"I do hope your loss will help press to both seller and buyers to quit attempting to cheat PayPal with friends and family "
You will note the PayPal fees
I list this for two reasons, one in answer to your questioning of my character and two to show that the fees are not a huge dent in the pocket book, most of the time when I sell something I negotiate to split the cost of the transaction fees since I am paying the shipping fees which many times are more than the transaction fees.
I will say this I sold a Texan a while back that I accidentally broke while getting it ready to ship, I didn't know I had broke it but when the buyer let me know after he had modded the rifle even so we figured out what happened I payed to have it fixed at AirForce and personally talked to Rachel explained the situation and asked for expedited service offering to pay for that also,
As I said I have a lot of true friends on this forum and so FRIENDS and family does apply.
I own a small business and
I have had payments made by scammers with stolen credit cards, fake postal money order and stolen checks, straw buying from people outside of the United States that try to use a freight forwarder because the item they are buying is a restricted shipping item.
In all but one transaction I won my case on stolen CC the other situations I won because I have always been leary of anyway and take steps before shipping an item out.
PayPal seller isn't just buyer protection it provides protection for both parties. As long as you are being honest in your sell then you have very little to worry about even in a contested
As the OP clearly said, he made some of his own mistakes in trying to save a few dollars
This doesn't give anyone the right to slam the OP for doing so, it's brave of the OP or any person to admit wrong and try to make a positive from the negatives by presenting it to us in hopes it will help those who might be tempted to follow the same path. This is even more true for a business owner to do so because we all (business owners) hate to see dirty laundry about us in public.
We are human and we do make mistakes and we do make bad judgments from time to time (trust me my wife can preach on mine
) The man already is kicking himself for his. it's uncalled for and wrong for others to do some of there own