I'd like to know too - it is so expensive especially on top of bay listing fees.

 

Two things:

1. Is your account personal or is it a business account? Business accounts charge fees on any type of money transfer.

2. Do not accept credit card payment. If you only allow people to use their Pay Pal balance - instant transfer - or e-checks you do not get charged any fees. The only fee you get charged is when your "customer" uses a credit card, debit card or Pay Pal credit.

The fees for credit card processing is pretty much a standard. That's why the convenience store at the corner has the sign that says "$5 minimum on credit card purchases." They have to pay the same 3% that Pay Pal is charging you so they need to make the transaction worth while.

Problem solved.

 

I've never had a lick of trouble with Paypal.

 

Its a personal account. I bet the problem is that people are funding with their credit cards. I am gonna put in my listings that they have to fund with an existing PayPal balance or the like in the future.

Salamander, we aren't talking about "troubles" with PayPal. It works as intended. The problem is what is intended by them: to rape you with high fees. You've never gotten charged fees? We're talking about $1500 transactions here. If you haven't, then please share with us how we can avoid it.

Thanks.

 

The last two people that bought stuff from me used paypal e-check and it's a $5 flat fee. You have to wait a couple days for it to clear but, man, it saved me a bunch because the two items totalled $1400, which would have been some serious fees (a lot more than 10 bucks that's for sure!).

 

Don't you have to have a business account if you are selling expensive stuff (like guitars)? I thought there was a limit to how much you could pull out of pay pal for non-business accounts.

 

Not as far as I know, mine is a personal account. I just pulled around $2400 out of it two months ago and it never said anything about requiring a business account.

 

Yeah, those business account fee's get me too! But all well i guess...

 

There is a limit to the amount of transactions more so than the amount of money if I remember correctly.

 

between evilbays higher fees and paypal its tough making any decent money with guitar sales.

 

I've become very familiar with the PayPal Personal account policies over the last 24 hours. When I accepted payment for the RG I sold in the classifieds, I was given 2 options - upgrade to Premier and pay the 2.9% fee or remain as a Personal account and pay 5.9% on all transactions received over $500 per month.

Quoted from PayPal FAQ:

Question : Can I sell with a Personal account?

Answer : No. Personal accounts are for personal use. You can use a Personal account to send money to friends and relatives (e.g., to split a restaurant tab) and to purchase items online when PayPal is offered. If you earn money by selling items online, you should use a Premier or Business account. Business and Premier accounts have access to our premium services, including: the ability to accept unlimited credit or debit card payments; 7-day-a-week access to our Customer Service call center; seller protection on qualifying transactions at no additional cost; and a comprehensive suite of selling solutions. With a Business account, you'll be able to use all of PayPal's Business Solutions: Website Payments Standard, Website Payments Pro, Email Payments, and PayPal as an Additional Payment Option.

When you sell on e-bay and offer PayPal, your PayPal account must accept all forms of payment, including payments made with credit or debit cards, regardless of whether you display the PayPal logo with credit card icons. You must have a Premier or Business PayPal account - or be willing to upgrade from a Personal PayPal account to a Premier or Business account if you receive a credit or debit card payment. You may not communicate to e-bay buyers that you will only accept specific forms of PayPal payment.

Question : Is there a limit to the amount of payments Personal accounts can receive?

Answer : Yes. Depending on the primary currency of the Personal account, the receiving limit is $500.00 USD, $650.00 CAD, €500.00 EUR, or £250.00 GBP. (The receiving limit is based on the primary currency of the account. If you receive payments in more than one currency, your limit will be calculated based on the total amount you receive each month - after the amount is converted into your primary currency. To view your Personal account limit, log in to your account and click the View Limits link.)

The receiving limit applies to the following payment types: e-bay Items, Auction Non-e-bay, and Goods-Other (Website sales). All applicable payments that exceed the monthly limit will be placed in accept/deny status until you upgrade your account to receive the payments or you choose to deny them. If no action is taken, the payment is returned to the buyer after 30 days. The limit is reset monthly.

 

Just tell people in your auction listing that they will be responsable for paypal fees if they wish to pay that way. Simple. It's a handling fee, part of the shipping or whatever.

 

At one point I remember that Paypal deemed illegal to have the seller charge the buyer the paypal fee! I personally feel is pretty rotten when a seller wants to stick you with paying HIS FEES!!! just accept it as the cost of doing business, otherwise do not use paypal at all!

 

Or just don't deal with that seller...

