posted on April 5, 2001 05:24:59 AM
i got an interesting email from Billpoint this morning comparing their fees to Paypal's.
While it seems that their fees are lower, their customer service is horrible. The other day I looked at a statement for monies being deposited to my account from ebay buyers. After they deducted their fees, there was a miscellaneous amount of $4.83 that was deducted as well.
I wrote to their customer service but, as of yet, have not received an explanation for the $4.83 deduction! I believe I'm going to stop using BILLPOINT; their fees are lower than PAYPAL but only if they don't charge miscellaneous fees!
posted on April 5, 2001 06:44:33 AM
I haven't seen the side by side comparison of Billpoint vs. Paypal lately to see where the fee comparison stands.
However I get a lot of payment under $15... Billpoint charges 35 cents - Paypal only 30 cents.. I get a nickel of savings for every payment I can route to Paypal instead of Billpoint... Over $15 I'd have to do more checking, but then with Billpoint you have to add on the .5% deposit fee....
posted on April 5, 2001 07:41:40 AM
I just went through the Billpoint and PayPal fee structures as I was curious about the statement made that Billpoint is cheaper than PayPal. Since Billpoint has always been more expensive than PayPal I was curious if something had changed.
Well, nothing has changed and Billpoint is STILL more expensive than PayPal...Not only are the fees higher per transaction, but Billpoint charges an additional fee (.5%) for each deposit into your checking account.
posted on April 5, 2001 08:10:46 AM
Here's an exerpt from the email Billpoint sent out. Sounds to me like it's a backhanded way of telling us they'll be charging for eChecks as of June 1.
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Edited to add: That didn't post at all the way the email looked. The first column is the billpoint numbers. The second column is paypal numbers. Sorry if it looks confusing.
posted on April 5, 2001 08:34:11 AM
aside from all that, they deducted over $4. from monies due me and chose not to respond to my emails requesting an explanation!
posted on April 5, 2001 09:32:07 AM
Interesting they would only include merchant rates and not mention that the deposit fees are mandatory for BillPoint and optional for PayPal (btw they aren't .60% for PayPal, they are .35%).
I could offer some numbers that would be VERY different.
posted on April 6, 2001 05:19:24 AM
Well, the mystery is over. Although I never did hear back from BILLPOINT customer service (despite the fact that I am a powerseller and wrote to [email protected]... and they promised someone from BILLPOINT would reply!), I figured out that PAYPAL was charging me 1/2 of 1% deposit fee AND that came out to exactly $4.83... the miscellaneous charge that was not explained on my invoice page.
It amazes me that BILLPOINT has never responded to my requests and that the $4.83 was not properly identified on my statement!
Further more, I did the math. I discovered that although BILLPOINT is charging 1.75% in fees, the extra 1/2 of 1% destroys any savings. an example: a recent charge to one of my customers was $181.03. Paypal charged me $4.28 for this transaction (a 2.2% fee of $3.98 plus 30 cents). BILLPOINT would have charged me $4.42 (a 1.75% fee of $3.17 plus a 90 cents "deposit fee", plus 35 cents). OKay, so it's only a half a dollar... but this is a relatively small charge to one of my customers... AND most of my customers now like to pay by PAYPAL... so the extra charge from BILLPOINT would add up quickly to dollars!
All in all, I feel like I was not told the entire truth when BILLPOINT wrote and said they were dropping their charges to 1.75%; and they refused to reply to any of my email messages over a period of four business days! i'm finished with BILLPOINT.
posted on April 6, 2001 12:07:24 PM
fdavidm, yes, billpoint is part of ebay.
i was happy to find this thread today. it answered the question i had when i was checking out billpoint after the paypal eoa thing. i couldn't find any place on billpoint's web site that explained if the deposits were automatic [and had fees] or not [no fees]. now i know. thanks!
