Have you ever stopped and wondered about how PayPal makes their money? Let’s review: With PayPal Personal you can send and receive money electronically to and from other PayPal accounts for free. You can also transfer money to and from your regular bank account at no charge. Sign me up!
The other account type is PayPal Premier. With this this type of account PayPal charges a fee, $0.30 plus 2.9% of each and every dollar received. So why would anyone sign up for a PayPal Premier account when they can have a PayPal Personal account which can send and receive funds for free? This is where they have done something clever. It’s actually kind of boring, really, which is why few people have noticed the fact that since buying PayPal, eBay has nearly doubled it’s revenue for each auction that uses PayPal.
Here’s an example scenario: Joe Blow puts his old laptop up for auction on eBay. The high bid is $450, which costs Joe around $18 in eBay fees. But Joe has taken eBay’s advice and listed his laptop auction as PayPal preferred. So when the high bidder pays for the item, she of course transfers money through PayPal. If she opts to use a credit card, the system allows it and sends an email notification to the seller. If the seller signed up for the free PayPal account, he is told he will have to “upgrade” to a PayPal Premium account or reject the payment. At this point sellers with free PayPal accounts are stuck. If they want to complete their sale they have to upgrade their PayPal account and pay the fee to receive credit card transfers.
If it was just a question of paying a fee for just credit card transactions I could live with that. No such luck. Once you switch to a Premier account you have to pay that same fee ($0.30 +2.9%) for ANY type of transfer into your PayPal account (not just credit card transactions). Oh, and by the way, you can’t go back to the free PayPal Personal account. So the free PayPal personal account really isn’t very useful for receiving funds. It’s just the bait. Sooner or later someone will want to pay you with a credit card, and then you are stuck paying fees from that point on.
I told you it was boring. Billions of dollars worth of boring. And the only people who seem to notice are the eBay sellers who are forced into PayPal Premier. Someone in their marketing department deserves a big raise for putting the “pay” in PayPal.
Due to popular demand – this article has been updated since it was first published last year. The same issues addressed here are just as relevant now.
Monday, 5. June 2006
So what? I’m no eBay/PayPal defender, but … of course you have to pay to accept credit cards. And where else are you going to accept payments of any kind with no fees and have protections for both seller and buyer? And they don’t keep all that money. They’ve got to pay the credit card company or the ACH fees when transfers occur. Those air miles credit card companies offer don’t pay for themselves.
And, in fact, a person can have TWO PayPal accounts, a Premier account and a Personal or FREE account, so that they can use their FREE account to move money through bank transfers for free anytime they want.
Monday, 5. June 2006
I agree with the last comment, but would it just be better to charge you a fee for the time you accept a CC payment? Why force the user to “upgrade” when they are happy with their PayPal Personal account? Yes, you can have two (or more) PayPal accounts – Personal and Premier, but you can’t connect them to the same bank account. So now you need to have two (or more) banks. Kind of gets confusing. Don’t you see that you are being strong-armed by PayPal here?
Wednesday, 21. June 2006
I am a bit confused. According to this link from paypal, https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-pop-fees-outside , you don’t have to pay any fees for buying from your Premier or Business account.
PayPal charges Premier and Business accounts to receive payments.
Send Money: Personal Account- Free
Send Money: Premier/Business Account- Free
Am I missing something here?
Thanks,
Donna
Wednesday, 21. June 2006
You are right that it is free to send money from either account. The part you are missing is that you can no longer receive funds for free once you switch to a Premier or Business account. Once you have “upgraded” you pay 2.9 % + $.30 for anything that comes into your account (even other PayPal Personal transfers). No wonder eBay was so eager to buy PayPal!
Friday, 6. October 2006
I have a Premier PayPal account, and oddly enough I do receive payments that are not charged any fees. I want to know how this happens. I have received payments for services rendered and from Mavishare that I received in full, no fees. However, my e-book sales and SOME of my services-rendered work (I’m a writer) payments ARE charged fees. I would like to know the method someone can pay me that does not incur charges on my part. (So I can encourage others to pay me the same way!) Any ideas???
