How to protect sefl when selling stuff using Paypal?

[ihaveaproblem]

Hi,

 

A friend and I plan to sell some digital stuff of ours and we could end getting a few hundred £.

How can we protect ourselfs if we use paypal? Whats stopping the buyer from paying for the product and then reversing the charge once they've received the item?

 

Since it's digital stuff there will be no postage involved, so i cant prove the content has been delivered that way. Has anyone got experience with this and how i can protect myself from potentially unlawful people

[dhicks]

A friend and I plan to sell some digital stuff of ours and we could end getting a few hundred £.

 

As in one-off items of some sort (second-hand copies of software or something?) or copies of original content that you own the rights to? If the former, you might want to use an eshcrow service of some kind. If the latter, it's probably not worth the bother worrying about - it'll cost you more time and money setting up anti-piracy measures than you're likly to save. Onerous copy-protection mechanisms are a cause of much grumbling on these forums - most of us are honest, and appreciate being able to install/download/use items we've paid for as quickly and easily as possible.

[ihaveaproblem]

It's 3D art that my friend has created and she's had offers on it so she wants to sell and use my PayPal which I’m happy to help with.

She owns and created the work, so there are no worries there. It's just in the past we know of people in a similar situation who have been scammed and we would like to avoid that if possible

 

Is there some way we can prove the buyer has received the digital art that would stand if the buyer reversed the charge and tried to scam us? I've read if the buyer sends the payment as a payment for a 'service' and adds in the comments no physical items are involved that PayPal don’t get involved if the buyer then tries to reverse the charge. Not sure how true this is though.

[dhicks]

It's 3D art that my friend has created

 

Is she selling multiple copies to multiple people, or simply handing someone a 3D wireframe file of some kind and the all the rights to it?

 

Is there some way we can prove the buyer has received the digital art that would stand if the buyer reversed the charge and tried to scam us?

 

Use a third-party escrow service. The buyer sends the money to the escrow service, you send the files, they tell the escrow service they've recived the files and everything's fine, the escrow service releases the money to you.

 

Edit: a quick Google search turns up the following:

 

https://www.payprimo.com

Edited May 10, 2011 by dhicks
Could have sworn "escrow" had an h in it.

[Arthur]

Since it's digital stuff there will be no postage involved, so I can't prove the content has been delivered that way.

eJunkie? I've only used the website as an end-user buying digital goods from someone else, but I'm sure there is a way you can prove someone has downloaded the file(s). I know you can create links which expire after a pre-defined amount of time and/or certain number of downloads.