A safer place to buy and sell

Improvements to PayPal Seller and Buyer Protection

We’ve expanded Seller Protection so you can sell at home and abroad with more confidence. We’ve also made changes to Buyer Protection, further increasing confidence in the PayPal purchase option you offer to customers.

Why it matters

More protection available to your business, more confident buyers

What you can do now

Review the changes outlined on this page to understand how they affect you

Who it’s for

All sellers

What do I need to know about expanded Seller Protection?

We recently expanded our Seller Protection Policy to make selling even safer, even when the buyer’s shipping address is unconfirmed. The expanded protection applies regardless of the buyer’s location or country, so you can now sell at home and abroad with more confidence. The change applies to physical goods only and the normal exclusions as outlined in section 11 of your user agreement still apply.

  • Now even more of your sales can be protected against claims, unauthorised payments and chargebacks.
  • Protection applies whether your market is at home or abroad, giving you more confidence to expand your export business and start selling to overseas markets.
  • There’s no limit to the value of each transaction we’ll protect, and we’re currently the only major payments provider in the UK to offer this kind of seller protection at no additional charge.

What do I need to do?

  • As always, continue to be vigilant on suspicious orders. If you are concerned about any orders you should carry out extra checks and refund the payment if you are not satisfied that the order is legitimate.
  • Follow the normal Seller Protection rules: ship to the address provided in the transaction details and retain the appropriate shipping evidence.
  • Use our Resolution Centre (accessed through the PayPal business account) to respond to any requests for information.
  • Start retaining proof of delivery and other evidence of your transaction for at least 180 days, because we’re also expanding Buyer Protection.

What do I need to know about expanded Buyer Protection?

We’re extending UK buyer protection to enable coverage for intangibles (services, digital goods, travel, event tickets and other intangible items). From 17 June 2014, we’ll review UK buyer disputes regarding intangible items where the customer claims they have not received the item, or if the service or goods are not as described. We’re also extending the time for UK buyers to open a dispute from 45 to 180 days from the payment date.

  • You should be prepared to provide compelling evidence that you provided the intangible item and it was as you described it to be, should a buyer dispute a transaction.
  • Purchases by UK buyers of most items can be covered except real estate, businesses, vehicles, custom-made items, industrial machinery, items equivalent to cash and items prohibited by PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy or that violate eBay’s prohibited or restricted items policy.
  • We expect your business will be able to benefit from this change too because of the extra confidence buyers will have when shopping for intangible items.
  • PayPal will consider all claims on their merits. If, as a seller, you can show us that you did provide the goods or services as described, we may (but are not obliged to) reject the buyer’s claim.

What do I need to do?

  • Be prepared to provide PayPal with ‘compelling evidence’ to prove that you provided the intangible item and that it was as you described it to be (just as you do for tangible items).
  • For example, if you sold a music download, you might consider providing proof that you sent the buyer the link to the download and proof that the buyer accessed the download, giving dates and times (illustrative example only).

For more detailed terms and conditions relating to these changes, please see our revised Seller Protection Programme in our User Agreement and our forthcoming changes to Buyer Protection in the notice of the Policy Update. Once the Buyer Protection changes take effect, they will form part of the User Agreement. Both the Policy Update and the User Agreement can be accessed via the Legal footer on most PayPal pages.