Monday, 9. October 2006
Hi Sandra,
Your post motivated me to reexamine and rewrite parts of this PayPal article for clarity. But I still don’t have an answer for you about why you are not being charged the standard fee every time you receive funds into your PayPal Premier account. I wonder if a closer inspection of those payments would turn up any other similarities. For example, are they all from the same person or did they all happen around a certain period of time? I am assuming you are located in the US, but even if this is not the case the fee system is roughly the same in Canada and Europe, so that really shouldn’t matter. The only exception to the fee schedule I am aware of is if the money was sent through Website Payments Pro or Virtual Terminal, but both of those those still charge fees (they just offer different fee structures to sellers who sell either large quantities or big ticket items). Anway, let me know if you figure out this mystery. And, if it is a mistake, enjoy it while it lasts!
Thursday, 12. October 2006
Update: I just heard that you can actually email PayPal and ask for them to change your Premier account back to the free PayPal Personal account. Of course, this is not advertised by PayPal. Theoretically, if you don’t receive funds via credit card very often, you could just upgrade your account and then downgrade it when you are done with that transaction. This probably isn’t worth your time, but it is possible. I couldn’t find their email address, but here is PayPal’s phone number: (402) 935-7733. Notice it’s not a toll-free number, and wait times can be around 20 minutes (so this might be a call to make with you cell phone’s free nights and weekends plan).
There are other issues with PayPal that I will not get into here. I still use it occasionally because I can’t justify the expense of having my own merchant account. Just be aware that PayPal is not a bank, so they do not have to follow the same regulations as banks. More info here: http://www.paypalwarning.com/
Wednesday, 25. October 2006
The question I have is what credit cards, etc. are accepted by ‘free’ accounts with PP? I refuse to update and there are times I get the $$ without being told I had to upgrade.
Does anyone know the answer?
Wednesday, 1. November 2006
Carolyn,
Any time that someone transfers money to your personal paypal account and you are not charged for it then they are transferring the money directly from their bank accounts rather than using credit cards. Also, you can accept up to 5 credit/debit card payments a year via paypal with a personal account, but its something like a 4.9% charge instead of 2.9% charge which is what you would get with a premier/business account.
Sunday, 19. November 2006
They dont have to charge that much to transfer between 2 of their own accounts!! it costs them nothing!
Join eBay, register ebay, ebay registration, ebay uk, auction
eBay Registration
Join eBay
Wednesday, 29. November 2006
Original blog is correct. I even tried to state on my Ebay listing that I will take ONLY PAYPAL Bank account payments and not credit card, and guess what happened. they pulled my ebay listing!!! They said if I accepted paypal, I must accept credit card payments as well. Bastards! No merchant in the real world like accepting credit cards but Paypal does and now we know why.
Saturday, 2. December 2006
So are we basically screwed if we want to sell something on Ebay and want to use PayPal but not credit card?
Saturday, 2. December 2006
The only idea that seems to work is to temporarily upgrade your PayPal account to Premier and then call PayPal (402-935-7733) to have it changed back to a Personal account. This is not advertised anywhere on PayPal’s site, but it works. I can’t confirm being able to accept up to 5 debit/credit card transactions using PayPal Personal. Is this new? (If so it’s a step in the right direction.)
Monday, 4. December 2006
I have not been able to accept any credit card payments, so I am not sure about the 5 transaction limit mentioned here http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-fees-outside.
I do not show the paypal logo on my listings, but in the comments I say I have a paypal personal account and for that reason can only accept some kinds of payments (with a link to the paypal page explaining which). I do not think this is in violation of paypal policy (they have not suspended my account yet).
Tuesday, 5. December 2006
Why must this whole thing be such a cryptic process, PayPal? Geez. What a mystery. It’s one thing to be annoying but explicitly state it, but it’s another to be annoying and pretend like you’re not.
Tuesday, 5. December 2006
I agree it’s cryptic, in a sneaky, intentional way. I think many eBay users are annoyed that PayPal’s “Personal vs. Premier” system pushes them to upgrade, but few people speak up about it. Now that this article is getting a fair amount of traffic, I would love it if someone from PayPal would weigh in on this. (But, alas, that would not be in their best financial interests so I doubt it will happen.)
Wednesday, 6. December 2006
Yeah, I just stepped into this one, like a flaming bag of dog crap left on the porch.
I recently got a credit card payment from an ebay auction, and it’s sitting there in my account waiting for me to accept it. I found a screen that says that I can accept 5 credit card payments per month, and I have 5 left, but what happens when I click on the Accept button? It takes me to a page that describes how to upgrade to Premiere, with a single button to Upgrade.
