Paypal fees discussion

That is exactly the behavior with which I, and many others who have already posted in this thread, take issue. By using PayPal's service, the seller is expected to pay the fees. If you don't want to lose money, you need to charge more for the item. Period. It should be reflected in your asking price, not tacked on as an added expense above and beyond the asking price.

When you go into a brick-and-mortar store, the shopkeeper doesn't make you pay the fees that they incur when you use a credit/debit card. In order to cover their expenses, they charge more at retail than what that same item would be at wholesale. Why on earth should it be any different when you're a private seller? Business is business, regardless of how you conduct it. PayPal fees are the responsibility of the seller as a part of doing business. I know I'm not alone in hating it when a seller tacks on the "oh yah lulz +PP fee" when browsing the marketplace. I don't care how prevalent it is, it violates the TOS. Stating it upfront in a sales thread is incredibly tacky, and sours me from purchasing from that seller.

 

Just throwing it out there too, that I absolutely do not buy from people who tell buyers to calculate their own paypal fee into the price on DoA, even it's something I really want. People who are trying to sell stuff in the marketplace might keep this in mind -- I click back immediately if I see 'Add your Paypal fees plz!' in a sales post. Particularly if you're making the buyer calculate the fees on an item you already have a set price for... I see it as ridiculously lazy to make a buyer go out of their way to determine how much they are supposed to pay.

To emphasize how much I refuse to pay a seller's fees -- If there was an item I wanted on the marketplace for $55 with no fees, and that same item was somewhere else in the marketplace for $45 with paypal fees, I would definitely go for the $55 one, even though the paypal fees would definitely amount to less on the other listing.

For me it's more about the fact that someone is blatantly advertising in their sales listing, 'HEY! I'M BREAKING PAYPAL'S RULES! BUY FROM ME ANYWAY!' I can't trust people like that.

 

I browse the marketplace regularly and I see people tacking on PP fee's all the time. Personally, if it's something I really want, I put up with it because I really want that item. I've sold lots of things and never asked for paypal fee's to be covered by the buyers. Though I have had plenty of people to buy things from me and generously include paypal fee's with payments.

DoA is not going to enforce the PayPal TOS so it's up to individuals to make the choice to deal with someone who blatantly charges the fee's or to buy from someone who doesn't charge at all. The topic I am most interested in is group orders where the host is handling a considerable amount of money and multiple transaction via PayPal. If it's "wrong" to ask for Paypal fee's for selling privately, then shouldn't it be "wrong" to ask for Paypal fee's when you take it upon yourself to host group orders?

 

I would think that if a person is hosting a group order, the people who pay the person hosting would reasonably be able to put "money owed" in the Personal tab for Paypal. Because that's the truth - they are ordering something from a company and expecting someone else to front the cost, ergo, they owe the GO host money.

 

Interesting, as I have seen plenty of group orders where the host asks for PayPal fee's. I guess you'd have to chalk it up to people not fully understanding how to use PayPal effectively. Then again... it seems like this would also be a method people would utilize when selling items privately.

Edit: When a transaction goes wrong, depending on what type of payment was sent, it would make it difficult if not impossible to get your money back through PayPal?

 

If you pay someone with the personal tab though you have no recourse through paypal if the Go person runs off with the money.

So a lot of people pay go ahead and pay the fees so that protects the buyer. Some people spend alot of money on go or splits. I have bought 200.00 worth of things in the last four months with splits and I paid the fees each time to protect myself.

 

Certainly not. The intended purpose of paypal's fees for sellers is because sellers use Paypal's service for monetary gain and they pay a fee for the convenience.

You do take it upon yourself to host a group order, but you do not stand to profit from it. There's absolutely no reason someone hosting a group order should be tacked with the fees when they aren't in it for a profit (and in fact, most people hosting group orders usually loose money in some shape or form anyway, either on shipping supplies, gas to go to the post office, etc). Generally if all of the paypal fees were burdened on someone hosting a group order, particularly a large one, the host may end up paying more money than they would have if they had just ordered individually from the company paying for shipping themselves.

To sum it up -- Paypal fees are for those who profit. GO hosts do not make a monetary profit. (And hopefully no one considers the money being saved on shipping a profit, as it should be mutual across all participants).

 

I think the number of group order hosts would drop dramatically if people didn't pay the fees and the host had to foot the bills.


Some people who aren't really aware of how paypal works will argue with you too. I had one lady in group order (before personal tab) argue with me about the paypal fees. Even though I told her I had a premier account that charged fees for everything at the time.

 

I don't think I understand the PayPal fee's = profit.

I sell A for $1,000. Buyer pays me via PayPal and I end up with only $970 assuming the fee is $30. It would be a loss in my pocket. If I charge the fee then it would cover the $30 loss and I would get the $1,000 in full.

