Paypal charging a fee for every sale... when did that start?
 

I use Paypal as a buyer much more than as a seller, but I noticed that all my sales have had some sort of small fee taken off the top. How long has this been going on? At first I thought it was only with credit card transactions, but now maybe I'm thinking it's because I upgraded to a "professional" account? Not sure, though.

Paypal has always charged a fee for the seller. It is 2.9 percent of the money you received per transaction plus 30 cents on top of that. Very nice of them to not even mention that. What more can you expect from an unscrupulous company?

You're absolutely sure they don't mention it anywhere? I seriously doubt that.

It's because you upgraded.

If you have a "personal" account, there are no fees..

Unless their policy has changed..I haven't used it in two weeks..

Dangit, I knew it. Maybe I can downgrade somehow.

Si senor. But if you request a downgrade...[and i'm serious here ;)] you'll NEVER. BE. ALLOWED. TO. DOWNGRADE. AGAIN.

Seriously.If you have two bank accounts, why don't you keep the "professional" one and open up another "personal" one..

I unfortunately only have one bank account. What are the benefits to being upgraded again? Credit card payments clear faster... anything else?

the only benefit that's of the most importance is the ability to accept credit card payments.

if you have a "personal" account, the buyer has to pay using funds from his/her PayPal account or Bank Account. NO credit cards.

that's as far as i've looked into it since I hardly use it..

It is mentioned. Their policy is clearly stated. I don't necessarily like the fees they charge, but what is "unscrupulous" is making statements that are based more on your misunderstandings than on facts.

P.S. - You are also wrong when you say that Paypal has always charged a fee for sellers. Originally, those with personal accounts with low activiy (I forget what the exact limit was - approximately $100 a month, IIRC) could accept any form of payment with no fee.

go to paypalsucks.com and you can see the many "unscrupulous" paypal stories.

Their fees actually aren't that bad for the service they provide, imho. If you're a personal account, free to send and recieve. Business/Premier, small fee to recieve, free to send. Much faster than waiting on a check and hoping it clears.
BJ's Warehouse Club leases credit card machines; I think their rates were around 1.5% plus .25/transaction. Don't recall if there was an additional equipment rental fee. And there is a cost, even to B&M stores, to accept credit cards. 2.9% plus 30c/transaction is very reasonable for what I get out of them.
Of course, I'm not a big business type person, i sell a couple things every month or so. The fees would hit me more if I sold thousands of things a month. Of course, if I did that, I would probably either A. get my own website or B. quit bitching about the relatively small fees Ebay and Paypal charge. I hate 'power sellers' who add in a 'Paypal service fee.' Not that it makes a difference, but I will never bid on anything from someone who does that. An ad in my little local PennySaver magazine costs 10.00 for three lines--I haven't paid that much in Ebay/Paypal fees ever, total. [This paragraph not aimed at anyone who's posted in this thread, just in general.]
The fees are easily accessible--Paypal.com, at the bottom, Fees. Personal account--Recieve funds, Free. Bus/Prem--the percentage plus.

Not to be a jerk, but you are wrong also. When paypal first started, it was totally free for all users. Their idea was to earn interest on the money which was supposed to always be moving through their system. Unfortunatley most people removed funds from their accounts as soon as it was recieved, making the amount of interest earned too little to run a business on. Another company, X.com, started around the same time quickly sold out to Paypal who then came up with the concept of Business and Premier accounts.

I use PayPal quite a bit with a personal account, and just tell buyers that they cannot pay using a credit card. It has never been a big problem, but PayPal is constantly trying to get me to upgrade.

I have a couple of big items to sell on ebay one that will sell for ~ $50 and one for ~ $175), I think I will downgrade to a personal account after that.

This is even better
 

Toss paypal out the window. Money orders are 100% safe. I order dvds online (Amazon) with money orders. Money orders never bounce, and clear faster than checks.

Re: This is even better
 

I'm not sure of your point. The question here is selling items not buying them. If you are only going to buy things, I can see almost no complaints using PayPal because there are no fees and it also is quicker and easier than going to get a money order and sending it out through the mail.

But the fees on PayPal for sellers do indeed suck, but they aren't that bad. I was kinda pissed when I first had to upgrade, but at this point I just don't give it that much thought.

dtcarson: Adding PAYPAL fees to the auction total, even if the seller clearly states this in the auction description, is against Ebay rules. I've had this happen a few times and after I pointed this fact out (politely), the seller backed off. If the seller refuses and you refuse to pay and are left a negative, I'll bet that Ebay will remove the feedback because of a rules violation on the sellers part. Of course, this is a hassle; I, too, won't bid on auctions where the seller adds a PAYPAL fee and says so. Most of the time, however, the seller simply adds the fee into an inflated shipping charge and gets around it that way.

I know; if it's egregious enough, and I find the report link, I'll report these sellers to ebay. But someone always buys from them anyway. I just don't bid on those items in the first place, unfortunately. And I have seen a massive increase in people who accept Paypal, including credit cards, charge like six bucks to ship one DVD [oh, that's the 'handling' fee.] Ripoff. It's not like ebay and paypal make it easy enough to run a business without overhead or business taxes or payroll, they've got to try to jerk another 40 cents out of me to cover *their* costs.