So on one hand there is a page saying I can Accept the payment, but on the other hand there is no way to do so on the web site. Unless I upgrade.
This is beyond sneaky… Beyond merely underhanded. This is fradulent. This is deliberate, blatant deception. And I have no doubt that they can somehow wriggle out of ever being called on it.
My buyer seems cool with paying with a personal account instead of a credit card, which is good. On the other hand, the site doesn’t seem to be able to let me Deny the credit card payment either — that button is greyed out. So I don’t know what will happen there. Maybe I’ll just send him the stuff and trust him to send a personal payment after the credit card acceptance time runs out. Or maybe I’ll just upgrade, accept the payment, and then cancel the account forever. I don’t know that I want to keep associating with a company that is just one ethical step above spammers and malware vendors.
Not much else to do about this, but you can bet that I will be spending the next week telling everyone I know to stay the hell away from Paypal…
Monday, 11. December 2006
A follow-up:
I spoke to someone at Paypal (and they do have a toll-free number which you can find if you search around on the web a bit)(well OK, it’s 1-888-221-1161).
I was told that the “5 free credit card transfers per year” thing, which shows up when I click “View Limits” on my personal account page, is “a bug.”
That’s right, their web site tells you false information in order to persuade you into the upgrade trap, and instead of a lie, it’s “a bug.”
I am finished with this fradulent company. Steer clear.
Tuesday, 19. December 2006
My husband and I sold a few items on eBay for a little extra Christmas cash. We have a Personal PayPal account. ONE of the several buyers paid with credit card; no problem right? After all, PayPal altered the US version of it’s customer agreement policy on 10/12/06, and it now states clearly “Personal account holders may receive up to 5 credit card, debit card or Buyer Credit funded payments per 12 month period without having to upgrade to a Premier or Business account”
WRONG!
Like Kreniigh discovered upon receipt of a credit card payment, we still have no option but to UPGRADE. We don’t even have an option to deny the payment; the “deny” button is grayed out and non-click-able.
Before totally loosing my cool, I did some digging around on PayPal’s website to see if maybe they “snuck” the “eBay exception” into their policies somewhere. No sense flying off the handle at some change that was clearly spelled out. But nope. Nothing there that I could find (and I looked in all the obvious as well as several not-so-obvious places).
From there, a call was placed to PayPal’s customer service. What a waste of time. She simply told me it was eBay’s policy. “But aren’t you PayPal?”, I ask. “Well, yes…but…” I asked if I could deny the payment. She told me no. So I then ask her point blank if we were essentially being forced to upgrade. “I guess you could look at it that way”, she tells me, then recommended I call eBay and talk to them, because “maybe they could help”.
Fine. Off I go to eBay. Couldn’t immediately find a phone #, so I gave their live online help a try. There I spoke w/a rep who advised me the upgrade requirement was eBay’s response to the many customers who have complained they bid on an auction where the Seller states they take PayPal, only to discover the Seller doesn’t take one type or another of PayPal payments–such as credit cards.
That’s all well and good, I guess. But what about PayPal’s 5-per-12-month limit? I asked him that, and he didn’t really have a good answer for me. He simply suggested that I “suggest” to eBay that they adopt that policy.
Indeed, something seriously stinks here. EBay knows full well what it’s doing. It owns PayPal (according to the eBay rep I talked to), so it stands to reason that PayPal clearly knows what it’s doing, too: together, the two are strong-arming people into a position where they have NO choice but to upgrade to an account that’ll put even more money into big business coffers.
GRRRR! I’m not the type person who stirs trouble just for the sake of stirring trouble. But I DO take real issue with things like this. So, if anyone else has experienced similar problems, feel free to give me a holler. Maybe there isn’t anything we can do about it…then again, maybe there is? It’s worth some serious consideration.
Tuesday, 19. December 2006
Kymberly,
Your experience with PayPal seems to be more and more common these days. I wrote about this just over 6 months ago, and have gotten more feedback on this than any other article I have ever written.
FYI: eBay DOES own PayPal. There is definitely some strong-arming going on here with the upgrade policy you are talking about. eBay is basically making money twice (once on the sales fees and again on the payment fees). I question how PayPal can be looking out for my best interests when it is owned and controlled by eBay. PayPal used to be a good idea because it was independent. Now I am looking for other options.
