PayPal issues guide for avoiding chargebacks

Booksellers who are active on eBay will want to take a look at PayPal's new guide for avoiding chargebacks.

Used booksellers don't run into scammers often, but problems tend to occur when you least expect them. Here are two red flags PayPal's guide mentions, and I've noticed these characteristics with the few problem customers I've had over the years:

Price of Item. The higher the price, the lower your tolerance for risk should be. Valuable items attract thieves.

Questionable behavior. The buyer asks for immediate overnight shipping. This is particularly a problem with the buyer sends partial payment from different PayPal accounts. Also look out for buyers who ask to have a high-priced item shipped to one country, but billed to another.

With some of its recommendations, though, PayPal is hypocritical: It recommends shipping items only to "confirmed" physical addresses. But PayPal's parent company, eBay, is requiring sellers to accept PayPal payments from customers with unconfirmed addresses, before being allowed to sell on its new Express platform.