* Paypal offers almost no protection when buying coins or banknotes as paypal does not consider an overgraded coin or banknote to be 'significantly not as described'.

* Due to the Ebay/Paypal so-called 'buyer protection' and 'seller protection' each item must be sent registered and have an Australia Post Registered Form filled out and stamped at the post office. This results in a minimum (assuming no insurance) postage & handling cost as follows: padded bag $1, stamps $1, registration $2.70, time spent packing the item $1, time spent filling in registration form $3, time spent going to post office and standing in queue average $8 (assuming about 5 items are being sent at once). So the minimum postage & handling per item is $13.70. Thus paypal is not free for the buyer as the seller must charge more for postage and also incorporate a handling charge.

* Many sellers do not wish to take credit cards, yet paypal forces them to do so.

* Paypal is not free for the seller, usually when you pay by paypal you cost the seller 2.4% + $0.30 in fees even when you pay from your paypal balance.

* Paypal payment is not instantaneous, it takes 5 to 7 working days for a paypal payment to be cleared to the seller's bank account. Sensible sellers will not post items until your payment is in their bank account. This makes paypal one of the slowest payment methods.

* A full list of Paypal fees can be found here.