Tuesday, 19. December 2006
Here’s the adddress for the Silicon Valley Better Business Bureau:
http://www.bbbsilicon.org
I’ve filed a complaint and am waiting to see what happens.
Wednesday, 27. December 2006
Hello,
What about some class action? I was offended by the same bussiness practices. I’m not sure what they do is legal.
damian
Thursday, 28. December 2006
Here is a very nasty email from paypal support. Just goyt it this morning. Gun slingers. They changes the policy w/o letting people know. In summary is this legal or it starts to mount toward another class action agains paypal?
Thank you for contacting PayPal name is Billy, I am sorry to hear about the situation regarding your inability to deny a credit card funded
payment, and understand your frustration and concern over this issue. I will be happy to assist you with your questions.
upon further research on your PayPal account and reviewing all the conversations you have had with the previous agent, I found that you
have a personal account with PayPal, which is the most advisable type of account intended for online frequent buyers or shoppers. A personal account is
not intended for sellers, and you will be charged
4.9%+.30cents on every payment that you receive. As per eBay policy, when you sell on their website, you must be willing to accept all types of
payment including credit card payments.
Note: If you offer PayPal as a payment option on eBay, you must accept all forms of PayPal payment including credit cards. If you have a Personal
account, you must be willing to upgrade to a Premier or Business account if you receive a credit card payment for your eBay item. There is no
option to deny the payment. If you do not upgrade your account to accept the credit card payment, there is a risk that your buyer will report you for a
Seller Non-Performance violation. Sellers may not communicate to buyers that they will or will not accept specific forms of PayPal payment.
Please be advised that there is a common notion that when you upgrade to a premier account, you will be charged more, which is wrong. Compared to
a personal account, you are being charged 4.9% + .30 cents for every payment that you receive, whereas when you upgrade to a premier account, you
will be charged only 2.9% + .30 cents. Please give us a call back at 1-402-935-2050 for further clarifications.
It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal.
Sincerely,
Billy
PayPal Community Support
PayPal, an eBay Company
Thursday, 28. December 2006
Charging 4.9% is PayPal’s new way of dealing with those of us who don’t want to “upgrade” our PayPal Personal accounts. But I am trying something different. I have a one-day auction for a PS3 running on eBay right now, and I am using BidPay. Signing up at http://www.bidpay.com took me about 2 minutes. It costs a flat 2.5% and accepts Visa and MasterCard. In a lot of ways, BidPay reminds me of what PayPal used to be before it was purchased by eBay. BidPay also gives you the HTML to copy/paste into your eBay auction so a BidPay button appears on your listing, making it easy for buyers to pay you. Just make sure you uncheck all the “PayPal Preferred” garbage, and you are done! (On my listing I also included a quick explanation of why I chose not to use PayPal.) I’ll let you know how the auction works out, especially compared to all the auctions for the same item using PayPal. I realize this doesn’t solve all the problems people are having, but at least it’s a way to set up an alternate method for receiving credit card payments without losing your free PayPal Personal account.
Monday, 1. January 2007
Kreniigh—thank you for the BBB info. I too will be filing a complaint. Hopefully others who have experienced this situation will as well, if they haven’t already. While one or two isolated reports probably matter not in the grand scheme of things, multiple ones from multiple people, all for similar reasons, perchance will warrant further investigation into PayPal/eBay and their questionable business practices.
Tom–Thanks for the BidPay info. Please do let us know how it turns/turned out.
I honestly don’t balk at PayPal charging Personal Users a fee to accept a credit card payment. Most businesses in the world today have to pay some sort of fee to be able to take them. What is wrong is how PayPal can charge a fee for EVERY payment you receive if you have a Premiere or Business account, vs only charging you a fee if you take a credit card payment as a Personal account holder. Combined with how eBay ties into all of this; being as how eBay already gets their finger in the pie when you list and sell an item (which I don’t begrudge), then turns around–via PayPal–and gets another piece of the pie. (Cooperate greed…UGH!)
Damien–Very interesting letter you received. (HA!) I couldn’t help but notice that what Billy at PayPal failed to mention is that as a Personal account holder, you are only charged 4.9% + .30 *if* you get a credit card payment (provided of course the credit card payment isn’t a payment someone sent you for an item you sold on eBay; but I digress) vs having to pay a % plus a base fee for EVERY payment you get when you’re a Business or Premier account holder. I’d far rather pay 4.9% +.30 on the occasional credit card payment than put money into PayPal’s coffers EACH and EVERY TIME someone sends me money for anything (be it for something I’ve sold, a service I’ve performed, or my folks sending me money for the grandchildren).