I understand this by using various paypal calculators. Usually, the calculators ask you what amount you want after the fee's and tell you how much to send.

 

Paypal is a business, too. If they determine that someone is using their Paypal account to make a profit, they add a fee to cover their own costs. Credit card companies do the same thing to retail businesses - every time someone pays with a credit card, the business gets charged a fee. It is a common business practice to make sellers pay for the ability to make their business transactions easier.

 

PayPal charging fee's to make profit? Yes, but I mistook it for sellers charging fee's to make profit. lol Sorry.

 

Paypal charges their fees, and it is against their TOS for a seller to charge extra to cover the cost for the fees. However, it is a common practice for sellers, both here on DoA and on many other sites, to do just that so that they get a bigger chunk of their profit.


Edit: Unless I just misunderstood what you said in the last post. ^^;

 

As a third year business economics major, things like this are things that crop up regularly.

Many laws and such are written with the intention of putting usage fees on either the buyer or the seller. You can see clear examples of this in U.S. tax law. The government will tell businesses or buyers that one of them has to pay a tax. Of course, if the buyer has to pay the tax, they pay the tax. If the seller has to pay the tax, they jack up the price to cover the tax. So it doesn't matter what the law or what the rules say - no one is going to follow them anyway, and they can't currently be forced to.

That said, most sellers on the Marketplace are never going to foot the Paypal fees if they know they don't have to. If they don't charge you for them directly, chances are they're already included in the price.

This is actually a huge problem in the field of law and economics, so... it's unfortunately not limited to our hobby.

 

I know this sounds silly. But I'm more likely to actually pay the fees for the seller if he or she is a genuinely nice person. I mean if someone was basically buying my doll a narky manner I'm more likely to say "Uh... it will be $410 if your going to do it by fees" even if the fees were $425.00. As long as they made a contribution.
I have become more fond of listing an item as say $440. Then if someone was to purchase a way that did not use fees deduct the amount that I have added on and give the buyer a discount. Hence buyer goes "yess!" and I go "Phew.. no fees this time". But I dont tell them that I sneakily charge the other price to fees payers.
That sounds terrible doesn't it?
I never ever actually buy the +x amount fees dolls. It just spells hassle to me..
and I hate paying fees when I sell something. >.<

 

personally, i am fine with paying fees if a seller asks me to. if they are an established seller and member of the forum, and they dont ask for me to cover fees, i will try to send it as a gift, to spare them the cost. i personally dont see what the issue is... i see paypal fees as the equivalent of an online sales tax, only the paypal fees dont change overnight like my state's sales tax does

 

Only, the fees are intended for the seller, and not the buyer. That's great if you have no problem sending along the fees as a gift, but then when you sell something, are you also fine with taking the intended hit in your sale? So you're totally fine with losing doubly? If so, then all the power to you, just saves everyone else the money.

 

i dont charge paypal fees and if its agaisnt the law then i dont think people should do it i agree just as more for the doll... it also makes me irritated when your charged fees it turns me away from a buyer i rather just pay one large bill without hearing about fees

 

As far as I know the OP and a lot of people on this thread have confused illegal with unethical. It is not against the law in the United States to charge fees for paypal purchases. It might be unethical and is against Paypal "Terms of service" to charge fees to a customer for an item.

Unethical and Illegal are totally different things!

I think .... it is not against the Paypal TOS to charge fees in the U.K. and I think Australia? because there were laws? or law suits banning that particular practice in those countries

 

While illegal and unethical are different things, I think they're very closely related in this discussion. There's the question a) of whether or not it's legal for sellers to charge buyers Paypal fees and b) if it's ethical for sellers to charge buyers Paypal fees. While it's not U.S. law that sellers MUST pay Paypal fees, it may be a matter of contractual law between Paypal and its users. Every person with a Paypal account digitally enters into a contract with Paypal and agrees - in the cases of certain non-exempt users - to not charge buyers the fee that Paypal takes out of the payment to the seller in order to profit from offering its services. As such, a user charging a buyer Paypal fees may be in violation of their contract with Paypal, and Paypal CAN take them to court for that, if they so choose. If the contract is found to be legal and valid, the seller will be in legal trouble.

Ethics seems to go hand in hand with this. Even though many users get away with charging Paypal fees to buyers, is it ethical for them to? Should they have to bear the cost of using Paypal, or should that cost be placed on the buyers?

Although it is undoubtedly an ethical question, it's also partly a legal question, as far as I can tell.

 

Like you said contract law and federal law are two different things. At the most the seller is guilty of breach of contract, not a an actual crime.


Frankly I can see the day coming that ebay gets taken to court for violating monopoly laws since it allows only paypal payments now, with some minor exceptions.