You little Paypal rule breakers you :)

Spongebob

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I finally decided to open a Paypal account as its about the only way to buy lights here on CPF and lets face it there are some great deals. As I was talking to CS at PP I asked what the deal was with people asking for a 3% fee when using credit card PP purchases and she threw a fit! Said it was against the rules to ask for those fees and that it should be added to the asking price. Seems like flashaholics should be held to the highest moral standards and I find this practice to be simply unaceptable :shakehead
 

Lurveleven

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If the seller have two different accounts, on for receiving cash paypal and one for CC paypal, then I find it ok if the seller operates with a cash paypal price and you will have to pay more if using CC paypal. However if the seller only have one paypal account then he should operate with one price that includes the fees.

Sigbjoern
 

Brighteyez

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You're absolutely right and so is the person at eBay/PayPal.
The people here should be held to the same requirements as eBay sellers and retail stores (who are also prohibited from surcharging for credit card purchases.) All of the sellers should just raise their prices by 3% or some percentage that covers those fees. While retailers have always had the option of offer a discount for cash, few do these days, and it would be to the seller's advantage to just pocket the extra cash from the cash paying customer.

There was a time when some mom & pop computer stores in this area offered a cash discount, though their interpretation was a bit more literal and they meant cold hard currency (in the thousands), as it was pretty obvious that they were not reporting any of it for income or sales tax purposes, and they would just write off the sale as a theft loss on their inventory. Almost all of those stores are gone now.

Spongebob said:
Seems like flashaholics should be held to the highest moral standards and I find this practice to be simply unaceptable :shakehead
 

WAVE_PARTICLE

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To me, if the 3% markup for paypal fees was included in the terms of the sale UPFRONT and CLEARLY, then I have no problems with that. You, as the buyer, have the option to not buy.

However, if the 3% markup was NOT noted in the terms of the sale, then I agree that this markup should be frowned upon :tsk: . I've run into a few deals like this when the seller asked for more money after I sent the payment in full :rant: .


WP
 

leeleefocus

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I think that people who ask for an extra 3% unless they are payed with cleared funds are doing the correct thing. This rule that Paypal have is there to squeeze every last penny/cent from the people who actually give them their business and i find the rule a bit of a joke which is why i always try to pay with cleared funds so the seller does not have to pay these charges.

As long as the buyer knows that the seller wants an extra 3% if payed via CC Paypal
 
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Brighteyez

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It's a double edged problem. On the one side, you have price geeks that are looking solely price, so to appeal to that market they strip as many of the business costs out and add it on. If they include it in their pricing, then the price geeks will bypass their listing and head towards the lowest price like lemmings. And since even web merchants can't surcharge, you'll often find these costs added to shipping and handling fees. And eBay seems to have some sort of special arrangement for Asian sellers (both those in Asia and those in the U.S.) where they collect for both the shipping and the merchandise as shipping charges with just a token amount for a bid or 'buy it now' price.

WAVE_PARTICLE said:
To me, if the 3% markup for paypal fees was included in the terms of the sale UPFRONT and CLEARLY, then I have no problems with that. You, as the buyer, have the option to not buy.

However, if the 3% markup was NOT noted in the terms of the sale, then I agree that this markup should be frowned upon :tsk: . I've run into a few deals like this when the seller asked for more money after I sent the payment in full :rant: .


WP
 

blahblahblah

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I opened a 2nd PP acct for the sole purpose of selling a couple of lights. I know some of you only fund your accts w/ credit cards. I request the additional 3% if that's how the buyer wishes to pay.

I could care less about what Ebay/PP wants, as they do this out of their best interests (try to get you go convert your personal acct to a premium acct so they take fees on EVERY transaction). Just because it is their self-serving 'rule' does not make it wrong to request the 3%.

If the buyer uses cash on local sales, checks, money orders, cashiers checks, or cash paypal, I won't lose 3%. If a buyer prefers to use credit card funded paypal for whatever reason, then I can and do chose not to accept payment w/o the 3% to cover the PP fees.

As WP stated above... the 3% addition needs to be stated up front in the listing.
 

WAVE_PARTICLE

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Not to take this OT, but this reminds me of UPS and other couriers that charge enormous "brokerage" fees to the receiver when shipping to foreign countries.... For a newbie not familiar with these "fees" (which are not known upfront, even to the seller), it is a shock.

Now, to bring this back on-topic, like I alluded to before, the key to a successful transaction is transparency. As long as ALL TERMS are outlined CLEARLY before the sale, then all's fair. There should NEVER be assumptions on a transaction. That's when you get into trouble.


EDIT: I once participated in a deal that required cash payment, but as part of the terms of the sale, I had to do a personal favor for the seller. I could have said "no" if I wanted to.... but I agreed to it and all went well. Had the "personal favor" not been agreed to upfront, but came up after the sale has been completed, this would be a major problem. It's all about transparency.

