Learn The Glitches That PayPal Has And Don’t Become A Victim Of Scam
After you have a supplier you want to order from, the critical move has to be taken by you – sending money to a person who you have never actually seen in real life.
The majority of people can lose all of their money in just seconds. Bang and your business is over.
Earning money is hard, but to lose or spend it is easy. What a well- known sentence.
Because you are dealing with wholesale suppliers from China, to do something as simple as sending money, even if you are using one of the best payment methods around such as PayPal, will be very hard to get your money back if something goes wrong.
Three major payment methods are offered by suppliers in China: T/T – bank-to-bank transfer, WU – Western Union and PayPal.
Most of all wholesale suppliers, especially those from China, accept only T/T and WU.
However, I want to share with you one trick that many people don’t know.
When you are researching a supplier for a product you want to resell, in the description you will see that the supplier only accepts T/T and WU. But after you contact the wholesale supplier and ask what payment methods he accepts, he may tell you T/T, WU and PayPal. This happens a lot.
This example shows that you have to speak with suppliers directly. This means you have to ask not only about the payment methods, but about product prices exc. As a rule of thumb, dealing with wholesale suppliers on Alibaba is not the same as buying something from eBay.
On eBay, if you choose to buy it now, this item is already yours and after that, you need to pay the eBay seller.
Alibaba is different. It is all about talking and dealing with a wholesale supplier. That’s because they don’t put special attention on the product ads they put on Alibaba. This means that even if it says that a supplier accepts only T/T and the price is $40, it can actually be that it costs $30 and that the supplier accepts T/T and PayPal.
Keep in mind that at all the times you need to contact the supplier directly. The relationship on Alibaba between you and a supplier is much different than on eBay with your buyer. Suppliers are looking at you from a company perspective and they think that you are the company as well, even if you are not.
Basically, Alibaba is a B2B, which means it is a business-to-business platform, and the price and payment methods depend on how you are able to convince the supplier.
The most used payment method is T/T. Telegraphic transfer, also well known as a bank-to-bank transfer, is used a lot. This method is very simple; you just go to the bank or sign on to your online bank services, choose to send money internationally, fill in the required fields and that’s all. In the box where you have to put why you are sending the money, you write the proforma invoice number. You get the proforma invoice from the supplier so that you know the details for what you are paying for and from what company you are buying.
WU, or Western Union, is a very easy and fast service. You send money and the supplier receives it in 10-15 minutes anywhere in the world. A lot of scammers love this method, but there are good and reliable suppliers who also take WU.
You can read more about scammers on Alibaba in another article of mine.
Well, sometimes I use WU, but only with suppliers that I know. For those that I am buying from regularly and for whatever reason I want to send them money quickly so they have money in their hands right away, as opposed to using PayPal.
And the most loved payment method by eBay users is PayPal. There are plenty of suppliers that accept this payment method, but is PayPal safe?
Before you use this method, I want to talk about some specifics, because sending money to a supplier in China is much different than sending money to the seller that you just bought an item from on eBay.
Is PayPal safe? Yes, PayPal is safe, but it is still comes with some risks. Well of course, all business is risky, but this method is not as super safe as everyone says it is. Yes, I lost some money in the past because of suppliers that were not so honest. Let me explain how.
The first scenario is when you send money to a wholesale supplier in China and you receive the item, but it is not what was described. If you bought an item from a supplier on Alibaba and not eBay, and pay using PayPal, this system won’t cover your money if the item is not as described. So if you are not able to resolve this problem with the supplier, you are left alone and you will never get your money back.
The next scenario is even worse. You pay the supplier and you haven’t received your product. Well you open the dispute, but the supplier makes one move that you can’t even imagine; he ships you a box full of papers via DHL, for example, and provides tracking numbers to PayPal. In this situation, PayPal sees that the item was delivered. And as I said, PayPal doesn’t cover your money if the item is not as described so you are also left alone and have no money and no product.
PayPal will cover your money in only one situation: if you haven’t received your item and the supplier won’t provide a tracking number or respond to the dispute in the given time frame.
If someone is looking to scam you in much the same way on eBay, you can leave negative feedback for this seller, but on Alibaba, you can’t because it is a different platform and has a different philosophy, like I said before.
Is PayPal safe to use?
PayPal was designed for eBay and it serves that purpose well, but using it with other sources can be quite dangerous if you are not aware of these scenarios.
But these scams won’t happen a lot because even scammers don’t know how PayPal works and don’t know the tricks I have just shared. Of course, they can come here and read this article, but if I inform you, they will never be clever enough because we already know these and a lot of other tricks.
Don’t panic; you already know a lot on how not to be a victim of scammers from my previous articles; you are now on the safe side.
Of course, you are always welcome to ask my opinion about a supplier you are thinking about ordering from.
You can also ask me, “Is PayPal safe to use in one or another situation?” and I will give you the best answers I can.
Still, I prefer PayPal because it is the easiest method, you don’t have to go anywhere, it is very fast and you can send money in seconds. And most of all, you are more protected than using T/T or WU anyway.
I hope you will have a good and safe trading experience.
Newest Article
Other Articles
Alibaba Scam People – True Or Not
Return To Home
