PayPal fees

[Thermo1223]

I've used Paypal since the beginning and when I sold stuff I never asked people to include the 3% fee. I know others do but that to me is a bit of an ethics issue. Just like business requiring min. purchase for card transactions with IMO is completely unethical and against their TOS.

Lately and just recently again in fact I've had people ask why they got charged a fee for the transfer of funds.

Technically you can send it as a gift and not get charged but if the other party screws you well SOL, sorry. If you send it as goods you get protection to some degree.

The recent guy obviously didn't know and started asking me why I didn't send all the money. I explained it and he said well I guess I know what not to use now. Seriously?

Does every person expect free services these days? Looking to buy an outdated laptop for other reasons and the guy specifically says I need to send it through Paypal as a gift of he won't ship it. I tried Amazon Payments in the past but it took like 2 weeks to send the money which was his other requirement.

I rather not have my account closed because violating their TOS especially when I know it's not a gift. Sure no person likes fees but $13 to get $450 the instant I sold something to be is just the cost of doing business.

 

[Rand]

if you send fees as a gift its really easy to totally screw the seller.. he should be demanding NOT as a gift.


here is the scenario.. I copy pasted it from here
there is a loophole where paypal gift can be used to defraud THE SELLER.

Here's the scenario:

The seller asks for the funds to be paid as GIFT, thinking this offers protection for the seller.
The buyer sends a paypal gift using a credit card by clicking on the pay the associated paypal fees option. (I am paraphrasing the exact option here.)
The recipient of the payment (seller) receives the GIFT payment and the full amount shows up in their account as a gift.
Everything looks okay so the seller ships the watch.
Days or weeks later, the fraudster buyer will issue a chargeback with their credit card company by claiming that their credit card was stolen, etc. The lies are easy.
Credit card company will issue a chargeback, and in response, Paypal will hold the associated funds--which are now in the seller's account.
Because this was a GIFT transaction, as far as Paypal is concerned, there was no sale or exchange of goods.
Because there was no sale, the seller cannot use shipment confirmation to argue a legitimate transaction. Evidence of shipment means nothing when there was no official exchange of goods.*
Seller's funds are held/retracted and buyer gets a free watch.




LESSON: DO NOT ACCEPT PAYPAL "GIFT" PAYMENTS IF YOU ARE A SELLER.


most people wanting a gift payment just want to dodge the fees.. but some are scammers.

if you DO send a paypal gift payment pay with credit card. It will limit your chances of being screwed.

 

[spavel6]

I always think of the 3% as protection against shady sellers. If something is up, PayPal has to have manpower to solve the issue. It's like paying for shipping insurance. You only need it when something goes wrong..

 

[Thermo1223]

^^^

Exactly!!!

 

[spavel6]

Doesn't the credit card company track where/when the card was used? Wouldn't it be pretty easy to prove, from IP address, etc. that the card was not stolen?

I agree this is a concern, but would you really go through the trouble of claiming a stolen card? That's fraud that the card company would really not appreciate..

 

[99Saturn]

Personally, I look at the 3% as the cost of doing business. As buyer or seller I don't have any desire to deviate from that, as I want some recourse if things go south. I will say though I've done a few deals with sellers from ebay that I've taken offline. Sellers have been able to cut a better price than a listing and in turn want to escape that fee (15% IIRC). Haven't had a problem but I don't do it much, and typically only with sellers that seem to have very high satisfaction and the bulk of the fees the seller is saving is getting passed back to me in some type of price reduction.

 

[TWG1572]

I'm with you. As a seller, I consider it a cost of business to get paid immediately and not to have to deal with bounced checks, etc. As a buyer, I like the protection Paypal provides.

Used laptops are a dime a dozen. I'd walk.

 

[Thermo1223]

I let him know my terms and we will go from there.

Did it hurt paying Ebay $45 of my sale on a used Glass Door Fridge I had, sure.

However a week on Craigslist didn't give me the exposure I had on Ebay in 20 mins.

Pay to play.

 

[Panzerman]

I am with you on the number of people who don't realize there is a fee. I bought a ATV from a guy once and told him I would pay him cash when I picked it up since we will be meeting. He insisted on payment through Paypal. It was over $3000. So he was missing a good chunk of cash. He wasn't a happy camper. But it was all his fault.

 

[bubbatime]

Originally Posted By: Panzerman
I am with you on the number of people who don't realize there is a fee. I bought a ATV from a guy once and told him I would pay him cash when I picked it up since we will be meeting. He insisted on payment through Paypal. It was over $3000. So he was missing a good chunk of cash. He wasn't a happy camper. But it was all his fault.


I bought a lawnmower like that once for $500. I brought $500 cash but guy insisted on PayPal. Guy lost almost $20 in fees and could have taken the cash instead.... Also, if I was unscrupulous, I could have brought it home, said that it was broken and filed a claim through PayPal = free lawn mower. It's hard to do that with cash.

 

[eljefino]

That's weird but maybe the paypal only people are "unbanked" eg they bounced a check at some point in the past or for whatever reason don't want a bank account. So they have to keep money in paypal to pay for some attached credit/debit card so they can pay for "X" online etc. If they had cash they'd have to "Western Union" it to Paypal or ????

IDK, just a wild thought. Some normal looking folks have really helter skelter finances.

 

[TWG1572]

Maybe another thought is that the person didn't want cash laying around, especially if he was "unbanked". There are some people in this world where cash in the hand = cash to spend. Once it's out of sight, it's not such a temptation.

Just another wild thought. I use Paypal for online transactions, but only accept cash in hand for in-person ones.

That bit me once when I sold a honda accord. It was only after I had $5,000 of hundreds in my hand that I got a little nervous. That's decent chunk of change, I made a beeline for the bank to unload it ASAP. It didn't help that the buyers were of questionable character and asked me to falsify the title once the deal was done.

 

[javacontour]

Last few car deals were done AT THE BANK. The buyer gives me the money and a signed BOS and I give them a copy of the BOS and the signed title.

I deposit the cash right there.

Even better when the buyer banks at the same place, no actual cash is exchanged. We do it right there at the teller window.

Money comes out of their account and goes right into mine.

 

[Thermo1223]

^
That is the way to do it.

I was worried more than I think the guy that wanted to buy my car. He just sent me a bank check and hoped I'd get him the title in time. I certainly did but it was a lot of trust on his part. He did have the car though. So technically at that point it was all paperwork.

 

[Thermo1223]

Wow...the current guy is complaining about $1.75...jeeze how do they expect PayPal to run their site?