posted on April 6, 2001 08:22:22 PM new
Hi,
I just bought a item on Yahoo and now the buyer wants me to pay their paypal fee, I know this is not allowed on ebay but what about Yahoo, I don't feel its right for me to pay a fee for them using paypal as a payment option. Please let me know what I can do
posted on April 6, 2001 08:49:28 PM new
I assume that was a typo and you meant to say the seller wants you to pay the PayPal fee. If that is correct, refer them to the PayPal policy update effective March 31:
Under Visa and MasterCard regulations and the laws of several states, including California, merchants may not charge a fee to the buyer for accepting credit card payments (often called a "surcharge". In order to comply with these laws and regulations, PayPal has amended its Terms of Use so that, effective March 31, customers may not charge a fee for accepting PayPal. This restriction does not prevent you from imposing a handling fee in connection with the sale of goods or services, as long as the handling fee does not operate as a surcharge (in other words, the handling fee for transactions paid through PayPal may not be higher than the handling fee for transactions paid through other payment methods).
posted on April 6, 2001 08:51:40 PM new
Regardless of whether or not it is legal by Yahoo (which I doubt it is), it is not legal as specified in PayPal's TOS under any circumstances:
No Surcharges. Under Visa and MasterCard regulations and the laws of several states, including California, merchants may not charge a fee to the buyer for accepting credit card payments (often called a "surcharge". You agree that you will not impose a surcharge or any other fee for accepting PayPal as payment. This restriction does not prevent you from imposing a handling fee in connection with the sale of goods or services, as long as the handling fee does not operate as a surcharge (in other words, the handling fee for transactions paid through PayPal may not be higher than the handling fee for transactions paid through other payment methods).
The seller you are dealing with must be very mis-leading if they didn't mention anything in the description about charging you to accept PayPal (even if they did mention a charge it would still be illegal). I would suggest reporting the seller to Yahoo and PayPal. Just an unethical seller.
posted on April 6, 2001 09:10:53 PM new
I agree with you 100% Mint, but that is not the question here. If the seller did not incorporate the fee somewhere into the starting bid or a slightly inflated (or for some sellers significantly inflated) S&H charge, they cannot tack one on after the fact that is just plain unethical. You don't go into Wal-Mart and pull out a credit card and they say yes we accept credit cards and there is no indication that we charge a fee for it, but that is going to cost you $x.xx to put the purchase on your card. The overhead is already figured in and as consumers we accept this.
posted on April 6, 2001 09:32:38 PM new
This new policy of Paypal's misstates the facts. The facts are that if you have a Paypal account you are not a Visa merchant...you are a Paypal merchant. You do not take credit cards just because you take Paypal. In fact, there are several ways to fund a paypal account without ever charging a credit card, such as bank wire and formerly sending them a check (I thing they just phased this way out).
They are trying to scare the sellers with misstated legal issues when they only needed to be upfront about it: If they want this to be their rule, why not simply say so without the smoke and mirrors?
The facts are that sellers are not in business at the leisure of buyers: profits must be made. So ultimately the seller will pass the charges along to the buyer. By forcing this fee to be charged to all buyers (by raising the prices), it really is overcharging the cash customers.
They say you can offer a discount for cash. That is ok in theory, but has that ever worked in the bricks and mortar world? No, it's almost unheard of and if you try it, you will simply get a weird look from most merchants. And it creates a disadvantage to the seller, having to advertise a higher price.
Here's a solution: To avoid problems with your ads, state that you accept Paypal but state simply that Paypal is not free without further explaination.
Then if the buyer wants to use Paypal, suggest Pay Direct instead and tell them that you don't ordinarily accept Paypal because of the fees they charge you.
They buyer will usually either sign up with Pay Direct or offers to pay the Paypal fees. Then they are in your camp and not likely to complain to Paypal, and you have the comfort of knowing that you are not breaking any laws, (as suggested by Paypal), and that if they want to suspend your account, you don't really care, because you were on the verge of dumping them anyways (weren't you?).
posted on April 7, 2001 12:17:43 AM new
moonlightdesigns,
If you want to purchase the item you bid on, and you want the CONVENIENCE TO YOU of using PayPal, then give the seller the extra he needs to cover the amount PayPal will deduct from his account for your payment. For all you/we know, he's barely getting his investment back on the sale (or losing money). Would you rather he tack on a "handling fee" that you have to pay REGARDLESS which form of payment you send???
If you DON'T want to pay the fees, find some other way to pay him.
Does he take PayDirect? It won't cost you anything, and you can charge it on your Visa, Mastercard, or American Express, as well as send an electronic check.
OR
Sit down and write a check, address an envelope, buy a stamp for it, and take it to the Post Office....then wait a month for him to receive your check, deposit it in his bank, wait for it to clear, then ship your item.
OR
Go buy a money order/cashier's check, fill it out, address an envelope, buy a stamp for it, and take it to the Post Office....then wait a week for him to receive it before he ships your item.
