I have had similar problems with PAYPAL. I usually leave feedback after the buyer has paid. I ran into a scam. There was a new buyer that was on EBAY two monthes, he wracked up almost a hundred purchases. This was his game. If you left positive feedback after his payment and shipped without delivery confirmation, he would automatically file an "item not received" dispute and almost immediately escalate it to a claim saying he no longer wanted contact with the seller. He did this on almost half of all of his purchases and won every dispute! The only people he did not file on were people that waited to leave feedback until after the sale and people that shipped with confirmation, hummmmm, a pattern. Well, people started to get pissed and started leaving him follow up feedback warning other sellers. Had I taken the time to read the feedback details, I would have seen this, I just saw 100% feedback rating and thought that he was cool. But he only targeted sellers who left feedback first so he actually never accrued negative feedback.

Frustrated, I reported this to EBAY and PAYPAL in great detail outlining this scam, I still lost the dispute. All I got was some rote, canned text.

He had a PO Box. Through some contacts and help at the my Post Office, the Postal Inspector in his hometown got involved. Their policy is to keep their investigations confidential but they do work with EBAYS Fraud investigation unit, let us just say that every thing that was delivered to that Post Office Box , delivery confirmation or not, was being documented methodically . About a month later, he was suspended from EBAY and disappeared.

What does one take from this? You may want to do delivery confirmation on all Paypal payments or at a minimum, on more expensive items. Always double check someone's feedback, including how long they have been a member. Another warning sign? If someone has a generic acronym or business name at a PO BOX, do a delivery confirmation.

On the other side as a buyer, I bought some photos 2 months ago and paid through PAYPAL the day I won them. Never got them. I complained after a month, then again, and again and again. The seller had great feedback but would simply not respond. Paypal claim and dispute were filed as a last resort. The seller, providing his defense, offered a delivery tracking number to Paypal. Problem was, the tracking number showed a label was printed, but the tracking number also showed that the item still sat in his shop and was never given to USPS for delivery! Had the seller just taken 5 seconds to read any of my emails or simply plug in his own tracking number, he would have realized his mistake. Bang head, unecessary headache.

As far as International Payments, I just do not do them. Too risky.

Headaches are unavoidable if you do volume business, but they can be minimized.