Like those who have already posted here, this simply doesn’t feel right.
If your supervisor is asking you to buy things for her, whether she realises it or not, the very fact that she is your supervisor places you in an invidious situation. She says that she has “privacy issues”; that applies to anyone buying online. Are you at less risk of having your privacy affected? Is your privacy less important? So… unless she means off-line (family or financial situation) issues*, she is willing to use you to avoid her own privacy being affected.
Your supervisor says she is afraid of being scammed. How is that risk mitigated by getting someone else to do the buying for her? It isn’t! Presumably she is telling you the item number… making the actual choice… and I understand she pays for the item before you hit “buy” and pay through PayPal, but what happens if there’s a problem? You’re the one who would have to open a refund request, and since you aren’t the one making the buying choices, your risk is increased by her choices. If an excessive number of MBG cases result, it’s your eBay account that is affected. If an excessive number of PayPal cases need to be opened, it’s your PayPal account at risk.
If the items are not intimate or likely to be presents, it can’t be that she is asking you in order to avoid her purchases being seen (embarrassment or spoiling a surprise) by someone else who has access to her eBay account (husband, family).
If the items aren’t expensive, it could still be an issue of problem buying; people who impulse-buy as a result of mental health issues, for instance, don’t necessarily buy expensive items, but it all adds up.
Since she is computer-literate and has her own eBay account, it’s clearly not a case of someone who just can’t navigate online buying or would find it too difficult. (I’ve bought things online on behalf of other people, in cases where they are really can’t manage it themselves, or for a family member who was too inclined to believe that certain items (unbranded) were as good as the genuine items – but thar’s a different situation. Family… or those for whom I offered to help in that way. NOT a relative stranger who is perfectly capable of making her own purchases.)
If this is a family thing, you don’t want to put yourself in the way if those purchases are found out. It could get nasty.
If it’s a financial limit and accountability thing, you don’t want to be responsible even peripherally for being a bypass of whatever measures might be in place.
If it’s a case of your supervisor’s eBay account being blocked from purchasing from particular sellers, that would be flouting sellers’ blocks which is considered abusive buyer behaviour… and you don’t want to be involved in that.
If your supervisor’s eBay account has two or more nonpayment strikes, she’s avoiding the automatic blocks – and you don’t want to be involved in that. Besides, getting those blocks says something about a pattern of behaviour. How would you feel if one day she says to you, “Oh, I don’t have the right money on me, but go ahead and order that item and I’ll get the money to you on Monday”… and on Monday there’s an excuse… and you feel uneasy about badgering her because she’s your supervisor…?
What happens if the item never arrives… or she claims it didn’t arrive but the tracking shows “delivered”…? You’d be the piggy in the middle.
No. Your supervisor can open another eBay account to which only she has the password, and pay using a credit or debit card to which she has sole access if she wants to maintain privacy. I realise that she may not be able to keep purchases private if she uses a PayPal account that is used by both her and her husband, for instance… but unlike PayPal, she can have as many credit/debit cards as she wants. She’ll still have eBay’s MBG protection and card chargeback as a fallback.
In other words, there is no credible reason for her supervisor putting you in this situation (or at least, not that I can immediately see), and no reason for you to feel guilty in saying “no”. I agree that using a graceful excuse is probably best, to avoid any argument or issue.
