just received a payment from someone.

The email said £55 as we agreed, but I have only £52.93

paypal statement says 2.07 fee – any idea why

I have received payments before but never had a fee charge.

Perhaps previous payments were gifts? If the payee doesn’t make it a gift PayPal make a 4% charge, so 4% of £55 would make it around £52.80 by my calculations…

They’ve done it as “not gift”, giving them lots of protection, and are letting you pay the charges

I’d not accept it, but it is legit

thx – I understand now

Unless you specifically ask for gift then they have every right to pay as standard, and you get hit with the fee.
If I buy something from you, and you ask me to pay by gift, then I will use the standard service, but will give you extra to cover the fee. If you don’t ask for it to be paid by gift, then I expect you to pick up the fee But that’s just me.

Since I’m not a professional vendor, if I agree a price of £55 I’d expect £55 and for the buyer to fund their own protection.

What happened to MadBill also happened to me once but, naively, I’d already posted the item – otherwise I’d have refunded and readvertised

Since I’m not a professional vendor, if I agree a price of £55 I’d expect £55 and for the buyer to fund their own protection.

Agree.

Unless you specifically ask for gift then they have every right to pay as standard, and you get hit with the fee.

Disagree.

If you want “paid” via paypal, thats what they did. If you were selling something then the money was not a gift.

The buyer cant be held responsible for your fees, if you specify paypal as the payment method. Perhaps you should have factored that in.

Chalk it up to experience, the buyer obviously wanted some protection on his purchase as you are not a professional vendor.

What Nairnster said.

But why should the seller pay for something that is of no benefit to him? Can be a right pain in the arse as well if the buyer decides they don’t want the item. (On a whim, rather than it be faulty/not as described)

The seller is paying for receiving paypals services. Its not a free service.

I’m not saying it should be, I’m saying the buyer should pay, as they get all the protection from that service. The seller gets nothing, only opens themselves up to problems.

It can be a right pain in the arse if you pay by gift and then get fleeced by an unscrupulous seller.

Then if the buyer it worried/doesn’t know or trust the seller, they should pay for protection.

No, because paypal doesnt work like that. The seller is charged the fees. The seller asked for £55 by paypal, the buyer did that. The seller should have factored that into the amount he was willing to accept.

It’s simple really – there’s been a misunderstanding: Bill thought he was getting £55, buyer thought he was getting £55 less fees.

They need to sort it out. There is no formal rule here – it’s interpretation (what did Bill mean when he asked for 55 via paypal? did he ask for paypal or did the buyer offer paypal – does it matter ?)
Bill either asks for the balance, accepts less or refunds and relists the item. It’s entirely up to him

No, because paypal doesnt work like that. The seller is charged the fees. The seller asked for £55 by paypal, the buyer did that. The seller should have factored that into the amount he was willing to accept.

🙄 I know… What I’m saying is that it would be better/fairer if the buyer paid the fees (as they do in nigh on all second hand market places) as its them that gets the benefit of what those fees pay for. That way the seller doesn’t have to factor in xyz when setting a price, the just ask for what they want for an item and if the seller wants a service that will protect him, then he pays for it. As it is he’s basically told bill to pay for him being able to change his mind. Any other method of payment and that wouldn’t be the case, assuming bill doesn’t take credit cards…

The buyer isn’t going to pay the fees, do you expect them to get a calculator out and work out the exact amount of fees? The seller has to factor the cost in if they want to use paypal. If you don’t want the fees use bank transfer

No, I expect PayPal to work out the fees, as it does for sellers.

Eg, instead of ”you are selling an item for £100, you will receive £96.50′, it would say ‘you are buying an item for £100. You will be charged £103.50′ to the buyer’. Not rocket surgery.

Sellers can still use PayPal without fees, it’s just more risky for the buyer. Remind me what the benefit to the seller of using non gift is again?

“Price £55 paypal gift or add 4% for regular paypal”

Simples.

