I'm planning to buy an exhaust from some guy who listed it on the classified.

He recommends using paypal for the transaction. So how can I be sure that he'll ship the item once I paid? If things go wrong, will paypal step in and take care of it?

 

You can't be sure if he will ship the item. Some people will ship an empty box as 'proof' that an item has been shipped. Paypal won't do anything.

Your best bet is to ask others for references.
Who is this seller? He might be a regular and have a good rep so you may not need to worry.

 

It's only as safe as the person you are dealing with.

 

why take the chance, for the same price you can use tradenable.com (if you use a bank transfer). Even if you pay by CC it's 4%. Well worth it not to get ripped off.

If the guy have a good ebay rating then I would just send a money order and save all the fees.

 

this safe: https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=139804

and i am the recipient of that empty box. finally, the cops caught Michael Kounlavouth for sending it, and i got my $; the box was for a hard drive, and i ordered ctr cams; yes, they are too large to fit the box; no, paypal does not care; they make their $ whether or not you get your stuff, and if the police do not formally summon it, they will not disclose anyone's info to help you, even if they find him/her guilty of fraud. **** PayPal

 

thanks for the reply guys.

So I guess it's down to my judgement whether to take the risk or not. The seller is not on this board, it's an ad on thepartstrader. He even emailed me two pictures of the exhaust.

 

DO NOT use paypal...plain and simple...

use Ebay's Billpoint service (same exact thing, except they actually do something about fraudulent transactions)

I believe you can use their service w/out having an auction on ebay, but you need to set it up first