 

As a seller I've never, ever charged people the fees, its downright rude and poor business. I look at the fees as a fair exchange of not having to wait a week for a stupid money order then have to drive to a bank and have it deposited.

 

I agree 100% There are places around here that charge 50-75 cents for using your debit card. I won't shop there.

 

That's a good point. If the buyer insists on PayPal, when the seller prefers other methods of payment, then I agree, it is acceptable for the buyer to pay of split the fees.

 

Obviously it isn't that great an idea to use paypal for large transactions well over the $1000 mark in most cases, and I can understand splitting the fees, but for sellers who bitch about the fees and want buyers to pay them when the item is less that $100 is retarded, your talking a few bucks tops. And I especially want to bitch slap those people who ask for it when the item is like $10-20, like some people here on Jemsite...

 

Now that I can agree with. A few bucks out of $100 is no big deal, ...less than that is outright comical!

 

IMO, Paypal is great if you're a person, using it for the occassional purchases/sells.
But if you're a business, you get a lot more security, a lot less fees and you actually establish a credit history for your business if you get a Merchant Account.

Paypal is called an aggregator: they let others use their Merchant Account. The difference is the fees all always much higher (Paypal is about twice the cost of a Merchant Account) and the support is "lacking" as the aggregator will almost always side with the buyer to avoid chargebacks, as the Merchant Account gets charged a fee on chargebacks.

If anyone is interested in a Merchant Account for their business, feel free to contact me for information; chris.camm AT processing solutions DOT com

 

Not accepting paypal on fleabay is suicide. You may think you are being penny wise, but actually you are being dollar foolish. You will lose 90% of the people who would normally bid on your item. A seller that refusing to accept paypal is one of the first clues that the auction is a scam. I would never bid on an auction unless they accept paypal and have a good track record.

Merchant accounts are only good if you do a great deal of business. I'm talking $10,000 dollars a month in credit card transaction or more. You want to talk about fees? Monthly fees, yearly fees, oddball fees from every card company you accept and even more fees just because they can. Want to cancel a merchant account or switch to some other service? It's like $400 dollars even after your contract is up. Paypal or bidpay is the way to go, don't gripe just be happy it's there.

I forgot to mention gateway fees. There is a fee for connecting to an internet gateway, and also a third party license fee for the software, in addition to the fees for the secure server required for credit card transactions.

 

I just sold about $32,000 dollars worth of gold coins on fleabay. The paypal fees were about $1000 dollars. If I would have demanded check or money order I would have only gotten around $27,000 from the same auctions. The paypal fees are worth it. For now.

 

Are you a pirate or something? :lol:

 

Arrgh! Stowaway! Walk the plank!

 

Dino,
Don't generalize ALL merchant accounts, please.
There are monthly fees, yes, that's why I'd never recommend it to the casual seller/****er. But even if you're processing around $5K a month, those fees become a wash vs. Paypal's fees, and you're about even. But then you get the credit history for your business, the added security and other benefits a Merchant Account can offer.

And not ALL Merchant Accounts charge those fees. Those are charged by your RESELLER, not VISA/MC. Its just like walking into GC ready to haggle. Some people want your business, others don't.

I'm just saying don't generalize. I don't charge annual fees. I don't make a merchant sign a multi-year contract. I don't charge application fees. Like any other purchase, a buyer should do their homework.


So...ARE you a pirate?

 

Dino,
Don't generalize ALL merchant accounts, please.
There are monthly fees, yes, that's why I'd never recommend it to the casual seller/****er. But even if you're processing around $5K a month, those fees become a wash vs. Paypal's fees, and you're about even. But then you get the credit history for your business, the added security and other benefits a Merchant Account can offer.

And not ALL Merchant Accounts charge those fees. Those are charged by your RESELLER, not VISA/MC. Its just like walking into GC ready to haggle. Some people want your business, others don't.

I'm just saying don't generalize. I don't charge annual fees. I don't make a merchant sign a multi-year contract. I don't charge application fees. Like any other purchase, a buyer should do their homework.

So...ARE you a pirate?

I'm sure that some of them are better than others. It's hard to tell which ones, because all the ones I have talked to sounded like desperate car salesmen, and wouldn't disclose everything until I got the huge fine print contract to sign. Then they act like you are the one who is in question, like "Well, Mr. Dino well see if you qualify for our yada yada program" but there is a nonrefundable fee just to find out.