WP
 
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TorchEnvy

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It is annoying to pay PP's fees, but it's not like they're operating their system out of the goodness of their heart. They have to have some revenue with which to do that.

In transactions taking place outside of the Ebay environment (which owns PP, if I recall) I don't think they should have grounds to gripe. That seems like it should be between buyer & seller. Like others said above, cash discounts used to be more common. Charging a bit more for plastic is sort of the inverse of charging a bit less for cash.

Bank account-funded or PP balance-funded payments do not incur a fee for the recipient if the recipient has a personal PP account, but these personal PP accounts cannot receive credit card-funded payments. In order to do that, one must upgrade their PP account. However, once that happens, ALL transactions will incur a fee, even those formerly free with a personal account.

If I sold a torch here, I probably wouldn't ask for extra funds for a credit card-funded PP payment. But, I might ask the buyer to pay to my old "personal" account to avoid the fees if they're bank account- or PP balance-funded (and get the full amount they paid), or use my main account if it isn't (and incur fees.) That seems fairer to the buyer to not ****er after the fact, and I could potentially receive the whole amount.

In ordinary (non-PP) retail, I think merchants who accept credit cards are forbidden by the credit card companies from charging an amount that is different than the stated cash price. I may be mistaken about this condition, however.
 
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Kiessling

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I do not have a problem with this as long as it is made very clear from the beginning that a 3% surcharge will be added for certain payment methods.
Of course it is a hassle sometimes and I prefer a clean price and always present one myself when selling ... But I don't see any moral problem with the 3%.
Just because PayPal and Ebay say so won't mean I change my ethics.
bernie
 

mchlwise

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I don't have a problem with a seller marking up 3% to cover the fee.

I don't have a problem with a seller offering a 3% discount on cash PayPal.

The biggest thing I have a problem with is that my "credit card" is really a debit card which comes directly and immediately out of my bank account, but PayPal still considers it a "credit card" transaction. :rant::mad:
 

eluminator

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I don't see why it's moral to hide the cost of credit card purchases in the price, and immoral to charge explicitely for it. I don't like the fact that I subsidize credit card users when I pay cash. There is no difference in the end between a credit card surcharge and a cash discount. But it gives the state more excuses to hire more regulators earning huge salaries.

This deviousness may be a federal law now, but the last I knew it was a state law here in NY.

I disagree about mom and pop businesses not reporting the sales, but it sounds like a good idea if you can get away with it. My brother had a business here for many years. He used to charge for credit card purchases. Then the state thugs passed the law so he switched to a cash discount. I believe he still does it. He does report all his income though. In fact the state criminals extort more "taxes" from him than he owes, but that's another story.

One of the reasons there aren't many small businesses left is the state regulators don't want to bother regulating them, so they simply put small businesses out of business.

Some of you think all these regulations are a good idea. You couldn't be more wrong. There are so many regulations that no one could possibly know more than a small fraction of them. Your elected representatives, who are supposed to be in charge, are ignorant of most of them. It couldn't be otherwise. There are just too many, and their numbers grow every day. All these regulations drive up the cost of doing business enormously. We all pay these costs. I wish more people knew about them, but I guess they never will, and probably they don't care.

Most businesses don't defraud their customers. Those that do, go out of business. Fraud, unless you work for the government, has always been illegal. Do you know how much you pay in taxes and what you get for it? I can tell you this, any business that operated like governments do would go out of business in a hurry, and they should.

Freedom works best, and there is no more important freedom than freedom of the marketplace. We had freedom in this country for 200 years and in that time our economy grew from nothing to the biggest in the world. We out-invented and out-produced just about everyone. Now we are hanging on by our fingernails. The beauty of the free market is it works well even if we don't understand it. As one of my favorite economics perfessors put it, "The free marketplace isn't perfect but it's a lot closer to perfection than anything else we will encounter on this earth".

I encountered yet another criminal activity by the thugs in Albany a few months ago. I went to a good auto mechanic who happens to be a long time friend. He told me the price of tires just went up. He used to charge $70 a tire plus a $1.50 disposal fee. Not any more. He got a letter from Albany telling him he had to bury the disposal fee in the price. So now the tires cost $71.50. In addition he has to add a "STATE MANDATED DISPOSAL FEE" of $2.50. As he pointed out, the state disposes of nothing. It's simply another excise tax. Can you spell fraud, boys and girls? It's a beautiful operation. When you buy tires and see the price has gone up you blame the greedy retailers or manufacturers. You never blame the criminals you elect to the government. And I suppose the environmentalists have an orgasm over this one.

And this is the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg.
 

Lurveleven

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As I understands it, when I use my CC to pay for something on PP, then PP must pay a fee to the CC company as any other business would have to, I doubt PP has much profit on these transactions. I think PP earns their money when people pay with cash to a non-Personal account since they then get the fee that normally would go to the CC company.

