On November 28 I made a purchased for a couple of corals and some algae online with Atlantic Sea Farms. the total was $59.10. The corals arrived in very poor condition. I notified the seller and they never responded. Since I made the purchase through paypal I opened a dispute and sent back the corals. This is what paypal has always recommended. Paypal closed my dispute and stated that I must deal directly with the seller. I've sent 2 emails and left messages and to date I have not gotten a response. Paypal has informed me that with transactions like these, outside of ebay, the buyer has no protection unless they use their credit card. According to the sellers web site if the items is sent back within 48 hours they will refund in the form of a credit. This seller has not even offered a credit, refund, nothing. There are no protection mechanisms in place for people who make purchases using paypal outside of eBay and having funds withdrawn directly from their bank account, like i did. The seller sent dead goods. In this case the seller keeps my money and paypal makes a percentage and i have no recourse. This is clearly a scam especially since the majority of people that use paypal have opened their account because of their experiences on eBay. On eBay the buyer has protection so when a buyer sees the paypal logo as a means of payment it's safe to assume that the buyer will get the same protection outside of eBay. This is not the case.