I bought an item but seller only wants paypal - is it a scam??

Hi Richard. Paypal is not an accepted method of payment on Trade Me. This does not sound good! Have a look at the help page link shown below and get in touch with staff on the link there to trade me. You can also lodge an unfair feedback report found in the help pages. But follow the link first, they may help with all of it.

https://help.trademe.co.nz/hc/en-us/articles/360007275072-Safe-buying-advice

And, you can also go to Contact Us and ask for a real person in live chat if you need to as the report may not be 'instant'. Have all your details for the trade and seller ready.

There is nothing to say sellers can not use Paypal as a payment method, BUT it must be stated on the auction payment options. If it was listed as the only payment option then that's fine.

It sounds very strange that they have placed negative feedback as you did not make contact within 2 hours, and if that was a requirement, then it must be stated on the auction text so you are aware before bidding/buying. If it was not stated in the auction, this alone would make me very suspect, although a scammer would not normally place negative feedback to bring attention to themselves. 

If the listing had neither of these things listed, then best contact Trademe for guidance.

Kia Ora Richard,

Yes! I would be very aware if that happened to me also,

TradeMe Trust & Safety Advice:

If you are trading on Trade Me in anything other than a face-to-face deal and you are asked to use any payment method other than a domestic bank deposit, Pay Now, Ping or Afterpay, stop and contact us as you may be being scammed.

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That link will take you to the correct page - the Chat Tab will Pop up in blue at the bottom right screen, there may be a slight delay in this appearing.

Gary,

I'm a little lost in your Comment here <quote> if you are saying that was the only payment method listed, then that part is not allowed. If it was listed as the only payment option then that's all good. <unquote>

Your incredible knowledge is working faster than the keys you can type out on your board - Cheers 😊

I was thinking initially it was an overseas seller in which case they would have to have something else other than Paypal offered too, but forgot to revise what I said. NZ sellers are free to list with only Paypal as their payment option, or any other payment method, hence the Trademe field Other in the payment options section. There are many "other" payment options that sellers can choose to offer, but only NZ sellers.

Cheers 😊

This sounds so fishy, so very, very fishy, like snapper fillets left out on the bench in the kitchen for a week in full sunlight kinda fishy.

For a start getting a negative after 2 hours of non payment, is completely unreasonable, and that is not acceptable and unfair, you should also talk to chat about getting it removed, that is ridiculous.

Hi S. Where in the help pages is the quote you mentioned about accepted payment methods? It's a good one and I cannot seem to find it. Thanks :)

L, the page with some payment methods sellers can have is here...

Payment options – Help - Trade Me

I can't find offhand the page about contacting Trust & Safety, but it's probably in one of their buying advise pages in the T & S section link at bottom of any page. Shame there is no search on the T & S section.

Unfortunately there are some extremely strange people on Trademe who do list with a requirement for contact and/or payment within 2-3 hours of the close of the auction. The ones I've seen have put that requirement in the auction description (usually at the bottom, sometimes buried under quite a bit of other text). Personally, I thought it sounded silly and carefully avoided having anything to do with such unreasonable people. Like the OP, I'm not always in a position to respond immediately if I win an auction during the day (say with autobid).

Rather ammusingly in one case I saw, an auction went for quite a good price, but the person who won obviously didn't do the 2 hour contact thing so the auction was immediately relisted - and then went for quite a bit less.

Kia Ora All,

Yes! the T&S payment method warning advice from TradeMe in my Comment is in an Article and it is linked through to from the mid section of the Help page Safe Buying Advice link L  has put in this Post. - It comes half way down the Article page within the Our Advice section & is not specific to it's title.

Western Union and Trade Me members: A terrible combination | Trade Me

I would like a search feature put in place throughout all of the Article Pages - Announcements, T&S, News categories etc. - There's A Lot of hidden resourceful information within these Articles & often one can't find what you're looking for though you know it is buried there within 1 of the pages - it can be extremely time consuming searching to find what your after - A search Function throughout all Articles would be Great!

Thanks for asking L  - Cheers.😊

EDIT: I haven't referred to all Accepted Payment methods though I note Gary has added this for you.

Thanks S and for your reply Gary. I searched until my eyes said stop, no more. It was a hard to find!

Cheers L,

Yes! Information is everywhere and often hard to find - the last use of this comment saved a Member's wallet 😊 - I couldn't believe a step away from Community I'd been asked a question Lol Murphy's Law that 1.

And....Richard. How are you going? Getting some assistance from the links and advice?

Hi all thanks for all the support and advice.

In the end trademe contacted me pretty quickly and told me it was infact a scam and the sellers profile has been removed. Because of already being suspicious about it I hadn't given any money etc so it was all fine in the end.

Also after a few days the unfair negative feedback was removed so phew!

There wasn't any fine print in the ad that super quick feedback was required etc so thats why I became weirded out by this aggro behaviour by the seller haha.

Thanks again everyone!!!!

Cheers Richard, 

That's Awesome to read - Well Done for reaching out for support which highlighted your case to the Community Mediators for fast interception here & Thanks so much for letting us know the outcome - Much appreciated 😊👍