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I'm in the same boat as Barry, the credit card is a convenience thing, but I never use the interest side of the credit.
Let me relate a recent experience I had with PayPal though, especially for all those that believe PayPal is THE cats whiskers for safe transactions. And bear in mind I have a bit of buying and selling history, most or all of it good. OK, I got biffed off Astromart, but that's another story.
A few months back I decided I wanted a Televue 102, to use with a soon to be acquired SolarMax 90 etalon, they are plug and play, well screw and play.
I placed a few wanted adverts, and a few days later was contacted per e mail by a seller in Europe, nothing unusual. The price was about what I expected, and the pictures looked good. We had plenty of to and fro on e mail and I paid using PayPal, and fortunately I had a zero balance at the time, so the full amount (950 Euros) came from my credit card. (and for those that don't have credit cards, how do you engage with PayPal, I thought it was a requirement??).
That same day of the PayPal transaction I was contacted by phone from Arizona, a PayPal rep rang just to ensure the transaction was OK, as it was a large amount, and paid to another country. I told him if I was buying in my own country I didn't need PayPal, but the US mentality couldn't see this for some reason. He also assured me that if the item didn't arrive, or if it arrived in a different condition to that described, they would look after me. I was concerned that they had rang, but he said it was merely to "reach out and be pro-active", so I was happy.
Bottom line was the seller was a scam, I had paid for something that never arrived, never will. What to do? Contacted PayPal, started a dispute. Escalated that to a claim once I read that others had been taken by the same name. Waited a period, and then received notification that PayPal had declined the claim as the item was not "tangible". There is fine print that says if the item is not tangible, and few other reasons then they don't pay out. I questioned them repeatedly but believe me contacting them is a one way street, annoying and frustrating. They changed their tune to quote the reason that the item wasn't covered was that the scam was via a third party, and they weren't responsible for this. Bollocks.
In the end I gave up, and simply spoke with my credit card company, who listened, and eventually completed a "charge-back". A week or less later the same amount was reversed into my Visa account.
PayPal were not happy about this obviously but by then I had had it.
So, cautionary tale, use the credit card as well as PayPal, it gets a bit more security, don't go through life assuming PayPal will bail you out, in my case they were as bad as the scammer.
Gary
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