In a recent case, a seller handed over a computer to the buyer who arrived at his home, having checked that payment had been cleared via PayPal.
However, less than an hour later, the seller received an email from PayPal saying that the buyer claimed that their account had been hacked into.
PayPal then withdrew the payment because the seller had no receipt proving postage or delivery, which meant that they did not qualify for PayPal's Seller Protection policy.
PayPal have now warned that sellers should avoid agreeing to have items picked up from personal addresses, both because of the 'hacking' scam, but also because in other cases buyers claim never to have received the goods.