I am seriously wondering about a class action suit. Again, I’m not one to stir up trouble just for the sake of stirring up trouble. I tend to let little things slide, in both my personal and the business world; and when something is a problem big enough that I feel it needs addressed, I’m more than happy to seek out some kind of amicable agreement. However, that’s only possible when the person–or entity–involved is willing to do the same. PayPal and eBay are giving no indication that this is something they want to do. This leave me, and others like me, two choices: Do something and take the chance that we can accomplish something worthwhile–or do nothing (except perhaps continue to whine and grumble amongst ourselves) and know with certainty we will accomplish nothing worthwhile.
Monday, 8. January 2007
I just wanted to add that although you can call and downgrade your account, there is a limit to how many times you can do this. I don’t remember what it is, either 1 or 2 times, and then your stuck with premier. Also, I agree they should not charge the same fee (if any at all) on non-credit card payments. Ebay basically makes out big time, they get my insertation fees, selling fees and then the fee because I use PayPal. Here is another way they get you. If you use your PayPal account to pay for and print your shipping labels you think you saved money right? Wrong. Now that you do it that way, you don’t get cash back. If you go to usps.com and use your PayPal card you get the cash back bonus. So if you have a PayPal ATM Card (works like credit) go to the post office or use USPS.com. I know it’s not a lot of money, but every penny adds up. I love seeing my cash back bonus. I actually try to only use my card to spend the money in that account, so I can get back part of the fee they charged me. Just my two cents.
Thursday, 11. January 2007
OH AND IT GETS EVEN BETTER. I’ve managed to remain a regular (non-fee paying) paypal user for 8 years no kidding. Now, it turns out that in recent (2006) change in PayPal policy, if you receive credit card funds as the result of an ebay sale, where it used to say
ACCEPT (upgrade) | DENY
Now the DENY button is DISABLED. You are not *allowed* to deny money sent as a result of an ebay auction anymore, because that would “violate your seller agreement”.
Yes, PayPal is saying they will not allow you to deny a payment because it would violate your Ebay seller agreement when you said you would accept paypal payments.
Does anyone know of a way around this? What if I just don’t accept the payment for 10 days? Will it automatically go away?
Thursday, 11. January 2007
BIDPAY UPDATE
I recently posted an eBay auction for a PS3, and I made it clear that I would not accept PayPal. Instead I put a BidPay button at the bottom of my listing. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to sell my item because there were about a gazillion other, identical PS3 listings. But everything went just fine with BidPay. I was able to accept Visa or Mastercard, and I didn’t have to deal with the $500 per month limit that is imposed on PayPal Personal accounts (sigh – yet another way eBay/PayPal pushes you into upgrading to PayPal Premier). So for this one auction I paid 3.25% to use BidPay and avoid a forced PayPal upgrade. I can still use PayPal Personal for free for accepting smaller amounts as long as there are no credit cards involved. That works for me!
Saturday, 13. January 2007
Paypal’s response to my BBB complaint was, basically, “yes, we know we said 5 credit card payments are allowed per year, but we *meant* to say that they can’t be from eBay.” I suspect that, if pushed, they will point at eBay and say, “don’t blame us, it’s *their* policy!”
My response:
“It’s outrageous for Paypal to expect that reforumlating their policies after the fact is sufficient to absolve them in this. Their excuse is, basically, what we promised you on the web site wasn’t exactly true; here are some after-the-fact additions to the rules.
“At this point, the only response I will accept from Paypal is a change in policy. Allow personal account users to accept credit cards and charge them a higher rate on credit card transactions; or allow premium users to accept personal transfers at a lower rate; or — simplest of all — stop colluding with eBay to prevent sellers from stating that they will accept personal transfers but not credit cards via Paypal.
“Absent such a policy change, I refuse to concede any sort of satisfaction in this matter. I look forward to the next class action suit.”
Awaiting a response…
Friday, 26. January 2007
I had one more back-and-forth with Paypal on the BBB claim.
