Julia Delaney wrote:
WARNING ABOUT PAYPAL --
You are only covered if the seller with whom you are dissatisfied is determined by Paypal to be a cheat-- and your money will only be refunded if the seller has sufficient funds in his Paypal account to cover your transaction. So if you paid $100 and the seller only keeps a balance of $20, you are out of luck, even if Paypal deems the seller to be bad news.
That's not true if the seller has a credit card or bank account connected to the Paypal account. If that's the case and Paypal deemed the seller to be bad news they will charge the remaining $80 to the credit card without asking the seller any questions.
You should also remember that you have protection through your credit card issuer. You will have to choose which route to take though. If you start a chargeback procedure through your credit card issuer Paypal will not help you dealing with the rougue seller. They will however pass on the chargeback to the seller so the outcome is the same. It is also the reason why some sellers have been reluctant to accept Paypal. Some people used the chargeback procedure to get items for free as there was nothing the seller could do to protect themselves against customers starting a chargeback after receiving the goods.
The main thing to keep in mind is that you should not buy anything from someone you don't trust. If the deal seem to good to be true it usually is...