here is my experience with PayPal: 1) I
have never been ripped off. 2) Once I bought a
microphone for $120. The seller never shipped it.
PayPal recovered my $120 in full. 3) late last year, I
tried to buy a $1400 item using PayPal. They flagged
the transaction and told me that the seller was a
known scammer and they would not let the transaction
go through. I tried to find the seller to see if
PayPal was the problem and sure enough he had all fake
e-mails and phone numbers and other information.
PayPal saved me $1400.  

You get what you pay for. You pay 75 cents for a money
order and you get nothing in return. You pay fees to
use PayPal and they work for you. It's just that
sinmple.

73, and happy hunting, Don Merz, N3RHT




--- Ed Griffin <egriffin at vnet.net> wrote:
> I have used PayPal a few times and never had any
> problems.
> 
> But the use of US Postal Service money orders is the
> safest thing for both 
> the buyer and seller.  If either party tries to
> scam, it becomes mail fraud 
> when a USPS  money order is used in the transaction.
> 
> Ed
> 
> At 08:25 PM 7/7/2004, you wrote:
> >Well, it is sortof, kinda on topic.  Has to do with
> payment for an item
> >forsale.
> >Also, I figure you guys would have a good handle on
> any service like
> >paypal.
> >Do you use paypal?  If so what are the risks and
> benefits.  I am not
> >interested in a sales pitch, just real experiences.
> >The reason I ask is that I am getting offers to pay
> using paypal even
> >though I make it clear that it is not an accepted
> form of payment.
> >Of course if the buyer has a pal who stops by and
> pays in cash, he can
> >take the item with him when he leaves.  My pals
> won't do that for me.  I
> >doubt anyone else has pals like that either.
> >Regards,
> >Frank Kamp
> 
>
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