Seller wants to know my Paypal account

[rcmi123]

Hello, I was wondering if it is at all safe to use Paypal outside of Ebay in this situation. (I assume that's what the seller is looking to do). I understand it is against Ebay policy and that some do it to avoid "seller fees", but I've never had experience using Paypal directly to a seller before. Is there any protection at all for the buyer or seller when using Paypal directly? Is it a complete gamble? 

Basically I am ordering a customized item (made according to my specifications), and after discussing the item details, price, etc I asked them to list the item in their store and I'd make the purchase. They then replied asking to know my Paypal account.

What I know about the seller (from their profile) is-

- They have 99.6% positive feedback.

- Location is in Shanghai, China. 

- They seem to sell things quite often to people mostly from Europe, UK, North America.  

Is this situation too risky no matter who the seller is or am I just being paranoid? 

[femmefan1946]

The Paypal account name is just the name on the email account you signed up with.

No biggie. You would not be giving out your password or anything. The PP account also has your mailing address on it.

I would be cautious about buying an item "off eBay", and not because of PP problems. PP is used by many online retailers (I've even used it for personal transactions like a joint wedding gift from all us sisters). The PP Buyer Protection is almost as secure as the eBay/PP Buyer Protection.

You can make it even more secure by using PP to pay from your credit card, rather than your bank account. This allows for a second level of protection from the cc's chargeback program, should you have PP problems.

The concern I would have is that the seller seems to want to avoid eBay in your transaction, in order to cheat eBay out of the fees it would be owed. Since you found them through eBay, this hardly seems honest, does it? What makes you think that a company that would cheat the guys that found you for them would treat you any better?

I won't go into the problems with buying a gown sight unseen from overseas for an important occasion. Especially if this is a wedding dress, if you go ahead with this, have lots of lead time and a rental shop on speed-dial.

Look not only at their feedback, but the specifics of neutral and negative feedback. You will find some FB is from obvious idiots, but pay attention when the problems are calmly explained.

And pay a LOT of attention to Detailed Seller Ratings. You want ratings over 4.9. And you don't want to see low ratings for Description or Shipping Time.

[tenbigdogs]

Hi rcmi, If you are considering purchasing your wedding dress from one of the China "custom" wedding dress sellers on eBay that seem like such a bargain, don't.  It will NOT look like the picture.  It will NOT be a quality item.  It WILL cost you more than it's worth to return it for a refund after you open the box and stop crying.  If you insist on buying from one of those places, for heaven's sake make the purchase through eBay, make them invoice you through eBay.  PayPal's protections used to actually be better than eBay's, but not any more.  Best wishes for your wedding, and good luck! 

[angelgirl327]

Offers to buy or sell outside of eBay

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/rfe-spam-non-ebay-sale.html

[rcmi123]

Thanks for the responses everyone!

I gave it some thought and I think the buyer seems legitimate enough through their feedback (if feedback can be counted on) that I would probably trust them to buy outside of Ebay. They have all 5 stars nearly "filled" with 323 positive ratings and only 1 negative and 3 neutral ratings, the complaints only mentioning sizing and color issues, half of which claimed to be refunded.

But regardless, I've asked that they keep it all on Ebay since you're all right, there really there is no reason to bring the sale outside of Ebay if the buyer (myself) feels uncomfortable with it. And if something goes wrong then there's a possibility of the buyer being dishonest, taking advantage of the customer as they did Ebay.

However, I forgot to ask in my first post, for you sellers out there is it common to sell customised items off of Ebay to make it the purchase "private" (so no one else buys it)? No they havent actually claimed this yet and I've never been a buyer myself, but I'm pretty sure there's a way to do this on Ebay, making the listing "private" to a specific seller?

Again, thanks.