There are people on here I know and trust with whom a bank transfer is no problem at all. There are other people I don't know so I check their feedback thread, and given the place that Basschat is, there's a fairly good chance that several members have dealt with them successfully, which is reassuring. In other cases, if I'm buying blind so to speak, I'd need an extra layer of security provided by PayPal, in which case I pay the small % transaction fee so the buyer gets the total amount. When a seller I don't know or doesn't have feedback says "I don't accept PayPal, it's bank transfer or nothing", it tends to be the latter