I really didn’t expect them to change policy as I suggested in my last response. Instead, they fell back on the “Terms of Service” argument. I’d had a feeling that that would be where things would end up; it’s a voluntary business situation, after all, and as underhanded and manipulative as they’ve been in steering people away from Personal accounts, they’re not breaking the law as far as I can see.
The only point of contention I had left was the fact that the account information page does not say that the five transactions per month cannot be from eBay. I don’t know if this is still the case, since I cancelled my account.
There is apparently no mechanism with the Better Business Bureau to leave “negative feedback” for a company. If the consumer is not satisfied by the company’s response, eventually the BBB will close the matter and mark it as “consumer satisfied.” It appears that “Better Business” means “not blatantly breaking the law.”
I’m pretty sick of this whole thing. I’ll be looking into BidPay if I decide to sell online in the future, and warning everyone I know about Paypal.
Friday, 16. February 2007
Wow, this whole issue is such a stinking mess. Deceptive, corporate collusion intended to rob us. So after I call Paypal and have my account downgraded back to a personal account, how can I inform potential buyers that they need to pay with a direct bank account funded payment, instead of a credit/debit card payment, without getting my ebay account suspended? Can I send a message via the ebay messaging system to the buyer at the instant the auction ends, saying that I need them to pay with the direct bank account payment or will ebay “see” the message in the system and suspend my account?
Saturday, 17. February 2007
Ryan,
Apparently, based on eBay’s Seller Agreement, you must accept credit cards if you use PayPal. This means if you choose to use PayPal Personal and the winning bidder on your auction wants to pay with a credit card, you *must* upgrade your PayPal account. You are stuck at this point. The way eBay sees it, you made your choice to upgrade when you decided to use PayPal to sell. If you don’t sell very often (like me) you can take the risk, upgrade if you have to, and then call 1-888-221-1161 to have your PayPal account downgraded to “Personal” after the auction has been paid for. But this only works a few times, and it’s a lot of hassle, even for someone who doesn’t sell a lot.
In my opinion, a better option is to only use PayPal Personal to send money to friends, etc. That way you can still enjoy all the “no-fee-money-transferring” goodness that PayPal used to be known for.
I would use BidPay for any kind of selling. I used it on my last auction, and it didn’t seem to hurt my ability to sell at all. Yes, it means no more receiving eBay payments for free (BidPay costs 2.5% whether they pay by credit card or not), but at least BidPay has a reputation for looking out for the seller’s best interests.
So if I have to start paying fees every time money hits my account, I would rather pay BidPay than PayPal. Think about it. Which company is looking out for you as a seller? Not PayPal. Because PayPal is really just eBay. And eBay already has lots of sellers. If there is ever a problem, they will favor the buyer over the seller — the seller is guilty until proven innocent.
But there may be a better option for eBay sellers that trumps BidPay and PayPal both. Apparently, they only charge the seller a fee when they are paid with a credit card. I’m writing a new article about that one, so stay tuned…
Wednesday, 21. February 2007
So… has anyone ever accepted a credit card payment from PayPal that WASN’T from eBay? Just out of curiousity.. because I am stuck in this situation right now where a buyer did not read my auction carefully, and paid with a credit card. I’ve been told by PayPal that I don’t have to upgrade, but I still can’t figure out how to do that. I’ve sent them another email, so I am waiting for a response. If they email me back with that bullshit about it can’t come from eBay I’m going to tear into them because there is NOTHING on there that says that!
The funny thing is, if this were any other retail store, its pretty much the same as reading fine print, and we the seller would be in the right. This policy just encourages people not to read carefully. I always made it explicitly clear that I only accepted bank transfers, big font, bold and in the payment instructions and STILL people paid with credit cards. So tell me who is being difficult then? A lot of business don’t accept credit cards simply because of the fee. Or they require a minimum. If I sell something for $5 buxs, there is the initial $0.40 fee, plus 5.25% from eBay (not to mention if i opt for eBay’s “extra” tools), plus 2.9% + $0.30 from PayPal, it’s just ridiculous. I sell on occasion to make a few bucks and I feel like eBay + PayPal just rip it away.
Seriously, if PayPal would only charge when we are accepting credit card payments, shoot! sign me up! But the simple fact that it is on EVERY transaction is just greedy.
Friday, 23. February 2007
The way Paypal can get away with this is that they have every account use credit-card as the default payment method, unless your account is verified with your bank account.
