Paypal fees discussion

Well if someone doesn't say in their thread that they charge fees then I for one simply don't send them so I'm not quite sure why you'd be worried about getting stung that way... it's common sense really, why send someone extra to cover fees if they don't ask for it? Or better yet, if you're unsure it isn't difficult to ask if they include it in the price or not.

If someone wants to cover the fee within the price then I think that's fair enough, if a doll is priced at what you'd consider a reasonable enough price to make you consider buying why does it matter if the seller is covering the loss they'd make on fees within that price?

 

If you've sold things through paypal, and the buyer's paid correctly (ie no personal payments) then you'll get a net payment (which is what they've sent), the paypal fees paid under that, and your overall money you've been paid.
As a buyer though, you won't see these paypal fees pop up, as they don't have much to do with buyers.

Inmylove, I think I understand you in one way. Are you saying that people should think twice because there are sellers who don't state they charge a fee yet demand you pay up when you pm them for a definite sale? That's definitely true in certain cases, yes, but not enough to tar all sellers like that with the same brush.

I would always assume if they don't ask for fees, don't pay for it. I understand getting really annoyed at a potential sale only to have the seller pm me with "Personal Payments only! or include PP fees! Teehee!"

 

I suppose so but depending on the item, fees can get very high. Most likely if the item is an offers item or especially an auction item those fees are going to be high. As a seller I'd rather be upfront about everything rather than the buyer thinking I'm just trying to make an extra buck off of them and padding costs. As a buyer too, I know I would love the option of saving the extra cash (which can be even more than 4% in fees if international transactions and currency conversions are involved) and paying personal or just knowing that that extra cost of the item is going to fees and not padding the sellers pocket. Plus paypal doesn't just charge fees on the item but the total costs which include shipping as well. Of course you can calculate paypal fees for that too but I don't think its very good practice as a seller to quote a buyer one thing for shipping and have the package showing up with another price on it. Meh, maybe its just me but I prefer to be upfront.

Then I suggest you only pay by credit card or only purchase dolls on Ebay via paypal. Paypal only offers you money-back-guarantee protection on qualified Ebay transactions only. All other purchase transactions not via Ebay you only get your money back if you win your case AND if that seller has funds in their paypal account. Other than the seller's paypal balance, paypal has no way of getting your money back. So its highly likely if the seller was in fact trying to scam you they would have transferred funds as soon as you paid and by the time you made your report their account would have been long cleaned out.
Paying with your credit card doesn't help you through paypal but often credit card companies are more likely to do charge backs for unsatisfied customers. So if you are buying off DoA and are paying non-cc (personal or purchase) you still aren't fully protected.

This is why I say if you think you can't trust someone, its best for you not to buy. We all take a risk of course but thats why we have feedback threads




@River & Adhara, I thinkkkk Inmylove was referring to people who don't say anything about paypal fees but its calculated listed price of the item. They mean that people shouldn't judge people who charge fees cause others could be doing it and including it in the price so the buyer just doesn't know. The buyer thinks the price they are paying is without fees when in fact the fees have just been pre-configured into the item price. So they aren't talking about people who pop up later with surprise fees, but people who include it but never mention it at all.

 

when i sell i absorb the fees ... its a small price for the security that paypal offers and its part of the TOS
if members started breaking the TOS here on DOA it wouldn't take long for them to be banned so why is ok to break the TOS of one site but not another?

 

I don't charge fees since I know people hate it and it's against TOS (yet I do buy from people charging fees). I have to say though, for smaller items such as clothes I have no problem eating the fees since it's such a small amount, but now that I'm selling dolls and really needing every penny I can make suddenly having to pay $24 in fees on a $800 doll seems like an awful lot (especially since I'm stuck with the oh-so-wonderful dollar-euro exchange course so I end up with less still>.>).

 

As a seller, I don't charge fees. If I decide the fees will be too much for me, then I will calculate it and tally it, in whole or in part, into the asking price to begin with. That way, no one gets upset.

 

I think thats a lovely way of dealing with the sticky problem Dancecat !!

