PayPal --- The "Life Saver"

For those of you who are familiar with eBay, I'm sure you know how you can trust a seller or buyer. You can of course check their credibility based on their feedback score.

So for people who love shopping on eBay (I know I do because the stuff like are not sold here in lousy Malaysia!), obviously feedback ratings are very important. If we have a very bad feedback score, people may not want to buy your item (even if it's dirt cheap) because there's a sense of mistrust. And you would also have problem bidding if you have a low feedback score sometimes. The seller won't trust you and of course all they want is a hassle free customer who will pay no matter what in the end.

I have a good feedback score. 21 with 100% positive and registered in the USA. It's no problem for me bidding on items, but of course, I check on the seller's feedback to make sure I won't get cheated on my own cash. You see, I buy items which cost up to RM900 so if the seller suddenly disappears, my money will be gone just like that.

But this is not about eBay’s service. I want to talk about Paypal. It’s an online service which is owned by eBay. Basically Paypal is what Americans do to pay anything online, even to pay an individual or anyone with a valid identity. You can use Paypal to pay for eBay winnings, flight tickets, stocks, and almost anything. Some people even use Paypal’s donate banner on their website so people can click on it and donate money to the individual/company via Paypal. Paypal's money comes from any American bank account or Visa or MasterCard and even Amex. So since I obviously don't have an American bank account, I use my MasterCard with Paypal.

Paypal's service is not only flexible, it's just awesome. It has this feature which is call "Paypal buyer protection". One day I bought this expensive bracelet watch on eBay which retails for RM500. So I paid using Paypal under the "buyer protection" service with no extra charge.

The seller was an eBay "Power seller" with over 2000 satisfied customers. After I paid, he immediately post the item from the US to Malaysia and gave me the tracking number for the parcel.

After 3 weeks my item did not arrive. Since the watch is so expensive I was obviously worried. The tracking number existed so it means that the seller DID mail me the item, it just didn't arrive somehow. I called everything I could think of, Pos Malaysia's HQ, my local post office, I even called KLIA's parcel department to ask them if my item has arrived. And with no success I was starting to get scared. So the American post people said it takes up to 2 weeks to arrive so obviously my item is lost in the mail (stolen by a postman) or stuck in customs(I heard luxury items was charged high taxes). So through Paypal I opened a 'Dispute' to inform the Paypal authorities that I did not receive my item despite it being paid already. And less than a week, my money, every single cent was credited back to my credit card. I was so happy and glad and I just feel so safe shopping with Paypal. That’s what I call great service!

So I did not get the watch, but at least I received all of my money.And the next day I went to the shop and bought the watch I was suppose to receive.