Re: Apple 2 ebay 3rd party checkout, security risk?

[John <zzzjoki@yahoo.com>]

On May 15, 7:38 am, a...@hotmail.com wrote:
> On May 14, 3:54 pm, John <zzzj...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Some ebay vendors direct Apple 2 users only to Paypal through 3rd
> > party checkouts pages (you go to their sites, fill out a bunch of
> > market_junk, and eventually they direct you back to Paypal).
>
> I work with a company that uses such a system. For small operators,
> mom and pop hobby sellers... the site tools eBay and PayPal provide
> are ok. But if you have any significant volume, they quickly become
> inefficient and expensive to use, not to mention overwhelming. All
> that leads to slow shipments, bad feedback, no sales.
>
> These checkout systems do things that are beneficial to the seller,
> mainly lowering costs on the entry and processing of auction data,
> importing the financials into whatever accounting app they use,
> automating e-mailed invoices and courtesy confirmations and printing
> the shipping labels. It also transfers a lot of the work of entering
> the correct shipping info and responsibility for verifying it's
> correct to you, the buyer.
>
> I wouldn't worry too much about being scammed or cross-scripted. eBay
> is very stringent with 3rd-party developers. When you click the "Pay
> Now" button and are redirected to the processing site, it's because
> that vendor has ponied up the bucks to be a eBay developer, and it's
> eBay redirecting you, not the seller - so eBay knows why they are.
> Besides, if you use Firefox or IE 7, you can see if it's a Verisign
> certified site.
>
> I'd also point out, if someone is out to scam you ... they are more
> likely to pursue an easier method. It's just as easy to get scammed by
> a seller you've paid directly via PayPal, or mailed of a payment to.
> Case in point - coworker bought a laptop from an eBay power seller
> with 98% positive feedback, verified PayPal etc... except my coworker
> never got her laptop. The power seller (that had thousands of
> feedbacks) had run into trouble, closed shop and ran off with hundreds
> of peoples money. It took 8 months of eBay, police investigations etc
> before they were caught, and my coworker only got a portion of her
> money back that was covered under eBays fraud protection.

Ouch. I can see benefits for volume sellers and I haven't looked for
information about the integrity of the seller. You're right, of
course, that the seller can still not ship something, or have dubious
descriptions, or key omissions.

I did create a user account with non-Administrator privileges and am
running with that on this PC.

I appreciate feedback from everyone because I don't know a whole bunch
about this.