If you've never experienced a "chargeback" by PayPal, trust me, it's something you never want to go through...especially if you're talking a large sum of money.

I sold a pair of decoys on ebay to a buyer in April for $566. In July, I received an email from PayPal that a "chargeback" had occurred on this transaction and PayPal put the funds on hold, debiting my account for the amount. At that time, it ran my PayPal account down to a negative $99.00!!

Not knowing what was going on, I started sending emails and calling. After much investigation, it turned out that the buyer was a very legitimate buyer who actually received the decoys and gave me positive feedback. She eventually paid me the amount by a different method and all turned out just fine.

However, things to keep in mind:

1. Always ship by a means that allows for confirmation delivery.

2. Always keep all of your postal receipts and receipts for insurance....in this case, I did. Keep for as long as you can as this was a 4 month delay in my case.

3. When insured, the buyer must sign for the item. REQUIRE INSURANCE FOR HIGH TICKET ITEMS! You can obtain from the Post Office a copy of that BUYER'S SIGNATURE for that delivery when the buyer signed for it. Get it! In my case, had the buyer not been legit, I would have needed the buyer's signature from the Post Office for PayPal to reimburse me.

4. Make note of feedback....that's more proof.

5. Check to make sure on the sales transaction through PayPal that the transaction is "Seller Protection" eligible. My transaction was but I'm not convinced that would have helped based on my conversations with PayPal.

6. Contact the buyer by phone....you can get phone numbers by requesting personal data through ebay. I did and this is how I was convinced my buyer was legit. She admitted getting the decoys and was investigating the chargeback on her end.

7. Be prepared to wait! Even with all this evidence, it took 2 months to get my money back and that was only because the buyer sent me another payment via another means.

SO WHAT HAPPENED? There was an unauthorized use of buyer's credit card for many transactions and the card issuing company, at the request of the buyer, put a "chargeback" on all purchases with that card. Since the buyer didn't know which ones were legit and which ones were not, she had to place a chargeback on all of the purchases on that card, which included my decoys. She eventually sorted out which ones were legit and paid by other means.

In my situation, the case was not finalized by PayPal because I, as seller, was able to close the case early because the buyer paid me by different means. No telling how long this would have gone on. So I was lucky this time. Is there anyway you can prevent this from happening? Maybe....accept money orders or cashier's checks only. However, the convenience of PayPal is hard to let go.

Best of luck to all sellers out there...hope this was of some use to you all.

SELLER'S BEWARE TOO! mijeus (Jim)