Sorry for delay in getting back to this. Thanks, petahasher, for your offer. I just ended up completing the transaction in fiat, for sanity's sake. Can't go jeopardizing my security for $36, especially when it becomes $28. And if btc chargebacks are as simply done as some claim (i.e., exchange of Paypal funds for btc is sufficient grounds for reversal), then having my identification wouldn't do much good. Although you could mail me old socks C.O.D. every week or something.
1:1 rate from a newbie with this as his/her first post? Nah. Even if you are offering 1:1.2 no one in the right mind will accept your paypal money, 99.9% you will just do chargeback once you get the bitcoins
Even if 100% of Paypal -> btc transactions were reversible, far fewer than 999 out of 1000 people would screw someone over like that. I know I wouldn't, but of course, you don't know that. Maybe I'm a very unimaginative criminal, and $36 is the biggest number I could wrap my head around. Maybe I'm just a stickler for details, and that's why I would be especially concerned over exchange rates on a transaction that was going to be reversed. In any case, I wonder if your speculations merited a response at all. Maybe it's some kind of complex? Who knows, let's speculate on more interesting stuff...
Dude_