Am I Being Scammed?

[packs]

I’m with you. I assume everyone who sells something needs the money. It’s the only time I sell anything. I don’t typically need to know what the sale is meant to fund though.

[Directly]

So both the seller and the buyer potentially saved 6%--- I can say making a claim for a lost item, with either the Post office or Shipcover Insurance can be time consuming making you jump through all kind of hoops with taking some time to resolve. I've been lucky so far with only 2 packages stolen in transit. Haven't had a to make a claim with PayPal sale so cant say what all is involved for documentation. -

[Fred]

Just a guess -

I'm guessing the card is worth a couple grand.

Seller was very edgy shipping the card to begin with. Seller was probably afraid the card would get lost in the shuffle (heck, I don't trust the postal service at all these days - I stopped having all my financial documents sent through USPS). Seller requested ship back to them in an effort to not lose the card.

Kind of crappy all around. It wasted your time and effort. I bet if you were available to receive the package, all would have ended well. As for the seller, perhaps they can't afford to be out a couple grand and just got really paranoid and got impatient, very quickly.

Sorry to hear it happened.

[rjackson44]

When he receives card he better do a reverse payment back to you ,,i doubt it ,,paypal will give you back your cash ,,but it will take weeks with there so called investigations.Good luck man

[Popcorn]

kidney story is probably bogus and he needed quick funds. sorry this has happened but I’m sure PayPal will make good. can you share his eBay account so we can avoid? thanks.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by Directly

So both the seller and the buyer potentially saved 6%--- I can say making a claim for a lost item, with either the Post office or Shipcover Insurance can be time consuming making you jump through all kind of hoops with taking some time to resolve. I've been lucky so far with only 2 packages stolen in transit. Haven't had a to make a claim with PayPal sale so cant say what all is involved for documentation. -

Ebay charges 12.9% on the first $7500 and 2.35% on the rest. So on an $11-12k card the fees would be 8% to 9% range. PPG&S is 3% so the savings to split is only 5-6%, maybe $600.

To me it doesn't really seem worth it to do that deal directly based on those numbers. Look how it ended up. If they had gone through ebay, they would have kept both sides honest and made sure an authentic SGC 2 was delivered.

That all being said, if OP had to pay sales tax on an ebay, that could be up to $1000 on the transaction. That's a huge motivation to avoid ebay.

[robw1959]

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

Ebay charges 12.9% on the first $7500 and 2.35% on the rest. So on an $11-12k card the fees would be 8% to 9% range. PPG&S is 3% so the savings to split is only 5-6%, maybe $600.

To me it doesn't really seem worth it to do that deal directly based on those numbers. Look how it ended up. If they had gone through ebay, they would have kept both sides honest and made sure an authentic SGC 2 was delivered.

That all being said, if OP had to pay sales tax on an ebay, that could be up to $1000 on the transaction. That's a huge motivation to avoid ebay.

I think it was worth it. He had it on eBay for $8500, so he would have only netted around $7500 assuming a buyer would have paid his asking price. I offered $8K through PayPal, so with their 3% Goods & Services fee, he still would have netted around $7750 for the sale that way, and I would have saved $500.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by robw1959

I think it was worth it. He had it on eBay for $8500, so he would have only netted around $7500 assuming a buyer would have paid his asking price. I offered $8K through PayPal, so with their 3% Goods & Services fee, he still would have netted around $7750 for the sale that way, and I would have saved $500.

Probably ends up netting even less than that though. Don't forget the federal, state, and maybe even local income taxes he could end up owing on the sale, depending on what his tax cost basis was that he had in the card, and whatever else might be on his tax return. He could also possibly end up owing self-employment taxes on the profit from the card sale as well, if he ends up filing as a dealer in business. He did use Paypal G&S, so he was going to get a 1099-K form showing and reporting that sales income to the IRS in 2023 for sure. And given the recent one-year deferral of the lowered reporting threshold for reporting such sales on 1099s, I don't think we'll see any more deferrals after this one.