You can use your savings account as well - I have a business account (with fees) so I can accept credit cards, and I also have a personal account that I use for selling, and accepting cash.

Overall, it really works ok so far.

If the seller states the shipping fee in his auction, I don't see why this would upset you. Sellers often inflate the shipping cost to cutdown on the amount payed to Ebay. If you want to buy something for $20 and the seller is charging $1 shipping, then bid $19. If he is charging $10 shipping, then only bid $10. You spent the same amount of money. The sellers to watch out for are the ones that don't list how much they will charge for shipping. It is a sneak tactic. After the auction is over you find out they are over charging.

He's still getting the same money, but cheating Ebay. I'm not a huge ebay cheerleader, but all they are trying to do is scam Ebay, and I won't be a party to it. I know there's nothing 'technically' illegal with it [how does one prove what 'unreasonable' shipping fees are?], so all I can do is not bid on that item, not buy from that seller, oh yeah, and b**** about it here ; ).
I do heartily agree with you about people who don't give a shipping price or at least offer a quote--I won't deal with them either, too open to getting ripped off.

Here's a trick I've seen used to get around Ebay fees: A seller offered all seven Star Trek: TNG sets for a $1 "Buy It Now" price - and demanded (listed in the auction descripption) $499 for shipping! Sold 'em too. I hope the buyer understood the catch.

And 90% of buyers out there are going to ignore an auction that says "Money Orders Only". I know that I wouldn't bother bidding, if there was another seller for the same item that took credit card payments through PayPal.


The point of using PayPal is to make paying for an auction easy for your buyers. Making them go out to a money order location, pay the extra fee, put the m.o. into an envelope and send it along is NOT convenient. A buyer who pays me with PayPal will already have their item in hand before I've even received someone's money order.

Yes, PayPal's fees suck. But I find that this is more than offset by the number of extra bids you get by accepting this as a payment method.

Agreed--auctions that require MO or cashier's check, I don't bid on. Bank account-funded Paypal, check, credit card-Paypal, fine. Especially with the ridiculous prices a lot of people are asking for DVD's on ebay [I have seen regular, non-OOP dvd's that, after adding shipping costs, cost less brand new at my local Best Buy.]
But I actually don't think Paypal's fees 'suck.' Only the people who want to accept credit cards have to pay a fee to receive money; sending money is free, and if you've a Personal account, that also is free. Mastercard and Visa aren't free to accept either; every retailer who accepts them gets socked a percentage for the 'right' to accept them.
I think many people on the net have gotten used to having stuff 'free.' Sure, I like free stuff, but the money's got to come from somewhere. It's not like Paypal is charging 12% or something, like Half.com's 15% commission;' and both of those companies are offering something in return for that money [i've had stuff listed on Half.com for 1.5 years--to list those items on Ebay for that long would have cost much more than that in listing fees alone.] And I'm all for being a cautious and thrifty consumer, but come on, there's thrifty and then being a cheap bastid. If someone is about to sell a DVD set for $500, using someone else's website, probably someone else's pictures, and someone else's credit card acceptance machine, he should be willing to pay a small percentage of that for the right to use Ebay's name, build feedback ratings, etc. A single 3-line newspaper ad would cost more than that, and would only expose his item locally.
I try to stretch my dollars, but I am not averse to paying a fair price for a product or service. And I won't help someone profit, who is trying to cheat someone else out of their profits. Similar to those scumbag dvd pirates--they steal dvd's, then sell them on ebay for 10-40 bucks. If you're going to steal them, at least give them away, I can kinda see an 'anti-establishment' feeling in that [it's still wrong], but to profit from someone else's illegally gotten work, or to profit while scamming the entity that allows you to make that profit, is just wrong. And yes, it might not be 'illegal', but that's, imho, one of the things that's wrong with our society today--just because somethings not illegal, it can still be 'wrong,' and not enough people recognize that. [I didn't get caught! How bad can it be? I'm just feeling my oats, No one got hurt, It wasn't my fault, etc.]

I upgraded about a year ago. I ended up getting the paypal check card. I use it as a credit card and get 1 or 1.5% cash back everytime I use it as a credit card. So, by doing that, you kind of make back the fees you are charged.

Yes, the fees suck, but that is the way things work now. Nothing is really free anymore.

The paypal fee is part of doing business.

Many people (including me) won't bid on an item if paying via credit card or paypal isn't an option. Well, unless the deal is so terrific that I'll go through the hassle of getting a MO.

I just figure the cost into the price I charge.

I found them to be upfront about their policies from the beginning and have no complaint with them.

I also don't feel the need to scam ebay. Their fees are reasonable for the service they provide as well.

I'd like to get everything for nothing but that's just not possible. I try to take advantage of misprices, etc all the time, but don't feel ill-used if they don't get "honored".

That said, I think that $1 buy-it-now trick is way too close to the fraud line for my liking. I wouldn't recommend it.