paypal says they need to Veify the shipping before they do a payment

[ardor80]

Someone just bought an auction on Ebay and then sent me an email saying this... 

Last week I had a very similiar thing only I got what looked to be a fake email from paypal because it wasn't from a paypal.com email.

This is fraud right, someone is trying to get me to ship an item without recieving a payment? I've only sold a few things over the years, and I don't remember ever hearing of this.. Last week- the person who sent me what I thought was a fake email deleted his ebay acount, I can't seem to get Ebay customer service to give me a real answer about what's going one. All of my paypal info is correct and working all that... I guess I would just like someone to say- yep that's fraud... It's really annoying... because I have to wait 4 days to cancel the sale- relist it and start over. I just don't understand. Thanks for any help or insight anyone can share

[CtWoman123]

It could be a fake email trying to get your information. Does it start with Dear or something as such? If you provide PayPal or Ebay with a tracking number the clock starts ticking then as to when you can get your funds released. After delivery is confirmed then it takes 3 days after that to get your funds released. If you transfer them to a bank account then there is an additional 3-4 days wait on that as well. Good luck!

[ardor80]

The handling time is the number of business days the seller will take to ship the item after receiving your cleared payment. A payment is considered "cleared" after the money from the buyer has been deposited into the seller’s account. If the buyer pays by PayPal, the payment may clear immediately. However, in categories where permitted, if the buyer pays by check, money order, or eCheck, it may take several days.

I copy and pasted this from ebay- and it seems to say that the seller- me- gets paid and then I ship it. And from what I remember, those few times i've sold stuff on ebay, I got paid and then shipped the item... 

The last two weeks I've tried to sell the same time- and two times now, the buyers are telling me to do the opposite and ship first then get paid- 

The last message i got from a buyer said this, "Paypal is holding the payment until the Tracking number is comfirmed, so once you ship it out send me the tracking number." My paypal doesn't show any pending payments, let alone show a cleared payment. 

If it's not a scam it sure feels like one, I guess I'm going to give up because I rarely sell through ebay anyway.