Hi everyone, Just found out that Paypal is cracking down on sending payment as a gift (for sellers who don't / can't eat the ding that Paypal takes out of every payment received. A friend at figurerealm.com pointed me toward PayPal Fee Calculator by Ryan Olbe (Last Updated: June 04, 2011) Enter in the total you're paying, it shows exactly what paypal would deduct. Just add that to the invoice you send, or the amount the buyer pays you, and voila: you get exactly what you're asking for - particularly important for larger sums, or when shipping cost is involved. Essentially, a fancy way of having the buyer pay the seller's Paypal fees - which is what the "Gift" option does anyway. I didn't find any threads announcing this particular method, so I thought it might be useful for fellow board members.
Furthermore, this is just smart to do. If you have a seller that does not send you anything you pay for you have no recourse with a gift payment. I almost lost out about $50 awhile back with a deadbeat seller. Another member messaged me about it and s/he was out at least $100. I was able to get my money back through Paypal with a dispute. The other member did not due to a gift payment. I'd rather spend a couple extra dollars (or less) to not lose out on a bunch of money. The way I see it, the buyer should always cover the fees, unless otherwise arranged, here on the Junkion Exchange. It's really easy to do I understand this is technically discussion material but this is pretty important information.
While that's true, sellers will continue to get away with dodging the technicality because of how doing so has become the norm over the years, and because it seems more honest (even though it isn't) than adding whatever the fee would be onto the total price as either something like a handling fee, or simply as part of the figure's price. If anything, the latter options have always made much more sense to me, as it not only fits within the rules & intent of the vendor system (its a fee for you doing business through Paypal), but also provides a simpler experience for the consumer. Well, except for international/cross border (as Paypal calls it) people that have higher fees than standard USD to USD transactions. The issue (other than that anyway) comes from the unfortunate fact that the few people who do observe the rules seem like they're charging more (even if they aren't), as well as that going about it the right way encourages buyers into a false sense of thinking they'll pay less if they opt to send money in the form of a gift, even though that's also against the rules when it comes to buying (keyword being underlined hah) from strangers. Truthfully though, I really didn't put as much thought into this in the past as I have recently, as I just went about it like everyone else did. I suppose that's inherently part of the problem, so I think it's safe to say that I'll be taking my own advice in the future with this.
Paypal has quite the fees actually. Me euro guy get even more with the currency exchange. I wish there was some real competition to Paypal so prices could come down a bit.
Then charge 4% more or hide the fees in the shipping. Not once have I had anyone send me a request for a detailed invoice after I sent a total, and very rarely have I lost out on fees.
Well, there's always bank transfers & whatnot, but the fees are not only even worse with that (I get raped every time I convert the Euros my Grandma sends me from Greece into Canadian money), but it's also such a hassle to work with physical banks & the like for this stuff (assuming it even works outside of direct credit card pulls that businesses used to use before Paypal's popularity exploded) that it becomes the default choice, be it for randoms like me, or people actually use ebay & friends as a home business. At any rate, understanding how these fees work is a step that we're all gonna need to take if we're not already there, so I really hope this thread doesn't get smashed in light of where it was posted.
I always have the buyer pay the fees. Ebay owns Paypal and they take enough in fees (9%) from the final auction total and now from the shipping costs as well which they wait and deduct after you mail the stuff out. Ebay is a greedy little machine and because they own paypal they pretty much wack you twice on your auctions.
Between ebay and paypal, I've come to the conclusion that it's not the way to make a profit. Not for you anyway, for them it's a racket. It's only good for liquidating your stuff if you need the cash. I think I've lost money on everything I've ever bought and sold using their systems.
Not to derail the topic but I just got an email from paypal asking me for my tax ID because I have over 200 transactions or have made over $20000 in transactions. ???????????????
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=marketing_us/IRS6050W ... crisis averted?
I got so caught up in all the "hoopla" that I misinterpreted. I do have over 200 but $20000 in sales. Maybe I'm good? I think crisis has been averted.
We're probably gonna need to do some more research on this (I know I will), but from what I've gathered, they're asking people for info ahead of time so that in the event that you do exceed both values, things are already set up for you to declare the income without hassle. However in any case, I really wouldn't worry. I mean if you think about it, this isn't all that different from declaring regular income that you make through a job or home business. It's just that since many of us don't run our own businesses or otherwise deal in very large dollar amounts from the receiving end (cars, property, rent, etc), let alone on a regular basis, going through this sort of process on our own can be a shocker, especially since we probably didn't even consider this to be anything other than an online version of petty cash transactions.