OR
Put cash in an addressed, stamped envelope and take it to the Post Office....then hope he gets it and acknowledges that he got it, and mails your item.
OR
Give BidPay $5.00 or more to send him a money order for you.
I really don't see what the problem is, unless PayPal is the only form of payment he takes AND payment of PayPal's fees by the buyer wasn't stated in his auction listing TOS. If THAT'S the case, then you can either pay it or decline to make the purchase altogether.
A seller's PayPal account does NOT make him a credit card merchant, regardless what eBay or PayPal say, and it's a gray area in the law that hasn't yet been addressed.
You've made several comments about real expenses always being included in prices, or at least that buyers should expect that they will be? I don't think it's quite that simple for these online "auctions" especially. Isn't it quite possible for a seller to have a strategy of having a couple of "loss-leader" listings with the intent of finding new customers through them, possibly buyers for a separate web page site or email mailing list? Isn't it also possible that the seller may simply badly mis-judge how many customers will see their listing and thereby be sadly wrong how high the bidding will actually go? OR, forget that a site can go down snd leave snipers unable to run the price upwards, thereby leaving an early bidder with an extreme bargain.... a risk very much present on Yahoo since they have no auction extension policy in case of an outage?
I think there are quite a few buyers who figure those above-listed situations create bargain opportunities for them and hunt through listings looking for those sorts of chances. Many sellers KNOW some of their sales are at below-cost prices but tolerate it happening and fulfill their stated terms hoping to make up for the true losses in other listings on a statistical sort of process. Savvy buyers DO seem to me to have a right to find screaming bargains and not have extra costs slapped on them after the fact by whiney sellers, just as sellers have the right to expect buyers who get carried away, or are bidding drunk, or whatever, to pay at least somewhat inflated overbids, also.
Either side's ultimate practical protection in a case of incredible underpricing or overbidding is to abandon use of that auction site (or accept the negative FB) and in effect say to the other side of the transaction, "So sue me."
posted on April 7, 2001 10:14:55 AM new
As for my comments before, I keep forgetting that people still use the auction format to sell most of their items. My prices are set when the 'auction" begins with the minimum bid = to the BUY price. I guess it hurt my "sell thru" rate (the ones I would have lost money on) and I never have any auctions with bids because the first bid wins.
However, I didn't take any losses and actually sold enough to keep me busy (before listing fees began).
I used to spell it out in the ad how much it would cost to use Paypal, but somebody complained and ePay warned me not to do that in my ads there. They had a rule against it before Paypal did. That was funny because I was traveling and wanted to sell some things I had with me. Thus I had some ePay auctions with no snail mail payments allowed...just pay Direct, Paypal, and Billpoint. I did not ask the buyer to pay the Billpoint fees, just the Paypal fees. So I told ePay I won't allow Paypal if I can't collect the fees, and I won't use Billpoint if I can't use Paypal. So I cut them both out.
Lately I just mention in the ad that I accept pay Direct which is a free service and Paypal, which is not a free service. Notice I didn't say they had to pay the fees, I just stated a fact, but the implication is there, and then I tell them later I don't ordinarily accept Paypal, and why.
Anybody who was approved by Paypal should be approved by Pay Direct, so there is no excuse for them not using Pay Direct, except laziness on the buyer's part.
posted on April 7, 2001 11:32:15 AM new
While we're on the Paypal subject, today i got my paypal mastercard debit card which was sent to me unsolicited by Paypal.
I followed the procedures to verify the card on their web site and got to a place where they wanted my social security #. Now I don't remember ever giving them that info and so I read the fine print a bit and it seems they were requireing me to also sign up for their money market account...what connection this has to the debit card is purely invented by paypal...but i decided to play ball and I entered it correctly in the space provided.
It was rejected by paypal and i was sent to a screen where i was told to send in a past utility bill, ya-da-ya-da-ya-da. Now i am a Premier member, verified, with a history there of 1000 transactions over nearly 2 years time, and I've been through the verify procedure before, so I called customer no-service and was told there was nothing she could do for me.
So life goes on without the debit card. My question is this: since my SS# was not on file with paypal, just where were they going to verify it? Does the Feds have a computer where you can offer a name and SS# and get an answer back if they match? If so that's news to me and that sounds illegial. Or do they have a deal with Master Card or TRW or some agancy like that to search their records for the match? If so, I think that stinks.
Every step Paypal takes reminds me of YaFool in the year 2000...one step forward and 3 steps back.
. In order to comply with these laws and regulations, PayPal has amended its Terms of Use so that, effective March 31, customers may not charge a fee for accepting PayPal. This restriction does not prevent you from imposing a handling fee in connection with the sale of goods or services, as long as the handling fee does not operate as a surcharge (in other words, the handling fee for transactions paid through PayPal may not be higher than the handling fee for transactions paid through other payment methods).