Apologies to all for the length of this...
For sellers in the US, UK and Canada Paypal offers a Seller Protection
Policy (SPP) that amongst other things require that the seller ship to a
Confirmed address. Frequently as part of confirming your address Paypal will
also have you verify your identity in some form (either by adding your bank
account details or occasionally by a fax back form). The availability of
address confirmation in the US is pretty much universal as it a part of the
credit card system. Outside of the US some countries banks allow for
confirmation of address too, but its down to individual banks and not all
comply. So unless an alternative method becomes available it will be
restricted to the three above countries
By confirming your address and by extension verifying your account indicates
to sellers that your payment is trustworthy.
The SPP does not require a verified account though, only that the package is
shipped by a traceable method to the confirmed address on the payment.
Jinfinance is an international seller and the protections offered to sellers
outside of the US are very different from those for US sellers. In fact they
are almost nonexistent, Paypal can debit accounts at anytime for recovery of
funds lost due to fraud. I would speculate that Jinfinance makes the
verified request in part to protect themselves from fraud. Though Paypal
will not enforce their requirement in the event of a problem it is likely
that they have plenty of safe transactions and any bad ones are just
absorbed as a cost of business.
Paypal has some vocal opponents and I have in my time been one of them.
Their past record has plenty of black spots on it and many of their current
positions are questionable as to whom they benefit most. The monopoly that
Paypal and eBay present to the marketplace makes not working with them
difficult to justify when the sales values drop by over 20% (which what I
experienced when I last tried not accepting Paypal).
As a seller on eBay I personally only accept Paypal within the US and I play
by all their rules to limit my exposure to potential fraudsters, selling
cameras is recognized as a higher risk area on eBay.
As a buyer I frequently fund my transactions by credit card rather than the
default of bank account transfer as the options for recovery are greater
with CC funded payments. Almost all Paypal transactions are protected from
the buyers perspective but under Paypals rules you may not get all the funds
back if the seller has already transferred/spent some or all of the funds in
their Paypal account. Most credit card internet fraud protection policies
allow you to recover all the funds. The flip side of this for sellers is
that if they fail to resolve a dispute and the buyer files a chargeback with
their CC the seller can be charged a $10 fee and then have the funds
automatically withdrawn from any of their accounts by Paypal.
I will note that this example is an absolute worse case scenario and for
honest buyers and sellers the above will likely never apply. I will also say
that while it may appear I want to have it one way as a seller and one way
as buyer I have only had to threaten a chargeback once in 8 years of buying
and selling with Paypal. Just the notice that I was willing to go that far
if necessary prompted the seller to accept the return for gross
misrepresentation an provide a refund.
Chuck, I am sure you didn't expect this much waffling but I felt it might
help to better understand some of the reasons behind why sellers and Paypal
have these requirements. The bottom line is that despite the stories fraud
within Paypal is not common and the best protection is to avoid the phishing
emails that are probably the greater risk to your identity in relation to
eBay & Paypal.
Dan S.
-----Original Message-----
From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Chuck Norcutt
Subject: [OM] PayPal Question
Moose's comment about getting a good quality lens adapter from oboy seller
jinfinance sent me over to have a look and I thought I might like to buy a
couple. But then I noticed that he only accepts "verified"
PayPal accounts. I've avoided that on my PayPal account because I'm very
reluctant to give PayPal my bank account details. Even if PayPal is honest
and has honest employees it seems just another possible avenue for possible
identity theft.
Am I paranoid or just being duly cautious? Am I really being asked for no
more info than what's on one of my personal checks?
Chuck Norcutt
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