I did not think consumer law was generous enough to a bidder at auction that ignores his/her homework.

This issue has absolutely NOTHING to do with consumer law, warranty, proof of ownership, etc.

You have continually missed the point that the risk has nothing to do with the item. The scam is done by using a stolen credit card to purchase via Paypal. The vendor (seller) is the one who loses in these cases - the money is reversed back to the original cardholder.

This situation is extremely risky for sellers, and a major problem of having your own Merchant Banking / EFTPOS type machine. Therefore one of the important advantages of Paypal is that, for most transactions, private sellers are "insured" by Paypal against these chargebacks - providing that they can provide proof of delivery to the address that was nominated on the Paypal invoice.This is called "Seller Protection".

However there are some explicit exceptions which are not covered by Paypal Seller Protection. Items collected (not posted) is one of the exceptions - and THAT is the reason that everyone suggests to NEVER accept Paypal for items that are collected.

Paypal hides all teh card details. As a seller you have absolutely NO WAY of verifying if the person buying the item is the same person who owns the card. Hence, there is a massive and very real risk that you will lose both item and card.

I will send you an Ebay Message with more information. It is against eBay forum policy to mention such things here, so you will never read about it here on these forums.