So if you pay a scammer with paypal do you have any protection. If you use friends and family on paypal does that screw you on any help? Just wondering how to protect myself. Thanks guys.

Friends and family. Your money is gone.
There is no protection

Thanks Thats what I thought. I almost lost 800 dollars on a deal. Guy was slick. But the E mail address was suppose to be for his son. But the name was for a female of a different race.

I could comment but that would get this moved to the unmoderated forum.

Plenty of folks on this website live and die by "friends and family" cause the $0.49 + 2. 9% fee is too much to bare. I've offered to pay the fee and still get turned away because a $100 part sale will break the bank come tax season for them.

Once you hit $600 the feds hit you with 25% tax bill.
Most people are selling off used stuff at a loss, so why should they pay another 25% for that luxury?

Because the 1099 process allows you to claim the loss based on fair market value of when you acquired it vs sale price. So you're able to claim the purchase price without receipt and use that to offset any tax.

I got a call early this morning and let it go to the answering service due to suspecting it was a telemarketer do to the name and phone number displayed on my cordless phone, it was a scammer.
They claim to be calling for Readers Digest saying I had won $5,000,000,00 contest and gave me a claim number and phone number to call to claim the prize money, I contact Reader Digest and ask for on shore customer support after not being able to understand the lady that work overseas for them , I ended up talking to female American supervisor in their on shore customer support center and she told me they never call winners, they contact them by E mail or snail mail and then coming to the home address of the winners to make the award presentation in person :up
My message is if you get this type of call also don't fall for it

I had tried to buy 72 Imperial taillights from a guy last year. He accepted PayPal but insisted on "friends and family" while I refused, as that's for gifts and there is no consumer protection.
I first sent him (approx) $200 to his GFs email, and he said that her email ONLY would accept F&F payments. Then, he gave me another email saying that normal payment would work, and he returned the original payment so I tried again. No go, still refused to ship the taillights so I cancelled the payment and blocked him. Total scam.

JS