The least risk is?

I have bought a few items already. But, never sold. Only have a "7" next to my name.

I've bought and sold things on ebay for over 10 years when there was only Ebay US and no paypal. In the early days of international buying/selling people would send cash in an envelope (usually registered) and out of 200+ such transactions I went through not one went wrong.

Since the paypal thing came along it's introduced a lot of stress. Now that anyone with a credit card can overbid on something it can be harder to get them to cough up. Then there's the fact that sellers can't leave bad feedback any more so buyers don't feel any pressure to be polite.

It also very much depends on what you are selling. If it's niche collector stuff then the buyers are usually serious and you won't face problems. If it's something fairly ordinary or something that is a fashionable purchase, then expect trouble.

Then there's the fees....

Sold a pair of rims on June 7th and shipped them to Sweden on the 9th. Two weeks later the item hadn't arrived so the buyer asked what was up.

I sent photos of the receipt and the boxed item with postage attached sitting in the post office, and also mentioned the UK mail strikes. Item wasn't tracked because buyer didn't pay extra for insurance.

So he was ok for another few weeks, although post from London to Sweden should take just a few days.

Nearing the 45 day limit for initiating disputes, and still no sign of the rims I contacted eBay and PayPal and explained the situation and that I had receipt and pics proving the item was shipped, and asked where would they stand if the buyer disputed the sale.

The response was that they almost always side with the buyer. Saying if you purchased something from a shop and it was never delivered you'd want your money back. So even with proof of postage the buyer always wins. That's their stance.

The buyer never opened a dispute but if they did PayPal would have immediately yanked the funds from my account.

A Royal Mail lost package claim was filed 3 weeks ago and I'm still waiting...

I just found out that the item finally arrived in Sweden yesterday, a full 10 weeks after shipping.

Being an eBay seller now sucks, PayPal sucks, and the Royal Mail strikes suck.

^ totally sympathise Dwayne, just recently had(but solved) had a similar experience

• Sold a jacket for £385, sent with tracking and kept receipt with 1.85kg weight on there
  
• Cunt emailed me saying it arrived but the box was 'empty', he asked for reimbursement or he'll raise a claim
  
• I told him to fuck off and he disputed with Paypal. A few days of me and him posting on Paypal to sort it
  
• He raised claime and Paypal(for some crazy fucking reason) sided with him and took the £385 out of my account and refunded him! I'm a 100% feedback ebayer with nearly 300 transactions, been using for 5yrs. He has 1 transaction, been using for 2 months!
  
• I ring Paypal fuming and provide all my evidence(the stupid cunt emailed me AFTER he'd been refunded asking if the jacket was genuine!?! He'd obviously kept the jacket and was unsure of authenticity - hence his 'story')
  
• I told Paypal I would call Watchdog and the Police if not resolved as I'd been robbed online
  
• NOT once did they ask me to provide evidence before they refunded him, only AFTER I kicked off
  
• I simply faxed them receipt with tracking number and weight and I get a CALL from them apologising and I'm being reimbursed within 48hrs
  
  

Ebay didn't wanna know, Paypal were complete cunts!

...and I can't even leave the robbing cunt negative feedback to warn others! :-(

That's the part I hate!

Glad you got it sorted.

Ralph Lauren Purple Label jacket?

This is all very motivating, not!

BTW a tip to get around fees for pictures is just to upload them to a site like Photobucket and link to them from there.

This is a good fee reducing tip. Unfortunately, it is also one of the reasons that ebay moved their hosted images to the top of the page. More image revenue for them as they know people look at pictures at the top and then move on without scrolling the whole page. Ebay knows that your user hosted images are down the bottom.

It seems that Japan and Australia are the only two countries that have taken the Ebay/Paypal monopoly to task. In Japan ebay failed because Yahoo auctions beat them at their own game and they closed in 2002. The Japanese consumer also seems to be quite canny and understood that Yahoo was giving them a better deal. Australia blocked the Paypal only policy as anti-competitive. Which is what it is. Remember Nochex?

Yahoo auctions was great because of the timer system. It was a true auction in the sense that it wasn't over until everyone had bid. If you bid up in the last 10 seconds (sniped) it would add another 5 minutes to the auction and so on. No snipe overbids.

I hope in the long term a decent ebay/paypal alternative comes along but it seems like it is a long way away.

Ebay/Paypal & Financial law flouting: http://www.finextra.com/community/Fullblog.aspx?id=1195

• I ring Paypal fuming and provide all my evidence(the stupid cunt emailed me AFTER he'd been refunded asking if the jacket was genuine!?! He'd obviously kept the jacket and was unsure of authenticity - hence his 'story')
  

COL*

That is way out of order.

(* muttered C?nt Out Loud)