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.