How can I be SURE?

[CautiousCal]

I'm selling an item on craigslist and the only respondent says she has Paypal -- if I could send her a request for payment she will pay for item.  I haven't dealt with this before -- anyone know whether this sounds fishy?

[info1234]

Hello, this has been happening to me for as long as I have been a seller on Craigslist. I could bet you that this person never asked one question about your item. Dont forget that Craigs list warns us to stay local. I wanted to know if there is a way to make a transaction like this , being perfectly safe, though. I am new to all this, but good business is good business, no matter what.

[PayPal_Jason]

Hi CautiousCal-

PayPal does allow you to do money requests from your PayPal account.  Of course, you are welcome to do business with (or choose not to do business with) whomever you choose, but I would encourage you to review PayPal's Seller Protection Policy in Section 11 of our User Agreement and the Safer Selling Area of our Security Center.

There you will see the ways that you would be protected in the event of a claim the item was not received or of an unauthorized charge on the sender's card.  Additionally, our Chargeback guide explains how disputes happen and some of the red flags that you might want to be aware of.  I'd also point out that if you've received money for a transaction and don't feel comfortable completing the purchase, you can click on the Details link for the payment and issue a full refund to the sender.

Chargeback FAQs: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/securitycenter/sell/ChargebackFAQ-outside

Safer Selling Resource Area: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/securitycenter/sell/Index-outside

User Agreement (US): https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?&cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/UserAgreement_full&locale.x=en...

Thanks,

Jason