5 ms·

PayPal Doubles Fees, Forgets to Tell Customers

65 points by javery 17y ago

trafficlight 17y ago
Wait. What? Paypal always charged to receive money. That's how it works. What am I missing?
- wyday 17y ago
  The rates have changed. PayPal didn't tell it's users. But you're right, the blog post didn't make that clear.
  - ivey 17y ago
    The rates haven't changed. They stopped charging business accounts a fee for personal payments, and clarified (made the UI more explicit) that they do charge a fee for all account types for goods & services. See https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2009/08/a-clarification-on-paypal’s-recent-send-money-updates/ https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2009/08/a-clarification-on-pay... The parent article is just wrong.
    - wyday 17y ago
      The rates have changed. I've noticed it in our own sales. It started earlier this month.
      - ivey 17y ago
        What were you being charged before, and what are you being charged now?
zaidf 17y ago
"Forgets" is being too nice.
Grinnmarr 17y ago
Would someone please clarify exactly what has changed? I cannot make out heads or tails from the discussion here or on Paypal. How was it before? How is it now?
- ivey 17y ago
  Official clarification from PayPal: https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2009/08/a-clarification-on-paypal’s-recent-send-money-updates/ https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2009/08/a-clarification-on-pay...
  - Grinnmarr 17y ago
    I read that prior to asking for clarity! I want specifics. Can anyone confirm exactly what changed?
    - patio11 17y ago
      There are 3 account types on Paypal: Personal, Premier, and Business. A natural person will usually have Personal or Premier. Personal accounts cannot receive payments funded by credit cards. This restriction tends to force non-consumer use of Paypal into a Premier account. In particular, eBay sellers must use Premier accounts. Of note: previously, Personal accounts did not charge money for receiving payments. Almost no one uses Personal accounts to receive payments, because they cannot take payments by credit cards, cannot be used on eBay, and cannot be used with APIs (last time I checked). Premier accounts have always charged money for receiving payments. What changed: when you send a payment, you have to specify what the payment is for. There are a few options: Payment for: Services, Goods, eBay Items Personal payment: Gift, Payment Owed, Cash Advance, Living Expense, Other Here's the change: if the sender codes a payment as one of the three "payment for" options, the recipient gets charged. This is unremarkable for 99.99% of people receiving payments on Paypal, because they've had premier accounts for years (to receive CC payments), but it inconveniences people who were using Paypal to receive payments funded from Paypal balances. Note: You can still receive payments, for free, if they're both funded from a Paypal balance and coded as Gift, Payment Owed, etc.
andreyf 17y ago
Or just ditch PayPal altogether, and sign up for Google Checkout. Good advice. I used PayPal for the first time in years trying out listia.com the other day, and was amazed that they still haven't added autocomplete="off" to their credit card number fields - every piece of information one needs to make online purchases is cached (unencrypted, usually) to your hard disk. Idiocy.
- elai 17y ago
  Google checkout is one of those mostly-USA only for merchants things, yet again. Paypal is far more international, and alternatives tend to be even more expensive.
  - onreact-com 17y ago
    No, Moneybookers is popular globally as well and it's cheaper plus more reliable and secure.
    - lucumo 17y ago
      And has a disaster for a user interface. Once every three months I have to file a tax report and that's when I log in to see each transaction for those three months. Their history form has a "[Go]" button and a "[Search]" button. I press the wrong one each and every time. There is no details page for a transaction and you can only see the item that was sold in a CSS popup that disappears when you mouse away, making it impossible to copy-paste. And then there's the fact that their calculations can be off sometimes. We have some sales that are € 12.75. The transaction costs for that is € 0.44 or € 0.45, I don't know which: the amount field says it's € 0.44, but our balance is actually decreased by € 0.45. That's a rather bad mistake to make as a payment provider... All in all I'm not too happy with Moneybookers. It gets us money and it's cheap, but it's perfectly clear why they are cheap... Edit: Also, Moneybookers sales were less than 5% of the Paypal sales...
      - onreact-com 17y ago
        OK, MB is not perfect either but I still prefer it to PayPal and use it whenever I can. Also MB has some security advantages. You can already notice on the front end (captcha etc.)
Pistos2 17y ago
The Fee page on PayPal's site doesn't exactly clarify either: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_display-fees-outside https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_display-... It still says "Free when the money comes from PayPal balance or bank account", which is what I thought people were complaining is no longer the case.
dpcan 17y ago
PayPal has always charged this rate for business accounts when selling goods and services. So, the problem here appears to be that everyone running their personal account for business purposes is bitching about how they can't sneak around the fees anymore.
csomar 17y ago
I wonder why services like Moneybookers are not popular. It doesn't charge a fee, it's available World wide and very simple to use.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