I was promised no annual fee, but I got slammed with one and then they said "Oh, it's not our annual fee, this was from Visa." Whatever. I will say which company this was. It was simply called "Merchant services." Right now we just use Telecheck for everything, and paypal/bidpay for my personal business stuff.

 

Sounds like liars. Thanks for the info, Dino.

 

I liked the convenience of Paypal until I sold something to the UK and they left me hanging out to dry when the buyer said the item wasn't received. Paypal states you have to have a certain tracking when shipping overseas that the USPS and UPS charge more than triple to get (standard shipping was around $110 and to have the tracking they requested was around $325). I had NO idea until after the fact and everything ended badly with Paypal leaving me out to dry on my $.

I threatened the buyer by telling him I put in for a USPS inquiry to see if the item was actually delivered and the very next day he said it finally showed up (3 months after I shipped it!). I had him wire me the $ and have never used Paypal since - screw them.

I'm sure I wasn't savvy about the whole deal in the beginning but I really felt unprotected selling abroad with Paypal. For the fees they collect I thought I was.

I still can't remove the stupid Paypal logo off my auctions and that has caused me problems ever since. I won't sell abroad anymore after all that either.

 

Just an FYI, for any Paypal users that might read this thread:
There's some things in PP's Terms of Agreement that most users don't know.
Of course, you MUST ship to a confirmed address to have any protection. That's their first question; was the address confirmed? You reply "no" and they pretty much hang up on you.
But, what most people do not know:
for ANY product where the total is over $250USD, the seller MUST ship SIGNATURE CONFIRMATION to have any protection.

And just another piece of FYI, just to protect honest people (though that doesn't always matter), Paypal is an Aggregator, and here is the definition as outlined in the merchant industry-

What is an Aggregator?

An aggregator is a company with a “Master” merchant account for credit card processing. They will allow you to accept credit cards by using their merchant account. In almost every case they will charge the individual merchants a higher discount rate for credit card processing then they are required to pay thereby making a profit on other people’s sales. Some require reserves and do not pay out in a standard 48 to 72 hour basis. So in theory they are accruing interest on your money from credit card processing as well. Furthermore they will not get involved in any disputes when they accept credit cards on your behalf and generally credit the cardholder back without verifying what the dispute is about. If a cardholder purchases from company “A,” and the transaction is done through an aggregator, the cardholder sees the aggregator’s information on their credit card statement. This is known as a “descriptor”. They may dispute the charge simply because they did not recognize the name of the aggregator.
This could have easily been resolved but the cardholder didn’t have the phone number or descriptor of the actual merchant that did the credit card processing. It is easier for a merchant account aggregator to refund the cardholder’s money rather than answer a dispute. Most still charge you the credit card processing fee so you lose twice.

 

Just an FYI, for any Paypal users that might read this thread:
There's some things in PP's Terms of Agreement that most users don't know.
Of course, you MUST ship to a confirmed address to have any protection. That's their first question; was the address confirmed? You reply "no" and they pretty much hang up on you.
But, what most people do not know:
for ANY product where the total is over $250USD, the seller MUST ship SIGNATURE CONFIRMATION to have any protection.

And just another piece of FYI, just to protect honest people (though that doesn't always matter), Paypal is an Aggregator, and here is the definition as outlined in the merchant industry-

What is an Aggregator?

An aggregator is a company with a "Master" merchant account for credit card processing. They will allow you to accept credit cards by using their merchant account. In almost every case they will charge the individual merchants a higher discount rate for credit card processing then they are required to pay thereby making a profit on other people's sales. Some require reserves and do not pay out in a standard 48 to 72 hour basis. So in theory they are accruing interest on your money from credit card processing as well. Furthermore they will not get involved in any disputes when they accept credit cards on your behalf and generally credit the cardholder back without verifying what the dispute is about. If a cardholder purchases from company "A," and the transaction is done through an aggregator, the cardholder sees the aggregator's information on their credit card statement. This is known as a "descriptor". They may dispute the charge simply because they did not recognize the name of the aggregator.
This could have easily been resolved but the cardholder didn't have the phone number or descriptor of the actual merchant that did the credit card processing. It is easier for a merchant account aggregator to refund the cardholder's money rather than answer a dispute. Most still charge you the credit card processing fee so you lose twice.

That is all very true, you still have to be careful who you do business with. There is no perfect system, you have to rely on your judgment in any case with an auction sale.

 

Absolutely, but if you decide to proceed with the sale, follow those steps where applicable to protect yourself.