Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Don't worry, eBay Buyer Protection will protect you

If you've ever used eBay or PayPal, you're probably familiar with their heavily advertised buyer protection.  If not, here's the graphic advertisement which effectively sums it up:

It's easy to make things FREE when they don't actually exist.

The only problem is that, if you've ever tried to use this so-called buyer protection, you find out that there's really no buyer protection at all.  This post will be short because it's as simple as that: there is simply no buyer protection.  (By the way, same goes for sellers: there is no seller protection.  The only one protected is eBay.)  If you don't believe me, Google it.

As an informed consumer, one way to protect yourself is to always pay with a credit card instead of PayPal's e-check or ACH transfer.  All the major credit card companies are pretty good with protecting you from online purchases gone wrong.  Best part, it's free.

During the checkout process, PayPal can often be misleading, letting you think that you're paying with a credit card.  For example, it may say something like "AMEX *******1234 will be used if your bank account has insufficient funds."  So look out for the small font.