Paypal gifts and you - they're catching on

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Apec

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While cross forum posting is generally discouraged, I found this while browsing Calguns.net and figured it's relevant here since a good volume of transactions on this site involve paypal, and a reasonable fraction of them have involved gift/personal use. Googling any portion of the paypal email below will return similar threads from other forums. Basically, a poster there shed some light on his experience with Paypal and gifts. In a nutshell, they're catching onto sales of goods made under the personal tab and threatening to institute mandatory fees against those who've been flagged and continue to do so.

As for the lack of recourse when using gift/personal, that's been discussed plenty of times elsewhere, so I won't be going into any of that

Toolbox X said:
I just got this email from Paypal:
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Dear <name>,

Thank you for using PayPal to accept money with your PayPal account. We
recently changed our pricing structure so that you can receive money
from friends and family for personal payments within the US for free.
Personal payments are for sending a gift, splitting a lunch bill, paying
your share of the living expenses, and everyday exchanges of money
between friends and family.

If you receive money as a payment for a purchase or service, you will
continue to incur fees.
We've noticed that some of your customers are sending you personal
payments for purchases of items or services. Unfortunately, this is
against our rules, and we need your help correcting it. Please don't ask
or allow your customers to use personal payments to pay for their
purchases.

If we continue to see such activity, we may have to disable your ability
to receive free personal payments, and then you will pay fees for all
money received through PayPal.

Here's how you can find more information about payment types and fees:

1. Click ""Fees"" at the bottom of any PayPal page
2. Click ""Legal Agreements"" at the bottom of any PayPal page, and then
click ""PayPal User Agreement."" Sections 4 and 8 refer to receiving
money and fees.

If you have any questions, concerns, or think we may have made a
mistake, please contact us at P2P@paypal.com.

We value your business and appreciate your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Laura

Personal to Personal Team

PayPal
Click to expand...
 
Good for them.It's about time their catching on.Now everyone's gonna have a +4% instead of "gift"(as if that's not going on already:rolleyes:),which is still against their rules.The buyer is not responsible for paying the fees the SELLER is.

Just add it all in your total & do things the RIGHT way for a change.:eek::foot::yawn:
 
JTR357 said:
Good for them.It's about time their catching on.Now everyone's gonna have a +4% instead of "gift"(as if that's not going on already:rolleyes:),which is still against their rules.The buyer is not responsible for paying the fees the SELLER is.

Just add it all in your total & do things the RIGHT way for a change.:eek::foot::yawn:
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This is true :)

I highly dislike/hate the +4% or +3%. If you have to add the fee at least "hide" it by inflating the price or just accept that it's the cost of instant payment vs. waiting for a MO and having to drive and waste time and gas to cash it.

The one and only time I tried sending Gift option for an item from a member here Paypal struck very quickly and put a hold on my payment. I had to send another amount of money the normal way and it went through instantly. I then had to make arrangements to have the Gift amount reversed which was a waste of time on the phone.
 
It seem's a lot of the deals that go bad here on BF, the PayPal gift option is usually involved, leaving the buyer screwed. Although the fee's are excessive IMO, maybe it is for the better, not to use the gift option and consider it in your price and adjust. Maybe it will cut down on the number of bad deal's that happen here because paying the fee's gives you some protection from being ripped off. I recently had to file a dispute with PayPal to finally get my merchandise I paid for. No doubt, had I not had that option, I would have probably never recieved my item.
 
PP Fees are the responsibility of the seller. If they wish to incur the cost to the customer, it has to be disclosed ahead of time. So technically, if you just tack it on your price without disclosing, you are in the wrong. Though, I have no idea how they could possibly prove that you are tacking on fees. The sellers who openly post PP Fees will be added are only keeping to the rules.

https://cms.paypal.com/ca/cgi-bin/?...reement_full&fli=true&locale.x=en_US#8. Fees.
c.For PayPal Business Payments, the PayPal Business Payment Fee is paid by the recipient unless it is disclosed to you before you send the payment that you, the sender, must pay this Fee.
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I don't even pay attention to the fees and am just happy that someone else is handling credit card numbers and exchanges rates. They also offer great buyer/seller protection. If you are a small business that can't afford transaction software and the headaches that surround dealing with payments, PP and similar companies are the way to go. Buck up and pay the fees.

Rick
 
https://cms.paypal.com/ca/cgi-bin/?...reement_full&fli=true&locale.x=en_US#8. Fees.
a. For Purchase Payments, the recipient of the payment will always pay the Fee.
Click to expand...

That seems pretty clear.


c. For PayPal Business Payments, the PayPal Business Payment Fee is paid by the recipient unless it is disclosed to you before you send the payment that you, the sender, must pay this Fee.
Click to expand...

I'm not so clear about exactly what a "PayPal Business Payment" is, but it is clearly not a purchase payment.
 
I recently had a transaction for a Kershaw Volt 3600 on ebay that went like this.

He posted a high price, but left the "best offer" option active, so I emailed him an offer that was a little more reasonable (but still really high).

