I found a great deal on a new Garmin 496 GPS for half of current list price... Fella wanted payment via Paypal only... Having used them over the years there was a comfort factor there that relaxed my suspicions over such a great deal... I talked to him on the phone... I finally felt comfortable with the deal and made a Paypal payment using my credit card...
Bingo, Paypal froze the payment and told him (and me) they would release the funds only after I received the unit... He had a hairy fit... Emailed me a half dozen times ranting about Paypal had it in for him, yadda, yadda, and all I had to do was send him a cashiers check and he would pay the shipping out of his pocket...
I went to the trouble to find a phone number and talk to a Paypal supervisor
(not an easy thing, took me half a day of constant searching the web until I finally found ONE guy on ONE chat group on the entire web, that listed the correct number to get past their robot phone system)
She was pretty tight mouthed and would only say that 'something' had raised a red flag... Long story short, after 14 days he had not sent me the merchandise and my card was credited back with my payment... I take back all the bad things I have said about Paypal over the years...
Dear Paypal,
Having just complimented you let me once again assure you that you will never, never, never, be given direct access to my bank account - so stop trying... Not even my wife has access to that - and she does lots nicer things to me than you ever will...
denny-o