Buyer can't pay using Paypal

[jcd931]

We received the following message this morning from a potential buyer:

"I have been trying to buy this item this morning. Paypal is screwed up again since Ebay bought them. Irritating. Is there another way I perhaps could buy this item from you? Thanks a million."

We are not yet signed up for Managed Payments and are hesitant to do so, with all the problems associated with MP that we've been reading about on the forums.  

IS there another way for a buyer to pay for an item, or should we just tell the buyer they should keep trying through Paypal?

Thanks.

[marnotom!]

No, there isn't another way for a buyer to pay for an item, at least, not a way that would keep the transaction "on the books" as far as eBay is concerned and provide you some measure of protection.

While most of your items don't appear to be scam-worthy, the pricier ones may be of interest to those up to no good.  This potential buyer might be trying to railroad you into using a payment instrument that would leave you high and dry should it prove fraudulent.  The fact that they're very vague about PayPal being "screwed up" and make reference to it being this way since "eBay bought it" --when in fact, eBay sold it off several years ago--gets my amber lights flashing.

As an aside, my wife and I were very hesitant about enrolling in PayPal after we'd had no issues using Billpoint (eBay's in-house payment method over twenty years ago).  We'd read lots of postings of problems with PayPal on the .com discussion boards that gave us pause.  When we finally switched over, we had no issues of our own, and if we were still selling now, we wouldn't be squeamish about enrolling in Managed Payments.

[jcd931]

Thanks for the reply.  Our spidey sense kind of tingled too at the way the inquiry was worded.  All is well, though.  The buyer had his daughter purchase the item through her Paypal account.  Keep safe everyone and thanks to all those who help us out when we don't know what we're doing:>)

[marnotom!]

Is the address on the transaction details page the same as the address to which you're going to be shipping the widget?

[jcd931]

Yes it is....no problem there.

[recped]

Paypal is screwed up again since Ebay bought them

Well eBay bought PayPal in 2002 and spun it off (sold) in 2015 so that comment is ridiculous. I had one of these a few weeks ago and simply told them to contact PayPal as it was not an issue I could do anything about.

I notice you offer to ship (mostly) worldwide but don't enter a specific shipping charge except for Canada/US. In that situation a buyer in Germany would be able to puchase b iuut not able to complete checkout because no shipping charge is specified.

If the buyer is in Canada or US then this would not be the issue.

[jcd931]

Thanks for the suggestion.  I've been meaning to change some of those listings to Canada/US  only and your reply prompted me to do just that😊  I think I've updated those that had worldwide with no shipping amounts and changed them to Canada/US only.  That's more my comfort zone these days.