He emailed me saying that that price would be OK if we did our deal directly through Paypal so he could save on auction fees. He promised that Paypal would still protect my purchase. I get a weird feeling, so I tell him that I regretted the offer and would just appreciate it if he found another buyer. He says he needs it to sell, and I'm now on the hook.

Well now, this I'm not proud of, but I always default to the idea that people are generally good and trustworthy. So I talk to him some more. (In hindsight I now realize that I was participating in a conspiracy to cut ebay out of a well earned fee, they did connect me and the seller after all). Anyway, we agree to a new price if it's just through paypal.

And that's when the seller hits me with the next surprise. He now wants me to send money via the gift option. All that talk about paypal protecting my purchase was a big fat lie.

That's when I realize my shady feelings earlier were right on the money. I might be getting scammed.

But my official offer was still active on ebay and could be accepted at the push of a button. And now I don't want to do business with this person, so I have no choice but to contact ebay and try to get my offer rescinded. They tell me that it's been noted, but unfortunately it's too late to remove the offer. This I couldnt believe - but ebay actually told me not to pay for the item if I win the auction. They say that after I'm reported for non-payment, I can plead my case.

Well, I have a feeling that they told the seller to stop trying to take auctions off site, because within the hour, my offer was accepted.

I was sick of dealing with everything and figured I still had a shot at getting my knife and if I didn't I would get my money back, so I went ahead and paid.

I got my knife and it was as described. The official transaction was just fine.

But the weaseling and the behind the scenes attempts to defraud ebay and paypal? Who does that? Scumbags do that. And I found one of those scumbags. Big surprise, I found him on ebay.
 
Los Angeles said:
I recently had a transaction for a Kershaw Volt 3600 on ebay that went like this.

He posted a high price, but left the "best offer" option active, so I emailed him an offer that was a little more reasonable (but still really high).

He emailed me saying that that price would be OK if we did our deal directly through Paypal so he could save on auction fees. He promised that Paypal would still protect my purchase. I get a weird feeling, so I tell him that I regretted the offer and would just appreciate it if he found another buyer. He says he needs it to sell, and I'm now on the hook.

Well now, this I'm not proud of, but I always default to the idea that people are generally good and trustworthy. So I talk to him some more. (In hindsight I now realize that I was participating in a conspiracy to cut ebay out of a well earned fee, they did connect me and the seller after all). Anyway, we agree to a new price if it's just through paypal.

And that's when the seller hits me with the next surprise. He now wants me to send money via the gift option. All that talk about paypal protecting my purchase was a big fat lie.

That's when I realize my shady feelings earlier were right on the money. I might be getting scammed.

But my official offer was still active on ebay and could be accepted at the push of a button. And now I don't want to do business with this person, so I have no choice but to contact ebay and try to get my offer rescinded. They tell me that it's been noted, but unfortunately it's too late to remove the offer. This I couldnt believe - but ebay actually told me not to pay for the item if I win the auction. They say that after I'm reported for non-payment, I can plead my case.

Well, I have a feeling that they told the seller to stop trying to take auctions off site, because within the hour, my offer was accepted.

I was sick of dealing with everything and figured I still had a shot at getting my knife and if I didn't I would get my money back, so I went ahead and paid.

I got my knife and it was as described. The official transaction was just fine.

But the weaseling and the behind the scenes attempts to defraud ebay and paypal? Who does that? Scumbags do that. And I found one of those scumbags. Big surprise, I found him on ebay.
Click to expand...

You can easily retract your payment without contacting Ebay. Just use the "bid wrong amount" reason trick. People do this all the time (rarely legitimately, I suspect).
 
Well, there is a rule in place that says you can't retract an offer if it's been longer than one hour since the offer was made and shorter than 12 hours until the auction's end. When the ebay phone support person tried to walk me through it, this was her first solution, but the software blocked me. That's when she told me to simply not pay and wait for the seller to report me, where they would review the case and "likely" find in my favor.

I bought the knife, I have the knife, but in the end, I feel dirty. And it's all because the seller wanted to cheat his way out of a measly 2.9%+$0.30. (Which, by the way, is a really cheap service considering that 10 years ago such person-to-person instant payments cost $20 or more a piece.)

I'll probably turn around and sell the knife sometime soon to wash my hands of the situation.
 
Los Angeles said:
Well, there is a rule in place that says you can't retract an offer if it's been longer than one hour since the offer was made and shorter than 12 hours until the auction's end. When the ebay phone support person tried to walk me through it, this was her first solution, but the software blocked me. That's when she told me to simply not pay and wait for the seller to report me, where they would review the case and "likely" find in my favor.

I bought the knife, I have the knife, but in the end, I feel dirty. And it's all because the seller wanted to cheat his way out of a measly 2.9%+$0.30. (Which, by the way, is a really cheap service considering that 10 years ago such person-to-person instant payments cost $20 or more a piece.)

I'll probably turn around and sell the knife sometime soon to wash my hands of the situation.
Click to expand...

Oh, that's right. There is that one stipulation--you cannot retract once time 'til closing reaches the twelve hour mark. The part about not being able to retract one hour after the bid is not true, however. Here is the relevant help page:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bid-retract.html#cond


EDIT: My mistake, you're talking about Best Offers, not bidding.
 
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