PEOPLE who sell goods using online transaction facility PayPal on auction site eBay will now get added protection from fraudsters.

In the past, only buyers using PayPal to shop online were protected, and allowed to make claims if they had paid up but never received the goods.

Now, sellers in Singapore, as well as in 50 other countries, will be protected against scammers, who try to use others' bank accounts or credit cards without permission to buy goods.

They will now also get alerts from PayPal, minutes within receiving payment, that a transaction is potentially high-risk or fraudulent, and that they should not ship out their goods.

PayPal will also now send e-mail confirmations to buyers so they will be alerted when a payment goes through. If they did not authorise the payment, they can quickly get in touch with the company to report the problem.