Ridiculously high Paypal charges or simply rip off

[Blackmore]

Just recently they were like 3,9% and now they are 4,25%, WTF!?

[stevenkelby]

Sure why not.

If I was PP I would too.

Anyone going to stop using it? Anyone really got a choice?

No viable alternative is there?

Sellers will just put their prices up, buyers will pay more.

If I get paid $100 for something via PP, I only get ~$96. If I buy something with that ~$96, the guy I buy from gets ~$92. If he buys something his seller will only get ~$89.

Eventually the whole $100 goes to PP! The majority of it anyway. Surprisingly quickly too.

What a gyp!

That's capitalism I guess.

[Aimless1]

I got "surprised" on a recent transaction. Seems like the fee is rather high, but really don't know of a "safe" alternative other than waiting 15+ days for a check to clear and to make sure it doesn't kick back as fraudulent.

[Zorander]

With local (Australian) transactions, I normally insist on direct bank transfer. Many people I deal with (buyers and sellers) seem to prefer this traditional method too. Paypal is only good for overseas transactions as it offers convenient way of paying without the hassle of cheque fees and mailings. Sellers unfortunately have to live with the fees (which gets ridiculous with high-value transactions).

I opened up a thread on this before but anyway, I'm going to ask again to those of you in the US: Why Paypal? Why not direct bank transfer?

[stevenkelby]

Same, I never use PP for national transactions.

Originally Posted by Zorander

I opened up a thread on this before but anyway, I'm going to ask again: why Paypal?

Why what? Why do people use it, or why the fee rise?

[progo]

Does paypal make the transactions directly or is there a delay? That is one reason to use it. Wire transfers take some days. If I order something from somewhere I'd like to have it as soon as possible. No, the fee is pretty high so I wouldn't prefer paypal for it.

[Blackmore]

Within EU we have the same free of charge bank transfers, when IBAN been used, same as the bank account, but then with some extra letters&numbers codes. Its quick and safe as well.
It just become to expensive in one time, imo, 9% ( actually its 0.35%, which is 9% from 3.9% ) up. Other than that don't have anything against Paypal, really happy that such service exist, but 9%, come on...

[stevenkelby]

You get the money so you can spend it, the instant someone pays you unless they use an echeque or something weird like that. If you want to transfer the money to your bank account though, PP keeps it for a few days first to earn interest.

[Blackmore]

Recently I paid, using paypal direct debt from my bank account, and it took like a business week, or even more, before the funds were on the sellers account. But the funny thing is, at the moment I made my payment, next few hours the funds were gone from my bank, same day I mean. After several mails and telephone call they said they were sorry for delay.

Originally Posted by progo

Does paypal make the transactions directly or is there a delay? That is one reason to use it. Wire transfers take some days. If I order something from somewhere I'd like to have it as soon as possible. No, the fee is pretty high so I wouldn't prefer paypal for it.

[NiceCans]

Of course they raised their fees . . . . it is because they are incurring additional operational expenses due to increases in gasoline prices

No, wait . . .. it is because they gave their employees an pay increase




But most likely it is because they (as stated above) have, to a great degree, a captured audience.
Seems like there is room for a competitor to startup and undercut them to grab a market share.
Anyone got a trailer-load of spare cash to invest?

[manaox2]

Can't you withdraw funds from the bank three to five days in advance and send to the seller that way? Wouldn't that take out the fees? (and allow them to accrue interest in the mean time?)

[grawk]

It's pretty simple. Paypal provides a service, and they charge a fee for it. There are alternatives, google checkout for example. If it's not worth 4% for the service to you, don't pay it. Or use paypal for cash only, and register for a personal account instead of a premier or business account. There are no fees charged on those, if you never use credit cards.

[apatN]

In fact, they make profit twice with your money..

It takes a week for paypal to get money to your account. In that week they are getting interests from that money. When you buy something they will get another 4% of that money..

[BloodSugar00]

They've pretty much, at present, got a monoply on this kind of - very convenient and, therefore, very popular - service, so they have the power to take as much as they can in service charges. If I remove myself from the equation as an affected rip-offee of paypal, and look at it objectively, I think, fair play. They have imagined and then implmented a fast, convenient service that people will use and are making healthy profit from it. Obviously, that it easy to flip on its head when you're getting stumped for 4 % on a 400 pound item! I think its like any market really, once a determined competitor or 2 manages to set itself up, the fees will have to come down to compete with rivals for customers.

[krmathis]

PayPal have always been a rip-off imo.
But sadly there are few comparable companies for fast international money transfers.