i am tryin to buy summin off ebayand its....

[gnasher]

.......asking me to pay by money order or wire transfer , what are these methods of paying ?

[darth vader]

Are you from the UK? Money order is the USA equivalent of a postal order (i am led to believe) and wire transfer is the use of a company such as Western Union to transfer cash - both are very untraceable and not recommended means of payment on ebay or anywhere else online, without verifying the payee (the Nigeria scam is famous for using the Western Union company to fleece victims of cash)

[tomd]

if's a bulk buy of mobile phones, for the love of god don't do it.

[Paul---G]

Have a read of the paypal features on Ebay, they seem to cover you against most problems you may incur. But its actually owned by Ebay, so they like to make sure their customers aren't fleeced.......... I have used it for approx 2 years with no probs..........

[desertrat]

I had an American purchaser use a wire transfer to pay me for goods purchased over EBay and it was easy. Having looked at the charges it must have been an expensive way for him to pay for the goods. I wouldn't pay that way myself though given the choice. Too much of a risk and expensive.

[Dave Potts]

It needn't cost the earth to send a money order payment. Using Western Union (formerly Bidpay) on a transaction of, say $85 with shipping of $5 your service fee would only be $4.95 - about �2.70 in todays money. If you were using British postal orders (to pay for a UK transaction) this is only a bit more than you'd pay at the post office I think. I've used Western Union many times on eBay without incident, and as long as your seller checks out I think you should be fine, but as Paul said using Paypal would be a little safer as it affords you more protection, depending on the value of your purchase. You can check out WU here - http://www.auctionpayments.com/Services.asp - there's also a link to allow you to calculate the fee for making an auction payment.