Friday, 25 September 2015

Staying Safe Accepting PayPal Payments

Although PayPal does offer several preventative measures to help protect you from fraudulent transactions, the risks of using PayPal as your merchant are still apparent. PayPal is currently offered to 190 Countries and 18 currencies. Due to the fact that the only Countries currently eligible for a confirmed (seller/buyer protected by the PayPal policy) PayPal shipping address are Canada, USA and the UK, this in itself leaves the doors wide open to scam artists.
There are ways for International sellers to "verify" their account, meaning they've verified their shipping address and possibly some other details making the transaction a little more safe on your end, but without a confirmed PayPal shipping address, you as a seller are not covered under the current seller protection policy in the event of an upset. 

If you're an eBay seller and use PayPal as your method of accepting payment, eBay has stated that they will offer seller protection when shipping to International addresses, even if they're "Unconfirmed", or International. The goal here is to increase seller confidence, sales and offer more purchasing power for eBayers abroad.
From my years of experience using PayPal as my primary merchant account on both my eBay PowerSeller account and my e-commerce websites, the following are some preventive measures to help you stay proactive when using PayPal.
1). Be sure to state your terms of sale in all of your listings/websites. If you buyer sends a payment from a unconfirmed PayPal account and they are located within the eligible zones (Canada, USA, UK) kindly request that they have the account Confirmed with PayPal, or you will not be able to ship the item. This will usually grab their attention. 
Confirming a PayPal address within the eligible zones is quite easy and only takes around 15 minutes, although you do need a credit card, or the process is longer. If the buyer has a high feedback score, or PayPal score you may be OK, it all depends on the value of the product rendered.
2). If the payment was completed by an International buyer take the extra step to be proactive to protect your self from a fraudulent transaction. View where the payment was sent from. There are certain areas to be extra cautious when receiving payments (Nigeria to my experience especially). Don't take anything for granted when shipping Internationally.
 Send the buyer a message stating that you require additional information from them, as they did not meet your minimum tenure for the transaction. Request that they confirm with you the address that the item should be shipped to (should coincide with PayPal/eBay address, if it doesn't match cancel the transaction), home telephone number (if unavailable cellular), whether the shipping address is business or residential and references to any other transactions the buyer may have recently completed using PayPal. You can then call PayPal and confirm these details. 
A good sign of a fraudulent buyer is when they do not respond to your message to acquire additional information, or if they use a threatening tactic to get you to ship the item. If either of these happen refund the payment immediately. I typically give 72 hours for the buyer to respond to the message. If the buyer responds in a threatening matter, report the message to eBay/PayPal and they should be able to take the appropriate measures to further investigate the individual. If they leave you negative feedback on eBay due to the issue, report it to eBay as well. They're typically very good and will have the feedback removed.
3). NEVER SHIP TO AN ALTERNATIVE ADDRESS OTHER THAN ON THE PAYPAL PAYMENT. This is very important. Many scam artists will request that you ship the item to another address and they will pay you extra to use an express service, such as DHL, or FedEx to another Country, or another city and a little bit more for the "inconvenience". This is the #1 PayPal scam that will get you every time. 
Once you send the item to the alternative address and they receive it they will initiate a PayPal dispute stating that they never received the item. At that point you will have no proof that you shipped the item to the address stated on their PayPal account and the funds will be returned to the buyer.
4). Another major indication of a scam is the buyer will change their shipping information within PayPal/eBay shortly after the transaction, or after the tracking information has been received. I personally require a 3 business day order processing time frame to be safe, as most PayPal notifications regarding possible unauthorized transaction will be sent in this time frame and will protect you prior to shipping the item. 

If you've already shipped the item PayPal will require additional information on the shipment to help resolve the situation, but the time frame for a resolution is quite tedious.
5). If the buyer tries to rush the item being shipped it could also be suspicious as well. Although there are several legitimate reasons as to why a buyer would like to have the item shipped the same day, it's truly in your best interest to abide by your policy on International shipments and unconfirmed shipping addresses, as this will save you a lot of time and money. 
Some buyers will use this tactic to expedite their scamming process. Once the item is shipped you will find a nice little surprise, they've changed all of their information within their eBay/PayPal account and claim that you shipped the item to the wrong address. Although both eBay and PayPal have very robust systems to detect suspicious activity such as this, the turn around for a resolution can be a long process and you could be out funds until they resolve the situation.

In conclusion most people who use PayPal to purchase products online are completely legitimate. If you follow these simple precautionary measures within your e-commerce sales, you will save yourself a substantial amount of time, money and stress in the event of a possible scam attempt. 

Use your best judgment, common sense and be empowered by the fact that you have the skills to stop potential scam artists in their tracks.

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