Seller Would Not Sell Because I had Zero Feedback. Why?


I tried to purchase equipment on CAM priced at $17K.  The Seller first wanted me to send a wire.  I said no, that I'd pay using paypal.  He said ok, but would only accept sent using the "Friends and Family" option.  Again, I said no explaining that I needed PayPal's Buyer Protection and that I would not send such a large sum across an international border with no recourse.  I explained to the Buyer Protection requires that payment be categorized as "Goods and Services" and that I would pay the 2.99% fee.   The seller would not take a credit card.  Ultimately, he said that he didn't want to move forward because I had zero feedback.  Further, I believe that PayPal offers Seller Protection to shield against nefarious buyers.  What am i missing that would make the Seller not want to do the deal based on my lack of feedback if the product wouldn't ship until the cash was in his account?   

The Seller did have an excellent feedback rating, but I wasn't about to send such a large sum across the border to a stranger.  Thoughts? 

patrickalston

I had a seller refuse to do PayPal goods and services because he'd have to declare it on his taxes, or something to that effect. 

It didn't make sense to me especially since the listing said he took paypal.  I was going to suggest Escrow.com, but by the time we got that far I'd grown weary of his objections to my reasonable suggestions to get the deal done.

I'm sure I'll find another in the right color before long.  

If he didn’t want to sell to people with no feedback, he probably should have listed that in his ad.  Some people may not want to sell such a big ticket item to a buyer with no verified successful transactions. The tax thing mentioned by @sls883 is also a concern to some people.  My things are, no buyers:

  1. out of the USA
  2. who are using proxies, and 
  3. with negative feedback

and I list those conditions in my ads.  

You tried to give him reasonable options and he didn’t want to proceed.  Just move on and look for another opportunity.  In the old days, we used to suggest that newer buyers buy a couple of cables, records, footers or some other small ticket items, just to get on record with positive feedback. Good luck.

There are scams that are pulled off with Paypal.  I don’t know exactly how they work, but someone posts about being scammed once in a while. I hear people saying they won’t sell on ebay anymore because ebay always sides with the buyer no matter what evidence is provided showing the seller is in the right.

Also, if you read these forums for a while you’ll find people stating that they don’t deal with people who have no feedback.  You read that enough and have a little feedback racked up, you start thinking maybe you shouldn’t sell to people with no feedback either.

Buying and selling on the internet has gotten riskier and people try to protect themselves in various ways, the no feedback exclusion is one of them.

You didn’t do anything wrong and I wouldn’t take it personally. The seller is just a little paranoid.  You may become a little paranoid after doing a number of purchases and sales and reading various forums too.