Paypal payment

[rottensoundz]

Dear all,


I would really appreciate some help. someone is buying a domain off me, i originally stated that i only wanted a bank transfer but after alot of communication they are now saying they might cancel the transaction if we dont use paypal the sale is £xxxx i haven’t sold many domains recently and have never used paypal as i thought there was a problem with possible chargebacks and it being a digital asset


can anyone enlighten me to whether it is a safe method for a Domain transaction


thanks for your help

John

 

[dee]

Could you offer an escrow service like Transpact ? Its pretty cheap I think. They might be worried that they wont see the domain after transferring funds, same as your worried about chargebacks ?

 

[stevelook2]

You can do a referred sale via dan.com and the commission all in is 5%
You could ask the buyer to meet half way with the charge, this way they can pay by paypal

 

[ian]

I wouldn't recommend using Paypal for anyone you don't know, or over a certain value as chargebacks are quite easy. Question is whether you offered it as a payment method as part of the sale (for example a sale from auction with that box ticked).

As Dee and Steve said, try meeting in the middle with an escrow if it is important to you to ensure this deal goes through.

 

[Ben Thomas]

I never recommend PayPal, they always rule in the buyers favour. My rule is that anything over £500 is paid via BACS/Escrow. But I usually ask for BACS anyway, I hate PayPal. It's literally the worst thing ever. They hold your money for ages sometimes and then they're probably making interest on it.

 

[Murray]

Echoing others go with transpact or another escrow service

 

[rottensoundz]

Thank you all for your input,

we explored using escrow.com

but have settled on transpact, i have phoned them and had a good chat and am happy to use them but I am a bit concerned that if there is a dispute it hinges on what is put in the terms

I think it might be of real benefit to everyone here if we could create a standard template that could be individually modified for the terms of the transpact escrow that benefits both sides.

Would anyone that has used transpact before be kind enough to supply a copy of their terms either to me privately or maybe start a new thread with a template in so everyone can help modify it until we have something really solid. (Obviously with certain parts private to them taken out)

Thanks John

PS in regards to paypal although i dont want to use them the buyer did find this info.
https://domainnamewire.com/2020/08/07/paypal-adds-seller-protection-for-domain-name-transactions/

 

[Chris Holland]

If you want to be paid in the immediate, as opposed to the distant, future, forget Escrow.com and above all for all .UK sales. Although I'm aware that they've been used for thousands of .UK transactions, after all these years, their built in WHOIS to let the buyer, seller and Escrow.com know that the transfer has completed, still returns an error for .UK domains, returning no output. After putting several dozen transactions through them (as their settlement is considerably faster if you have a USA bank account that receives ACHs) I pointed out this pretty glaring flaw several times. No reply and no fix. No problem. No mo' biz from me. They've obviously joined the "we're too big to care" brigade. How did that work out for former behemoth Network Solutions?

If you intend to use PayPal to accept payments you need to ensure that you're an absolute stickler for procedures, comprehensively filled out invoices with readily verifiable information and an archived audit trail of every piece of correspondence or chat logs with the buyer from the initial enquiry to tag change announcements from Numnuts and/or your registrar and of course the success email from N to the former registrant. Before and after screen shots of www.nic.uk/WHOIS and you're pretty much protected unless the guy is a Latvian carder or Russian script kidski looking to cash out his BINs or launder his cash. If the buyer is demonstrably genuine with long forum memberships, tons of WHOISs in his name and several people who can vouch for him, PayPal have mostly outlived their past reputation of always siding with the buyer. They know that it's now easier than ever to get a direct merchant account / virtual terminal and know that if they stiff a seller, he will likely NEVER use them again and moan like the proverbial to anyone who will listen. They've finally grasped that its their merchants who make them the money. However, if PayPal stand to lose money, and there's anybody in the entire chain that that they can throw the baby at, they will. In a New York minute!

Transpact.com are very decent guys, the MD is particularly conscientious, but they have or had this maddening procedure where in addition to the purchase price and their (very small) fee, they insist on a separate BACS payment for £0.01 and the entire transaction is held in abeyance/limbo until the receive their pound, or rather penny of flesh. The buyer couldn't understand why it hadn't completed and it dragged on for over a week. All over one penny. They said that it was an FCA mandated MLRO/KYC requirement but if that's the case, why don't similar services, who are presumably subject to the same rules as Transpact, also charge this blinking penny? It's been over a year since I've used Transpact so please shout out if you've used Transpact lately and its easier to use.

Most buyers these days seem happy to pay upfront and for listed PLCs or authorised or regulated professionals such as ICAEW, ACCA, ACMA, SRA or FCA etc, you're always safe offering to transfer first. 95% of buyers who I offer to transfer first to pay the invoice up front anyway. In stark contrast to some members on this forum who demand payment up front even with two decades of pre-existing business, hundreds of transactions and and the extension of post-payment to them for their purchases. I think that some people are afraid of their own shadow.