I’ve been selling under a so-called “Business” account for a long time now because of having to upgrade. Its now getting to the point where the Paypal fees are really affecting the overall profit because the huge amount of eBay sellers now and increased costs.
I’m looking to setup a seperate personal account as my default paypal account. But if someone pays by credit-card, I suppose I’m still stuck as I dont think theres a way of using my EXISTING business account to accept the payment if it has already been credited to my personal account?
“But there may be a better option for eBay sellers that trumps BidPay and PayPal both. Apparently, they only charge the seller a fee when they are paid with a credit card. I’m writing a new article about that one, so stay tuned…” – I’m looking forward to that one Tom!
But for now; IF YOU ARE A BUYER WITH A CERTIFIED PAYPAL ACCOUNT AND HAVE REGISTERED YOUR CREDIT CARD, PLEASE AMEND YOUR SETTINGS TO “PAY BY INSTANT BANK TRANSFER” – From this eBay guide: http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Avoid-paypal-charges-for-accepting-payments_W0QQugidZ10000000000089726
Friday, 23. February 2007
Here is the link to that article I wrote this week: http://www.computers.net/2007/02/paypal_alternat.html. I hope it is useful to you. Whatever you do, just remember you have other options than PayPal.
Saturday, 3. March 2007
I just been victim of the same Paypal fraud. What a shame, im just the average joe trying to sell a computer game on ebay, eff off paypal, you scammers.
Monday, 23. April 2007
I was just told I had to upgrade to Premier to accept an eBay credit card payment. One other problem I’ve run into is you can’t have two paypal accounts linked to the same bank account. Paypal wouldn’t let me link to my bank account because my husband had already linked his paypal account to our bank account. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a way around it?
Friday, 25. July 2008
I was scammed by paypal this way as well. I think we should call it what it is, a FRAUDULENT business practice.
Paypal sells itself like a checking account, and then for the convenience of accepting one credit card transaction, is charging its customers for every financial transaction as if it was a credit card transaction. This is Unethical and should be illegal.
Sunday, 14. December 2008
Tax. Deduction.
Thursday, 19. February 2009
You all realize of course that you can use PayPal for more than just Ebay?
I have the premier account and accept credit cards for many other things.
I can even email someone a link so they can pay me online with a credit card,
which has nothing to do with Ebay … in fact, I rarely sell or buy on Ebay.
If you don’t like PayPal, don’t use Ebay. There are other auction sites to use.
If you have your own online store, you can choose to use Authorize.net,
PayPal, or any of the other 20 Credit Card Merchants. They all charge fees,
and some way more than others. Most have a monthly fee whether you
use them or not. That’s why PayPal is nice … only fees for each transaction.
I do see your point about not being “up front” with the service upgrades.
That is something that should be clear to even the non-tech people, and
they should address that issue.
It’s a lot like Microsoft … if you don’t like them, use something else.
Nobody is forcing you to patronize their services or companies.
Sunday, 1. March 2009
Thanks for your insightful comments Max. It’s real nice that you don’t use Paypal for Ebay buying/selling, but for the other 99.999% of the population that’s pretty much all it’s used for.
You are correct about being free to use other companies, but that seems a bit redundant as it was pointed out maybe 30 times already.
Friday, 27. March 2009
After looking through some of the rules by the Federal Trade Commission. This reeks of bait and switch. But unfortunately since they are a major corporation they are exempt.
Monday, 8. June 2009
They’re a credit card processor; they NEED to charge these fees, because they pay fees to the credit card companies every time they accept a payment. They can’t simply keep the fees all on eBay, because PayPal is used for other things, too. They charge eBay fees for the convenience of eBay, and PayPal fees for the convenience of PayPal. It’s that simple. Never before has a credit card processor become so trustworthy in the eyes of buyers, and eBay has every right to charge every dime for what they worked hard to create and build, through programming, research, and marketing. There are alternatives for sellers, alternate credit card merchants. They’re not as easy to use, sure. EBay spent money integrating well with PayPal, so if you want the convenience, pay for it.
Tuesday, 9. June 2009
@ Fhqwhgads You have missed the point. I am not against paying for services, but I like choices. The folks at eBay have made it nearly impossible to list an item without using PayPal as the payment method. All I’m saying is that things were better for the consumer when the two companies were separate. If PayPal is such a good service, why not let it be selected on its own merits rather than twisting the consumer’s arm.