got an email from PayPal this morning about changes to the PayPal User Agreement. Haven't gone to the PayPal site to get full details but the email indicates that from 15th July there will be buyer protection for eligible PickUp and Hand Delivered items.
Some general thoughts on these changes...
This was pointed out by someone else on FB, and is a very good question - how will PayPal confirm goods have been returned to the seller in SNAD / pick-up cases, particularly where postage is either not an option, or prohibitively expensive? (In some cases the buyer may not have taken possession of the goods - how will that be determined if possession of the goods is actually contested? In other cases, large items could travel for hundreds of k's with the buyer before a SNAD is raised and cost hundreds to return via courier, so it will be interesting to see if/how the policy is amended to accomodate these unique circumstances).
Re: retaining funds, you'll note there's no restriction (mentioned) on spending the funds, only withdrawing it (it could go without saying that you'd be prevented from spending it, but I'd think it would also then be made very clear in the abvove terms that it applies to all forms of access to funds).
I also wonder if / how it will work in conjunction with eBay's 21 day holds. If an account is affected by both, I wonder if there will be any restrictions on withdrawing the full amount.
The thing that mosts disturbs me is that thus far, this is no transparency (and I don't expect there ever will be) in how PP will determine which accounts will be subject to this, nor how they will determine which accounts are affected (as well as the amount or percentage they'll be able to withdraw). The vagueness of it as good as gives them carte blanche to do it to any account.
I'm also a little bemused by the mention of using "publicly available information" - it conjures images of PP staff looking up member's Facebook accounts ("PayPal liked your photo from 2009" 
).
@digital*ghost wrote:
The thing that mosts disturbs me is that thus far, this is no transparency (and I don't expect there ever will be) in how PP will determine which accounts will be subject to this, nor how they will determine which accounts are affected (as well as the amount or percentage they'll be able to withdraw). The vagueness of it as good as gives them carte blanche to do it to any account.
It'll bug me if I don't correct myself post-uneditable-post - as in, I didn't mean to ask the same question twice.
