The issue I have with PayPal is their inability to intercept money as it passes between PayPal accounts when sent by e-cheque. I have had a couple of issues with them, both resolved ok in the end.

1) I bought approx �2,000 of industrial imaging equipment from a seller in the USA who I had bought from previously. The payment went via an e-cheque for a reason best known to PayPal, this takes up to 10 days to clear. I informed the seller and she was cool about it. About 8 days into the 10 days I got an eBay message from a US Sherrif's office asking me to contact him. This I duly did, he wanted to know the wherabouts of the equipment that I had bought (and it's serial numbers), I said that I didn't have it yet, explained about the e-cheque. He said that he had good reason to believe that it was stolen and I gave him my sellers address details (I had them from previous shipping paperwork). PayPal would not put the payment into dispute until the money had hit my sellers account, at which point it then took a further 30 days for PayPal to refund my money (nice earner that one)

The goods themselves disappeared into this air as it appeared that my 'trusted' seller had not yet received them from her contact.

2) The second one was more recent, I sold a Meridian 562 via eBay to a guy in Poland, after 4 weeks the equipment had not turned up so he put in a dispute. After a brief dialog, I refunded the buyer (it went via e-cheque) and lodged an insurance claim with Parcelforce. Then 2 days later the goods turned up with my buyer. I contacted PayPal and explained the situation and they said that there was nothing they could do apart from emailing the buyer and asking him to resend the funds once he had received the refund. I too emailed the buyer and in this case fortunately he was honest, a less scruplous buyer wouldn't have bothered and just taken the kit and not paid for it (and I'm in no position to chase a couple of hundred pounds in a foreign country). If PayPal could have intercepted the funds transfer then it could have neen easily resolved.

Generally though I have had over 1,500 transactions where PayPal has worked fine, I just think that some of their resolution methods need to be looked at if they want to become a serious banking player.

Mr Perceptive