I learned a lesson recently from a failed sale of a pin...
Buyer sent me a deposit for a pin, using regular PayPal. I'm immediately charged $3.20 for accepting this deposit.

Buyer goes dark on me and a week later, tells me that they don't know when they can come pay for it and pick it up.

Lesson#1 - right there, I should have canceled the sale and refunded the deposit, which would have cost me a total of $6.40.

Lesson #2 - regarding Lesson 1, I should have clearly stated from the get go, that the deposit was non- refundable after x number of days.

Another week goes by and after emailing them numerous times, they respond that they will send a 2nd deposit. They do. And then they go dark again.

Lesson #3 - never accept a 2nd deposit, unless there are terms or you have infinity to wait on the actual sale.

Lesson #3b - learn from previous lesson, so there won't be anymore lessons to learn.

Yet another week goes by and nothing. I then decide to refund the deposits and cancel the sale.

I refund their deposit. PayPal takes their cut off the top, of $6.40, so the Buyer doesn't quite get a full refund. I never quite got full deposits, either. Again, my fault for not adding that surcharge on to the Buyer, initially.

After refunding the money, I immediately hear from Buyer (imagine that), and they've drummed up another excuse. At this point, I don't care. However, Buyer files a claim with PayPal for $6.40, the cost of using PayPal.

I contested it and of course, just lost. So, a slacker Buyer cost me a total of $12.80, but I'll chaulk that up to the cost of lessons learned, which are:

F PayPal and their fees
And
Always, ALWAYS lay out terms in writing regarding deposits and sales of anything.

This could have been a lot worse, I know.

That was definitely the worst part of it - the hassle. I don't need anymore of that in my life.

I had firsthand experience with that about 25 years ago at an auction. I was selling a Power Play and a Qbert. I caught some little kids meddling in the back of Qbert, disconnecting stuff, etc. Those kids were taught how to do that by some troglodyte father, no doubt. Then, someone cut the power cord on the Power Play, soon before it was up for auction. I raised hell with the auctioneer and told them they better find a plug for it fast. I swore off selling at auctions after that.

#1 - Did you not read my post? This is a self-admitted lessons learned from me. Yes, I did say PayPal sucks, because they do. Since I sent a refund of money that was already charged a fee once, it seems shifty to me that they'd charge me again. It's even more shifty that the buyer was recouping that money from me when they were the ones who ghosted me when I tried to make contact with them.

#2 - The buyer didn't technically back out, because they kept stringing me along. Had they actually said they weren't going to buy it, then I'd have kept the deposit. But keeping money and not producing a pin in exchange, would have left me open for even more buckshot.

The short of it is, that I was tired of waiting for one buyer to actually show up and pay me and haul my pin away. How long would you have waited?