 

This.
I don't charge fees. I don't like buying from people who charge fees. The fact that it's not allowed as per paypal's rules and people still do it bugs the heck out of me. It's completely unrealistic (unless the doll is limited, of course) to expect to get the exact same amount of money back.

 

If you click the personal tab in pp when buying and check the gift box... then the buyer pays the fees.
no math for you to figure out.
If you click the personal tab and check the money OWED... then NO ONE pays the fees.
Can't do this for every transaction one after the other... but for those stuburn moments when every penny counts.

 

If I was selling, I wouldn't charge the paypal fee~
But when buying, I like to cover the fee if possible. In my recent purchase to Luts, I had just barely enough to cover the main costs, so only had about 50 cents left which I threw in as well, but if I have enough leftovers I usually pay it.

Edit: May I add, my PayPal account is a studen account so the fees are far more lenient than full-access accounts.

 

Yeah, I refuse to charge paypal fees and will not buy from somebody who does. If the money were that big of an issue to me, I’d just raise the price of the item and hope it sells or/and hope that somebody will use a money order. It’s not very heartening to be bombarded with yet another expense which isn’t right in the first place.

 

And your point is? If the fees are 10% you get 90%. If the fees are 50%, you get 50%. The basics of the calculation remain the same.
Since when is it a crime to pay for a service? Putting an item for auction through the website of another and thus reach more potential customers than you would get with a yard sale is a service. Those fees are costs you make while selling, just like gas for a trip to a post office and packing material are additional costs.
It's silly to think you can keep 100% of what you make with a sale. Be glad you don't have to report every bit of money you make with private sales and that you don't have to pay tax over what little income you make that way.

Not only do I do that, but I also have additional insurance for cases someone tries to rip me off. Even a normal store can look legit after being around for several months or longer without any problems and then run off with the money at a certain moment. Not all decent looking people with good feedback are decent, but I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt. For those few rotten apples there are PayPal, my CC company, and my insurance company. I happily pay for a bit of extra security.

Why would that be a bad thing? A seller can ask whatever price they want to ask and a buyer can accept whatever price they want to accept. Does it really matter how a seller comes to a certain price? Does it really matter that with price $XXX a seller covers the expenses of packing material, taking the afternoon off to go to the post office, gas, a snack for during the trip, cleaning materials to make sure the items is clean before sending, some little trinket to add in the box to make the buyer feel special and appreciated, and PayPal fees? If a buyer likes price $XXX, they pay that price. If they don't like it, they won't pay it.
It's a different story to see something advertised for price $YYY and then read you have to pay additional fees too. That's annoying, because it means the seller rubs your nose into the fact you as a buyer have to pay for the services they as a seller want to use.

 

I've been paying paypal fees to sellers and wow.... now i'm going to reconsider that!!!!!
I thought it was a pretty standard practice, but when i sell, I always eat the fees as per the Paypal TOS.

I didn't really think about it before though....

 

LOL okay first off, I wasn't arguing against Inmylove's post, only offering clarification because what they said seemed to get misunderstood. But you said, "A seller can ask whatever price they want to ask and a buyer can accept whatever price they want to accept". Exactly, why should it matter then if there are extra fees or not? A buyer can accept whatever price, total price, they want. Honestly, I'd like to hear from one person that they didn't buy their dream doll, at a price they could afford, because they didn't like that the seller charged fees even though they didn't mind the total price. OR if they had the money to burn, wouldn't buy it because the seller charged fees. LOL no, that's absolutely ludicrous and I've seen too many a Sard and Williams sell on the MP with fees for that to be true.

Besides aren't fees still apart of the total price? I mean it doesn't make someone more or less virtuous if they tell you they add fees or if they just include it in the price Aren't fees still being charged? Really now, that just doesn't make sense to me. If $XXX and $YYY+fees equal the same price then really, what is the issue? The buyer is still paying for the service. I mean if the seller said they would accept money orders/cashiers check the buyer would have to pay the price for it.

