PayPal just blocked my account for using F&F

@herman - I never bothered to read the whole thing, but it makes sense. Their game, their rules.  Kind of like not putting money in the meter because you hoped the attendant wouldn’t come by to check where you parked.  Another example of people getting away with stuff they shouldn’t. BTW, years ago, I once had a horrible university professor and got burned.  Everybody knows university professors have always been…

Its all messed up. Too bad so many gov scams and other scams.

I’ve used Paypal for the last 10 years, many transactions, both as buyer and seller. This F&F vs G&S debate is a painful topic for me. A few relevant facts:

1 - It is lunacy for sellers of big ticket items to demand F&F from total strangers. I don’t care how good their feedback is, or how many places have feedback for them. If I don’t know them, I’m not floating 4 figures to a complete stranger in the hope they won’t rip me off. It’s offensive to repeatedly be asked this as if it’s normal.

2 - I’ve been a member of Head-Fi & SABF for 10 years. Both sites explicitly recommend that users not purchase using Paypal’s F&F, for obvious reasons (ie, toprevent members from being scammed). It’s not just me & my opinion at work here.

3 - And the irony is that as far as I can tell from periodic research into this issue, the IRS has yet to actually document "profits" from the sale of audio gear, at least not in my case, and I’ve sold some fairly big stuff in the past couple years, well within the time word was going around about the IRS getting into sellers’ Paypal transactions. 

4 - Even IF that ever happens, I’ve never attempted to sell anything at a profit. It’s always a loss (a loss that’s as small as I can arrange it). I could readily document what I original paid for the item vs what I just sold it for--zero profit.

So yes, as a seller I always price the 2.9% G&S fee into my price. I never ask for payment via F&F, though once or twice people paid me that way because I was well known to them. 

FWIW, none of this is a defense or shill for Paypal. That’s a pretty awful company whose business model chaps my ass in multiple ways. But it’s the only safe transaction method I know of in this crazy hobby.

I once sold an amp to a guy who got burned making a purchase he paid for using PayPal.  The used amplifier was (supposedly) shipped in a factory carton, but when he received the carton and opened it, it was filled with phone books.  He eventually was made "whole" but it took several months and involved law enforcement.

The phone book guy would have been burned regardless of the transaction platform. The more serious issues appear to due to bad actors and not PP.