Buying from Tindie

[Miti]

I just purchased a Nano VNA from Tindie and I paid with Paypal. I downloaded the invoice but I didn't get any notification from Paypal that they took the money. Is that just a pre-autorization and they will take the money later, when they ship, or something went wrong? What's your experience with Tindie?

Cheers,
Miti

[WattsThat]

100% positive experiences with multiple vendors in multiple countries. There are some lame resellers of Chinesium crap but those are pretty easy to spot, based on their products. Just reselling the same stuff you see on eBay with zero value add.

The vendors selling their own products are by in large 100% legit. If you paid with PayPal, your money should be safe, I’ve gotten refunds (when it was appropriate) with little to no effort although it was only a few times over as many years, all on ebay. Of course YMMV.

[Miti]

I’m not concerned about the money, I know they’re safe with PayPal. The question is if the transaction went through. When I buy from eBay, I get a notification from PayPal in 10 seconds that I sent this amount to that seller. With Tindie I didn’t get that notification and there’s no transaction in PayPal, so I wonder if I wait in vain for the Nano VNA to ship.

[Jacon]

...Is that just a pre-autorization and they will take the money later...? What's your experience with Tindie?
Cheers,
Miti

^^^ This 

[mawyatt]

Just purchased from Tindie the 4" NanoVNA V2 Plus4 and Zeenko (AliExpress) 4" SAA-2N NanoVNA V2. Wanted to support "both sides of the coin" for the NanoVNA developments.

The Tindie PayPal transaction appears on my PayPal account, so does the Zeenko AliExpress transaction.

Best,

[Miti]

Three days later, I still haven't received any notification. "Ships in 5 business days". We'll see.

[cdev]

They notify you and debit you when its shipped.

[Miti]

Turns out that the transaction was canceled. The invoice was there, the PayPal account had a notification saying “You authorized a payment of...” but when I contacted Tindie support, they said that the transaction was canceled. 
When I tried to order again, same thing happened, but this time I noticed the message “Your transaction was canceled...”. The culprit was the internet security SW that opened PayPal in a separate, protected window. Somehow Tindie and PayPal couldn’t talk to each other anymore. I had to turn off protection to place the order, which defeated the purpose of using an internet security SW. 
Anyway, once I did that, the transaction went through and the nano VNA is on its way.