The Perils of PayPal… A cautionary tale…

I’m a big fan of PayPal, it makes life easier in so many ways and it’s a safe and secure way to send money all around the world…

However… of late, I’m noticing a disturbing trend and this is something maybe you need to bear in mind if you are sending money via PayPal…

Increasingly I’m coming across people who have purchased goods and used PayPal to do this and it has gotten them into sticky situations… The thing is with the Internet, it’s easier and easier to buy from all over the world… Now I’ve heard a few tales recently where people are looking to buy specialist items… and they’ve met people via social media and got chatting in forums and such and developed a friendship… or rather an eFriendship which I’m debating as to whether or not that is the same thing as an actual face to face friendship … But regardless… the key thing here is that a level of trust develops and often I’m seeing that when people purchase from these eFriends, they use PayPal…

Now… this is where things come unstuck…

Because by this point they’ve established some kind of eRelationship… the purchaser will often feel well disposed towards the vendor and when they make a purchase, they empathise with how hard this person works to make a living and because they like them, they get to PayPal and decide to further help the recipient out by saving them getting dinged by business fees… so instead of processing the payment through BUSINESS… they opt for FRIENDS & FAMILY…

Now that’s lovely and fine when things work out and goods are promptly delivered…

But what when it goes wrong?

PayPal will only step in for business transactions…

If you have used friends & family… you are on your own pal… and it is up to you to chase things up directly with the vendor…

And suddenly you might well find that that eFriend has pulled an eSilence…

Suddenly you’re dealing with an eFiend… and a further point to note with an eFiend is that if you do manage to contact them, they will trot out excuses and promises… still not deliver… then turn it around and point their eFinger at you and inform you that you are being unreasonable here…

So what can you do about it?

Unless you know where they live and they are on your doorstep… not very much…

If you’re going to use friends and family… then be prepared to never see that money again…

And how do you decide who your eFriends are?

Well… when it comes to business… it’s easy… there are NONE…

And keep it that way… as even if they are a genuine friend there’s potential there to destroy a beautiful friendship…

Don’t rely on reputation… that’s no guarantee and please don’t be swayed by charm…

Bear in mind that if you like somebody… your judgement is already skewed as you are heavily biased to trust them…

And besides… friends actual real life or eWorld, will not be upset if you pay for goods as a business… because after all they are a business… and keeping healthy boundaries pays all round.

Remember… business is business…

Sometimes there are genuine reasons and things get sorted eventually… but also out there are in Tarot terms what would be called 7 of  Swords sneaky bastards who like to hide in plain sight…

So before you press that friend button… make double sure you’re not dealing with smoke and mirrors…