It's not so much avoiding hassle per se as avoiding fraud/minimizing risk. PayPal has always been notoriously biased toward buyers regarding dispute resolution, almost always requiring a seller to accept a return for a full refund regardless of the circumstances or the parties' own prior agreement otherwise. Recently (in the past year or so) PP extended its claim deadline from 45 days after the transaction to 180 days (6 months). So a buyer can now effectively take your watch, beat it to shit for six months, change their mind, and have a virtual guarantee that PP will refund them and force the seller to accept a return of the "defective" product. That's just one variation on possible PP fraud... there are many other schemes a dishonest buyer could try that could potentially result in you ending up with neither watch nor money at the end of the day.
So the only legitimately safe way for a seller to handle these transactions is to demand something like payment by wire transfer, which will obviously scare off a lot of buyers, or just be incredibly picky about only selling to buyers with outstanding reputations in the WIS community, who comprise a rather small fraction of potential buyers.
I'm willing to accept some risk with a (relatively) inexpensive watch but I'm not keen on gambling with $6,500. I'm not going to miss paying my bills if I lose that money but I ain't a charity for watch thieves either.
So the only legitimately safe way for a seller to handle these transactions is to demand something like payment by wire transfer, which will obviously scare off a lot of buyers, or just be incredibly picky about only selling to buyers with outstanding reputations in the WIS community, who comprise a rather small fraction of potential buyers.
I'm willing to accept some risk with a (relatively) inexpensive watch but I'm not keen on gambling with $6,500. I'm not going to miss paying my bills if I lose that money but I ain't a charity for watch thieves either.
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