65 points by javery 17y ago

trafficlight 17y ago

Wait. What? Paypal always charged to receive money. That's how it works. What am I missing?

wyday 17y ago
The rates have changed. PayPal didn't tell it's users. But you're right, the blog post didn't make that clear.
- ivey 17y ago
  The rates haven't changed. They stopped charging business accounts a fee for personal payments, and clarified (made the UI more explicit) that they do charge a fee for all account types for goods & services. See https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2009/08/a-clarification-on-paypal’s-recent-send-money-updates/ https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2009/08/a-clarification-on-pay... The parent article is just wrong.
  - wyday 17y ago
    The rates have changed. I've noticed it in our own sales. It started earlier this month.
    - ivey 17y ago
      What were you being charged before, and what are you being charged now?

zaidf 17y ago

"Forgets" is being too nice.

Grinnmarr 17y ago

Would someone please clarify exactly what has changed? I cannot make out heads or tails from the discussion here or on Paypal. How was it before? How is it now?

ivey 17y ago
Official clarification from PayPal: https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2009/08/a-clarification-on-paypal’s-recent-send-money-updates/ https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2009/08/a-clarification-on-pay...
- Grinnmarr 17y ago
  I read that prior to asking for clarity! I want specifics. Can anyone confirm exactly what changed?
  - patio11 17y ago
    There are 3 account types on Paypal: Personal, Premier, and Business. A natural person will usually have Personal or Premier. Personal accounts cannot receive payments funded by credit cards. This restriction tends to force non-consumer use of Paypal into a Premier account. In particular, eBay sellers must use Premier accounts. Of note: previously, Personal accounts did not charge money for receiving payments. Almost no one uses Personal accounts to receive payments, because they cannot take payments by credit cards, cannot be used on eBay, and cannot be used with APIs (last time I checked). Premier accounts have always charged money for receiving payments. What changed: when you send a payment, you have to specify what the payment is for. There are a few options: Payment for: Services, Goods, eBay Items Personal payment: Gift, Payment Owed, Cash Advance, Living Expense, Other Here's the change: if the sender codes a payment as one of the three "payment for" options, the recipient gets charged. This is unremarkable for 99.99% of people receiving payments on Paypal, because they've had premier accounts for years (to receive CC payments), but it inconveniences people who were using Paypal to receive payments funded from Paypal balances. Note: You can still receive payments, for free, if they're both funded from a Paypal balance and coded as Gift, Payment Owed, etc.

andreyf 17y ago

Or just ditch PayPal altogether, and sign up for Google Checkout. Good advice. I used PayPal for the first time in years trying out listia.com the other day, and was amazed that they still haven't added autocomplete="off" to their credit card number fields - every piece of information one needs to make online purchases is cached (unencrypted, usually) to your hard disk. Idiocy.

elai 17y ago
Google checkout is one of those mostly-USA only for merchants things, yet again. Paypal is far more international, and alternatives tend to be even more expensive.
- onreact-com 17y ago
  No, Moneybookers is popular globally as well and it's cheaper plus more reliable and secure.
  - lucumo 17y ago
    And has a disaster for a user interface. Once every three months I have to file a tax report and that's when I log in to see each transaction for those three months. Their history form has a "[Go]" button and a "[Search]" button. I press the wrong one each and every time. There is no details page for a transaction and you can only see the item that was sold in a CSS popup that disappears when you mouse away, making it impossible to copy-paste. And then there's the fact that their calculations can be off sometimes. We have some sales that are € 12.75. The transaction costs for that is € 0.44 or € 0.45, I don't know which: the amount field says it's € 0.44, but our balance is actually decreased by € 0.45. That's a rather bad mistake to make as a payment provider... All in all I'm not too happy with Moneybookers. It gets us money and it's cheap, but it's perfectly clear why they are cheap... Edit: Also, Moneybookers sales were less than 5% of the Paypal sales...
    - onreact-com 17y ago
      OK, MB is not perfect either but I still prefer it to PayPal and use it whenever I can. Also MB has some security advantages. You can already notice on the front end (captcha etc.)

Pistos2 17y ago

The Fee page on PayPal's site doesn't exactly clarify either: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_display-fees-outside https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_display-... It still says "Free when the money comes from PayPal balance or bank account", which is what I thought people were complaining is no longer the case.

dpcan 17y ago

PayPal has always charged this rate for business accounts when selling goods and services. So, the problem here appears to be that everyone running their personal account for business purposes is bitching about how they can't sneak around the fees anymore.

csomar 17y ago

I wonder why services like Moneybookers are not popular. It doesn't charge a fee, it's available World wide and very simple to use.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]