Sigbjoern
 

liqht

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the paypal rule is not really paypal's rule...it is the credit card companies -- VISA / MC / AMEX -- who have explicit language in their agreements that forbid merchants from charging a different price for cash than for credit. so when you do a credit card transaction through paypal, most of the credit card fees are actually going to the credit card companies, not to paypal. paypal sticks a little on top, and that's where they make their money. they also make money on "float", which is the interest they can collect for the time they hold cash between when it is actually transferred between buyer and seller. credit card transactions normally clear in almost real time, so there is no "float" with those.

the reason the credit card companies have this requirement in their agreements is so the consumer will not decide to not use credit if cash is cheaper. it's kind of a scam, but they have somewhat of a lock on the game and they all do it, so there's not much we can do about it.
 

Brighteyez

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Actually Canada-US shipments is the only place where UPS charges a brokerage fee and it's for UPS Standard (ground). The brokerage fee is included in all of their other international shipments (including those to Canada.) The reason for the brokerage fee being separate for the UPS ground shipments to Canada is probably driven by the mail-order trade so that the merchant doesn't look like the bad guy and have to charge the customer this $40+ tab for shipping. So, instead, everyone points their finger at UPS because they just don't know any better (and no, I don't and never have worked for UPS.)

Realistically, it's actually cheaper to use the UPS Express class to Canada because it does include to brokerage fees, but unlike the quasi-government agencies like USPS or Canada Post, companies like UPS, FedEX, DHL, Purolator (they're Canadian), can't have customs officials domiciled within their facilities and have no choice but to run it through a customs brokerage. It's rather unfortunate for the cheapskates that won't support their Canadian businesses, but the customs brokers charge everyone pretty much the same rate. So if they're going to charge me a minimum $65 to broker my $2M shipment and your $10 box of light bulbs is also a minimum rate item, then they're going to charge you the same $65. (of course, that's not really the case, they'll charge more for the $2M package just because it's $2M). So being aware of that, if you must purchase across the borders and you don't want to pay the tab, your only choice is to limit yourself to vendors who ship by USPS or pay the UPS Express rate and get your parcel quicker.

WAVE_PARTICLE said:
Not to take this OT, but this reminds me of UPS and other couriers that charge enormous "brokerage" fees to the receiver when shipping to foreign countries.... For a newbie not familiar with these "fees" (which are not known upfront, even to the seller), it is a shock.

Now, to bring this back on-topic, like I alluded to before, the key to a successful transaction is transparency. As long as ALL TERMS are outlined CLEARLY before the sale, then all's fair. There should NEVER be assumptions on a transaction. That's when you get into trouble.


EDIT: I once participated in a deal that required cash payment, but as part of the terms of the sale, I had to do a personal favor for the seller. I could have said "no" if I wanted to.... but I agreed to it and all went well. Had the "personal favor" not been agreed to upfront, but came up after the sale has been completed, this would be a major problem. It's all about transparency.

WP
 

Datasaurusrex

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Spongebob said:
I finally decided to open a Paypal account as its about the only way to buy lights here on CPF and lets face it there are some great deals. As I was talking to CS at PP I asked what the deal was with people asking for a 3% fee when using credit card PP purchases and she threw a fit! Said it was against the rules to ask for those fees and that it should be added to the asking price. Seems like flashaholics should be held to the highest moral standards and I find this practice to be simply unaceptable :shakehead


PAYPAL AND EBAY SUCK, so screw'em both ;)

Add 3% if you want, just clearly state it so the buyer knows it before the purcahse. Sell gun parts, just make sure the person buying them doesn't call them such on the payment description.
 

Beamhead

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USPS money orders only on anything I sell from now on, and after another thread, the price will include Priority Mail, Insured, Delivery Confirmation and Return receipt.

So if mine seems over priced, don't buy.:shrug:
 

Icebreak

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TorchEnvy said:
Bank account-funded or PP balance-funded payments do not incur a fee for the recipient if the recipient has a personal PP account, but these personal PP accounts cannot receive credit card-funded payments. In order to do that, one must upgrade their PP account. However, once that happens, ALL transactions will incur a fee, even those formerly free with a personal account.

This is important to know. I didn't know this until recently when a CPF member told me about it. I rarely sell items on CPF but now that I know my single "upgraded" PayPal account will charge me 3% no matter if the buyer is using PayPal balance, checking account or credit card backed payment; I'll build the fee into the final price.
 

Virgo

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Icebreak said:
This is important to know. I didn't know this until recently when a CPF member told me about it. I rarely sell items on CPF but now that I know my single "upgraded" PayPal account will charge me 3% no matter if the buyer is using PayPal balance, checking account or credit card backed payment; I'll build the fee into the final price.

Yep.:ohgeez: I have recently learned of this also. Once you upgrade your personal account to accept credit card payments, you are charged around 30 something cents + 2.9% of the total.:rant:
 
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