I bought a camera a few years ago from ebay which didn't arrive, and in the end went through hell with PayPal.
I'm going to try again - but this time insist on registered post. However very few sellers seem to offer registered post as a shipping option.
It's a bit of a pain to have to message each seller prior to bidding to make sure they will indeed send it registered post.
Do you think I'll have a problem insisting on it (and paying the premium) should I win the auction?
Things have changed friend - Paypal treats buyers with love and sellers with disdain these days. The onus is now on the seller to PROVE your received your item or you are entitled to a refund. We get stung all the time in our business with buyers claiming they "never received" their item. If we cannot PROVE they received it, we are deemed to be at fault and don't have a leg to stand on.
We've even had chargebacks using courier where we have been able to prove the courier collected the item (consignment note number showing collected), because we couldn't prove the receiver received the goods themselves we still wore the chargeback.
Save your money, tell the seller if they like they can give it to a truck driver coming your way and hopefully he'll drop it off to you. Any delivery is at the sellers risk.
That's what people said back then too. PayPal maintained I'd received it because it arrived at the local postal depot. I had to reverse the credit card charge on PayPal in the end after about 2 months of getting nowhere.
What is more seems to be is that PayPal will favour the buyer IF the seller has funds in his account that PayPal can use to refund the buyer. PayPal will not fund the refund themselves if they can't get it from the seller.
why dont you ask the seller BEFORE you buy… instead of buying first and taking a chance
Mainly because I'll probably bid on quite a few cameras over the coming week with no real rush to buy. But it's still probably worth the hassle.
I would bother messaging the buyer. Some buy prepaid satchels in bulk, and just drop off in a postbox. Much easier and less painful than lining up at the post office to pay for registered post, especially if you don't work near one and just sell ebay stuff in the evenings as a hobby. For a high value item they will probably be happy to do it to protect themselves as well, but if you manage to get a real bargain, and it doesn't sell for as much as the seller hoped, they might dig their heels in and refuse, hoping you will give up and cancel the transaction, and they can have a second shot at selling for a higher price.
Unless you are looking for a second-hand item, the best price might not be on ebay anyway. Are you still looking for a camera?
Good points. Yeah, still looking but in no rush.
You are the one that will pay extra so i dont see why not.