Since I’m not a professional vendor, if I agree a price of £55 I’d expect £55 and for the buyer to fund their own protection.

Disagree, as a seller you hold a Paypal account and there is a cost to this (and the fee’s are a pretty basic part of the T&C’s). You are basically accepting card payments which increases the chance of a sale and reduces hassle. Card Payments would cost you money whichever way you do it. Plus it means an end to cashing cheques, whether you post them off, or go in to the bank, and subsequently having to check whether its cleared before posting items.

As a buyer, you are just clicking a button to pay for an item, you don’t need an account so why should they be liable to pay anything (and why would you want to discourage a purchase by trying to pass on the fee – I bit like corner shops that sting you for using a card)

Make it simple when a seller offers an item.
I’ve just had he same situation and it’s un-necessary.
Either state PPG or state PP plus fees.
As a seller I expect to take the hit on fees as per eBaY.
tim

What spooky said

You agreed to this when you accepted the PayPal terms

FFS, it’s only 4%. If, as a seller, you factor it in to your prices it’s not a problem. And send the buyer an invoice too, FFS, it’s only polite and it gives your buyer a little confidence that you’re not about to rip them off by volunteering the added ‘safety’ of buying an item rather than just randomly sending money to some bod on the interweb. There are some properly odd/tight people on here.

Remember that PP when selling has to be the real thing. If you are using gift its very naughty. Therefore it would be automatic for the fees to be paid by the vendor. I would be most upset if otherwise. All this balls about the buyer “covering” fees is silly. The PP fess are built into your asking price surely? You realised that when you signed up for PP.
Likewise the postage costs, although here I would expect the cash on collection price to be stated as well.
Gift is just plain stupid although I can see why its used with very low cost items.
Stating a price then objecting when is real PP that is paid is plain naïve.

I am of the opinion that non gift is less hassle for everyone.

When it goes wrong.

Add the fact that if you use the App on the phone – there is NO option to use gift now.
FFS – you are getting PP to accept money ON YOUR BEHALF and then pass it OVER TO YOU and you want someone ELSE to pay for it?
Tight arsed fnuggets…..

FFS – you are getting PP to accept money ON YOUR BEHALF and then pass it OVER TO YOU and you want someone ELSE to pay for it?

The transferring of money isn’t what you are paying for (else you’d have to pay a fee for gift payments). The fee is for buyer protection. Though in most cases I’ve heard about, admittedly there are dodgy sellers about, it’s where a buyer changes their mind and the seller is on the hook for an instant refund, long after the sale happened.

No such thing as ‘paypal gift’

Just saying.. 😀

Tom – you ARE paying for the transferring of money – Paypal state that the “family and friends” or “gift” is an “add-on” they provide to registered members at no cost.

Chalk it up to experience.
Next time as timbur says – Either state PPG or state PP plus fees

I can’t believe this conversation is happening. Some real tight arsed eejits on this forum. They’ll still come crying when a PP gift seller does a runner with their money.

Tom – you ARE paying for the transferring of money – Paypal state that the “family and friends” or “gift” is an “add-on” they provide to registered members at no cost.

Which, given that there is no membership fee, makes it free, no?

While I have been called many things in my time, tight is certainly not one of them. When using paypal, I ALWAYS add on the fees, on top of the agreed price of the item, for the reasons I’ve stated, numerous times, above.

Just as point of note, when you are sending someone money via PayPal there used to be the warning / comment that the seller will pick up the fees.
As a buyer if I was paying by this method I’d ensure that seller gets the full amount we’d previously agreed by adding the extra 4% onto the figure im sending them.

I wouldn’t. Just as I don’t pay a seller’s eBay fees, or make an additional contribution to a shop’s overheads!

I’d hate to get stuck behind some of you in the supermarket while you try to explain to the checkout girl that you want her to add 2% to your bill because you want to pay with a card.