gnome

I've had my PayPal account for a while but only recently got it verified because I opened up my own checking account (all of my transactions had to be done through my husband's account prior to this). Anyway, I sold some plants on AquaBid. It was only $3 plus $5.50 shipping. I figured since this was a personal account, I no longer had to tack on fees the way I did for my husband's premier/business account.

I got a notice that there was payment (my very first one!) waiting for me (from the guy who bought my plants), so I logged in and had to "accept" or "reject" this payment. Well, of course I accepted, but that was when I was notified that this was a credit card payment. I was given the option of bumping my account to business/premier (which, of course, charges fees on ALL the payments that are made to you) or keeping my personal one with the understanding that I was limited to four more CC/debit payments before bad things happen. So I kept my personal account. Little did I know that I was going to be charged fees ANYWAY!!! Dangit!!! $0.72 fee for my piddly $3.00 earning.

What makes me mad is that I was not notified that this was a CC payment *before* I clicked on "accept." I asked my husband if there's any way to know HOW you're getting paid *before* you accept the payment, and he doesn't know. HIS suggestion was to bump my account up to business/premier and just tack on an extra dollar for EVERYTHING that I sell. I don't want to do that!!! To me, that's like "passing the buck," and just giving into the inevitability of inflation.

So my question is: how do you know if you're receiving a PayPal payment by CC/debit or the "other" way, where you *don't* get charged if you have a personal account?

TIA!

-Naomi

oregon aqua

Yes paypal is WHACK, but their just passing the buck to you. Credit card companies start the whole process. With the money CC company makes on interest, loans, cash advance, fees i think its a little much to charge another company for the privilege to accept their card. But they do. And the companies small (me) and large (paypal) pay the fees, most of the time they take the hit but some pass it on to the consumer. I for my business am using the premier account, and sad to say it just comes out of what little profit i can make.

What i think is uncool is E-bay gets their fee for listing, then a % for the sale price not including shipping, then their paypal company get to take $0.30 + anywhere from 1.9 to 4.9% of the whole transaction including shipping. So they get to dip in your pocket twice!


enough venting. no i dont think their is a way to tell unless when it asked you if you wanted to accept payment, my paypal never asks it just accepts the money. Maybe thats their way of asking?

ingg

You know if it is a CC payment or not if it asks you or not.

Balance and bank account transactions just show up as there. CC payments ask you if you will accept them.

AaronT

Like Ingg said if it asks you to accept the payment, it's a cc payment. If the money goes through without you having to accept it, it was a paypal transaction devoid of paypal fees.

Here's how I've solved the issue. You need two accounts.

One account does not accept credit cards and is verified through your checking account.

The other account does accept credit cards and is not verified. When someone pays you give them both addresses and make sure they understand which one to pay if they need to use a credit card.

Then you can simply pay yourself from your cc account to your non-cc account in order to transfer funds to your checking account.

It's a bit of work, but if you sell enough items online in a year the savings can add up to hundreds of dollars in avoided fees.

gnome

A-ha!!! VERY good to know. Okay, so I guess from now on, I'm going to have to put on my auction and stuff "can NOT be CC/debit payment" and reject payment when asked via my account.

So here's another question... If the buyer ONLY has a premier/business PayPal account and is making a payment from it, is it automatically a CC payment? If I put the above condition on my auction, does that mean that the only people who can bid are people with personal accounts? Or can people make "regular" payments from premier/business accounts?

As for having two accounts, I wouldn't be making enough to make that worthwhile. A buck here, a buck there... Which is why I'm really upset about being charged the fees. Plus, I don't want to have to open another checking account just to get another routing number from the bank.

Thanks!!!

-Naomi

Augus

Try revolution money exchange, see my signature.

AaronT

Any paypal to paypal transfer is considered non-cc even if the buyer uses funds from their checking account for the payment. The only time a buyer's payment is a cc payment is if they don't have a paypal account to pay you through or their paypal account is not linked to a bank account and they use a credit / debit card.

Logan's Daddy

Exactly! If the only source of funding the buyer has is a credit card (eg, the paypal account is tied to their credit card and not their checking account) and their paypal account doesn't have enough balance to cover the transaction. Paypal automatically funds the buyer's account with their credit card, and passes the credit processing fee to the seller, just as if the seller had accepted a direct credit card funded transaction.

(little loophole I found out about a while back...)

gnome

Okay, so I guess I'm not necessarily making it too much more difficult for people with the other types of PayPal accounts by accepting only non-CC/debit payments, which is good. As for this "Revolution," it seems like a nice alternative, except that both the payer and the payee need to *both* have accounts with them, right?

Anyway, I've never sold anything via eBay and doubt I ever will. I've bought a few things, but my brother-in-law's wife, who makes her living by selling things on auction sites (in Japan), said that eBay has lost popularity over there because of their numerous and insane fees. They've dubbed them "FeePay" or something like that. She now sells on some Yahoo! auction thing.

"Fees" - another dirty four-letter word... Makes me so mad when they get so sneaky about it.

Thanks so much, all!

-Naomi