Also, its contradicting how earlier in your post you said a seller should expect to pay fees for using a service and not make 100% but then later you say how they should just calculate their fees and anything else they want, into that price. So isn't them calculating it into the price going against them not expecting to make 100% back? Honestly, except for the case of limited dolls or a brand new never touched doll, the seller usually never expects to be making 100% back. They just want 100% of their asking price which is usually a good deal less then what they originally paid.

So is this really about how the virtue of sellers charging fees or you just not caring if they do, but not wanting to know about it?

 

I'm reading this thread from all the way back but I agree with Kiyakotari's way of thinking on the discussion of paypal fees. If the seller is giving other payment options other than paypal, then I think it's okay to charge a fee for paypal.

Another way of thinking this is the market demand. If the market demand for a doll is very inelastic, then most buyer's don't mind paying the fee whether it's stated implicit or explicit along with the cost. For example, if Volks Williams SD17 was selling for $1800 and the seller wanted $100 in fees, most people I would think wouldn't mind paying for it.

 

I don't think it's acceptable, the paypal fees are for the seller. The seller is supposed to pay paypal for using paypal.

 

I really, really don't see how this is allowed to go on. Paypal's TOS explicitly state that a seller is not allowed to charge extra to cover the cost of the Paypal fees. So people who charge $XXX amount of money PLUS the Paypal fees are breaking the Terms of Service for a site many of us depend on to conduct our online transactions.

I'm sure that if a Paypal official came through DoA, tried to initiate a transaction with a seller charging Paypal fees, and got the Paypal address of that seller, the seller would find themselves unable to use their Paypal account from then on. Why? Because what they are doing is something that Paypal does not allow, and can take away your account for. I don't know why a seller would risk something like that. The moment they get caught, their Paypal account can be shut down, and it would be no one's fault but their own.

Sorry if my opinions seem harsh, but that's the truth of the matter. I see no sense in buying from people who are breaking Paypal's TOS. I don't want to risk my money getting caught in the fray, the seller getting caught, and me not getting my item or service as a result.

 

Don't mind me but it's like jaywalking when you break Paypal's TOS explicitly stating that the seller isn't allow to charge a fee. It's very common not only in the DoA community but also every other community/forums I have been where the seller wants a fee charged. It's up to you as the buyer to make that choice of whether you want to risk it or not. If you don't agree with the practice, don't buy, as simple as that. I compare it to jaywalking because it is against the law to cross the street recklessly or when the light tells you otherwise. But everyone does it anyway. I'm sure Paypal knows it is going on because they've change a lot over the years in handling fees. Back then, it use to be that you couldn't make the transaction personal but use funds to avoid fees. Whether they are turning a blind eye to some transactions, or not to others, they do know and in some cases I've personally seen others get away with it.

The problem I think some people have with paypal fees is that it seems unscrupulous that a seller would ask for it.

 

Well, a seller could just tack on the associated PayPal fee's onto the item's price. How else is PayPal going to enforce this rule if they can't prove people are breaking it? Obviously, if someone's stating in their sales thread that PayPal fee's are additional, then that's really the only way one would get caught.

Say item A retails $300 and someone lists it for $309.26 but makes no mention or admits that the $9.26 is a PayPal fee. How difficult would it be to prove the extra price is a fee especially when they are not knowledgeable of the items retail value or second market value? It seems the only way to make sure no one is breaking this rule is to abolish the rule all together. Then PayPal wouldn't be making money... so it's just a round about argument.

What about Group Orders? It's ridiculous to expect a GO host to absorb the fee's associated with receiving funds. Then again, the GO host would be breaking the rule.

 

I think it's kind of obvious when someone tacks on a $9.26 fee. If you're going to factor the fee into the price, you round up. Probably to the nearest dollar mark. Then, people can't tell the difference. But saying "I'm going to charge you for Paypal fees" or tacking on the associated fee, down to the penny... It draws attention. That same $300+fee example you gave could reasonably be rolled up to $310, and no one would know the difference. No one would care, because it's not an obvious attempt to cover the cost of the fees.