Here is the best advice one can give using PayPal -- ALWAYS pay for things (from strangers, anyway) using your credit card. If there is a problem, as a last resort you can order a charge-back. Buying, using PayPal, pay with credit card-funded PayPal payments. You could be the richest person in the world, and should still pay online with credit cards.

I have a PayPal-Plus Credit Card (or whatever it is called now) connected to my PayPal account, and even though I have a PayPal cash balance, every time I buy something on eBay using PayPal, that credit card is charged. If you can't do that, have a separate PayPal account for buying, keeping a zero balance and using a linked credit card.

Robert