Can anyone explain to me their new charges? I just bought a train set from ebay and the buyer now says that he is charged 1.9% and I have to pay that in addition to my bid. Does that mean I have to pay that every time I get money from someone with my account? Good thing I don't use it much. If that's the case can anyone tell me who else I can use to pay for auctions for free?

All the information about the changes is on the paypal site, and you should have received an explanatory email of you're a paypal member. Basically, starting in October, there will be a $500 limit every 6 months on funds you can receive in your account, or else you need to register for their fee-based account.
As far as the ebay vendor charging you extra, that's entirely up to them, and I consider it unusual. Most vendors who offer credit card payments don't charge the buyer an extra fee. If this "extra charge" wasn't clearly stated for paypal payments in the auction text, I would argue that you shouldn't have to pay any surcharge.

Thanks for the info. I never got an email from them about this. I am not really angry over it just confused. I looked at their web site but I thought I could get around the charge by sending my money to the ebay seller as a personal transaction and thus avoid the charge but it seems he is listed as a business account. It didn't make a whole lot of difference in the price but made me think twice about sending the payment in with a money order. I don't sell enough auction stuff to ever worry about the 500 per year charge to me but I'll have to watch spending so much on ebay from now on and I should do that anyway.

I apologize in advance for the length of this post:

The charge is for the sellers and you should not pay any extra charge unless it was clearly stated in the text of the auction that you would be responsible for it.

If you have received payments or have transfered money from a checking account into your paypal account and have a balance, and use these funds to pay for an auction, the seller is not charged the 1.9%. The fee is only charged on payments that were directly charged to a credit card.

According to an article I read today, Paypal is still operating in the red and they are trying new things to generate some profit. Aside from charging for credit card transactions, they are offering interest bearing accounts also to try and get their customers to leave money in their accounts. Also they only give the $5 sign up bonus if new members open an account with a $50 deposit.

I was a long time hold out from using Paypal, but had to give in at the request of many of my bidders. Now I am considering adding a $1 fee to Paypal users, to offset the extra fee I have to pay and the cost of Delivery Confirmation which Paypal requires. But if I decide to do that, I would include that info in the text of my auction, so the bidder knows exactly what the terms are up front.

Still not a bad deal, considering the cost of a money order, the trouble of going out to get it, and the extra time it takes to mail and be delivered.

But then again I may just add an extra 50 or 75 cents to every auction's shipping/handling charge to help offset the extra fees and make it less complicated.

This kind of tactic, making a service or product free and then after the service or product is in demand, to start charging is an old marketing ploy. Paypal would never charge the fee to the buyer or they would be out of business in a heartbeat. They charge the fee to the seller to make them look like the bad guy, if they don't absorb it. But after paying listing fees and final value fees to eBay, and now almost another 2% to Paypal, you're ging to see the cost of items go up, or people will stop offering lower cost items.

Feedback anyone?

Here's eBay's rule:

Credit Card Surcharges
An eBay seller may not charge a fee, often called a "credit card surcharge," when accepting credit card payments. This surcharge, which is an added cost to the buyer over and above the final sale price and shipping/handling, is not allowed under the laws of many states, including California. For more information, see:
http://www-s2.visa.com/fb/merch/biz/govt/surcharge.html http://www.mastercard.com/consumer/cust_serv.html

Looks pretty cut and dried to me.

Thanks jrlewis711, if I pass it along it will be in higher "shipping/handling" fees across the board, without singling out Paypal users. I am also looking into the other "paypal" type services out there. There are quite a few, though none as popular as Paypal.

Looks like X.com is hurting for money, which is why they have the Paypal charge now. I just got an email today saying they were closing down all their banking operations on December 1st. So...for all of you that opened an X.com account back when they were offering money to open an account- make sure you withdraw your money before then! X.com is saying they are continuing their Paypal business, but IMHO, it doesn't look good.