Ivan Ivanovitch

Did eBay explain why they sided with the seller? Is there any rhyme or reason to their decisions? I would imagine there is some logic to their dispute resolution process but I'm sure they will never make it public because then people can plan to abuse it even more.

That's true and I'm selling domestically only. But what legal action could I possibly take if the buyer claims the package was empty? Any judge would not know whom to believe. It's just my word against his. There is no proof either way because hypothetically, I could have sent him an empty envelope. How would the judge know I didn't ? How would anyone know? Seems there is no way to prove anything. I just have to trust that the buyer won't rip me off for $3000 or however much the coin costs. I see people selling $50,000 watches on eBay and I don't understand why crooks aren't constantly buying them and claiming the packages were empty because PayPal sides with buyers in such cases.

Yeah I know most people are honest, it's the dishonest ones I'm worried about.

Crawtomatic, those are good ideas for dealing with non-paying bidders, but what about bidders who pay and then claim the package they got from me was empty, so PayPal refunds their money at my expense. This way they get to keep the coin AND the money.

All good ideas, thanks Coinbuf.

Good idea. I was thinking a 0-feedback user can always sniper bid at the last second and win the auction, thus not giving me a chance to cancel his bid.

This is my hypothetical nightmare scenario: A bidder wins my $2000 coin. I send the coin insured with tracking via registered mail. The buyer is a liar who receives my coin but claims the package was empty or had a junk coin to weigh it down. Buyer complains to PayPal who usually sides with buyers. PayPal takes the money from me and sends it back to him. Tracking and insurance is useless because the package was successfully delivered. So I'm out $2000 and the precious coin. How can I protect against this scam? And why isn't it happening constantly? I considered making a video of me placing the coin in the envelope, sealing it, and handing to the USPS employee all in one continuous shot but I was told eBay and PayPal don't consider this sort of evidence in legal disputes.

This is my hypothetical nightmare scenario: A bidder wins my $2000 coin. I send the coin insured with tracking via registered mail. The buyer is a liar who receives my coin but claims the package was empty or had a junk coin to weigh it down. Buyer complains to PayPal who usually sides with buyers. PayPal takes the money from me and sends it back to him. Tracking and insurance is useless because the package was successfully delivered. So I'm out $2000 and the precious coin. How can I protect against this scam? And why isn't it happening constantly? I considered making a video of me placing the coin in the envelope, sealing it, and handing to the USPS employee all in one continuous take but I was told eBay and PayPal don't consider this sort of thing as valid evidence in legal disputes.