PayPal Friends & Family Payment Fees!!!
 

Haven't seen this discussed before, so thought I would share.

I just made a PayPal F&F payment with my credit card. Low and behold, they charged me a fee. For those who may be wondering, it was 4.4%. I imagine this percentage will vary, depending upon the amount.

Seems like PayPal (eBay) found a way to collect fees from transactions that weren't really people sending funds to, "friends and family."

Not trying to judge, one way or another. Just sharing news that was (to me, anyway) interesting.

Thoughts, ladies and gentlemen?

Best regards,

Eric

PayPal Friends & Family Payment Fees!!!
 

If you pay with credit card, someone is paying a fee. PayPal certainly isn't picking up that tab.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No change
 

They always have charged a fee if you use your credit card even on f/f. No one rides for free I guess!

Mike

Depends on payment type
 

PP F&F is "fee-free" only with PP balance or Bank Transfer. Covering with credit card is subject to fees, and has been for a while (not sure how long).

--
Mike

I have only been able to do F&F payments when I've had cash in my account.

Agree with posts 3 and 4

The surprising thing, to me anyways, is they charged 4.4%. I thought it was a standard 2.9% or something closer to 3%.

I guess they are tired of being defrauded by people trying to circumvent paying paypal for its service. I'm surprised it took this long if it is a policy change.

I think that 4.4% rate is for an international transaction, while domestic transactions with buyer an seller both in the US is 2.9%.

Not positive but I think that's what I have found....

I believe the fee is 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction.

No offense to Eric, but if you buy a $20 baseball card using your credit card thru Paypal, then the 30 cent charge amounts to 1.5% by itself.

Which begs the question, if you do not have $20 available in your checking account, should you be spending money on baseball cards? :D:D:D

Hopefully, you are using a credit card that will give you a 1% rebate of 20 cents.

Sending money – Personal payments:

It's free within the U.S. to send money to family and friends when you use only your PayPal balance or bank account, or a combination of their PayPal balance and bank account.

There is a fee to send money as a personal payment using a debit card or credit card. The fee in the U.S. is 2.9% plus $0.30 USD of the amount you send. For example, if you send $100.00 USD by credit card, the fee would be $3.20 USD ($2.90 + $0.30). For personal payments, the sender can pay the fee or pass it on to the recipient. If the recipient doesn't want to pay the fee, they can choose not to accept the payment.

Receiving money – Personal payments:

It's free to receive money from friends or family in the U.S. when they send the money from the PayPal website using only their PayPal balance or their bank account, or a combination of their PayPal balance and bank account.

If you receive a personal payment made from a debit card or credit card, the sender has the option to pay the fee or pass it on to you. If you don't want to pay the fee, you can choose not to accept the payment.

If the fee is passed to you, it is 2.9% plus $0.30 USD of the amount you receive. For example, if you are sent $100.00 USD by credit card, the fee would be $3.20 USD ($2.90 + $0.30).

So back in the "Good Ole Days" - Paypal would pay you to leave cash on deposit in your PP account.....

I recently on Ebay had a international buyer(Venezuella) but had the item sent to a Florida address. (buyer= vadvintage)
Be Warn- the paypal is not linked to a U.S. address and will be chraged international fees... which i found out it was 3.9% + .30 trans

Thanks for the info, guys.

Yup, they called it a money market account. I think it even got up to 3-4% at one time..........Then at some point banks decided they didn't want to pay interest (or didn't need to) to hold money anymore.

Nobody talks dollars and sense like RGold.:D

If they were really my payPAL they wouldn't charge a fee

I am thankful for these fees. I established a nice rapport with a seller and took a deal off EBay. He sold me the lot and I paid F&F. The shipment was very slow and I thought that I was scammed. He offered to refund the money until the cards arrived.

Later that same day (2 weeks later), the cards arrived. I felt terrible that I thought he had scammed me. The refund he sent was as an echeck and was going to take 5 days to clear. There was no way to cancel the refund. I attempted to send him another friends and family payment. For some reason, it sent as an Echeck. He asked if I could try to send as an instant transfer and he would cancel the echeck. Again, feeling bad that I had overreacted and had cards in hand. I happily did this. To my surprise (despite having ample funds in my direct transfer checking account), it pulled from my credit card and charged me a 2.9% fee.

Alas, the refund did not clear after two weeks and two attempts. PayPal cancelled it. The seller went radio silent. I was out $985. Because I had paid the fee (even though I was trying to send F&F) I was able to put in a dispute claim to PayPal. If that didn't go well I would file a dispute with the cc issuer.

After PayPal made 3 attempts to reach the seller to no avail, the informed me today that my account would be refunded. It would take up to 5 days and I have already had two refunds denied due to seller insufficient funds but, at least I was able to get it resolved. I think I am out of the friends and family business. That 2.9% saved my behind even though I was trying to give it away. I will have to start assuming the worst in deals. The safeguards are there for a reason. In this case they protected me from myself.

I did not quite follow that sequence Kevin; probably because I don't know what an e-check is. That said, I do not use FF for transactions and ask people not to use it with me. It doesn't sit well with me to cheat a service provider out of fees for a service. Then there is the protection of using the regular service. It has saved me money several times over when in the past I would have been SOL. You just never know when a deal will go south on you. I Also noticed that if I use FF I can't use PayPal shipping but with regular I can and that saves me money over USPS direct or having to buy a postage account.

It's all about Venmo these days. Last weekend I was talking to the founder in a bar in Brooklyn, he's only in his early 30's and worth millions...:( I need to start coding. Think of all the Honus Wagner's I could hoard.

I had never heard of Venmo until reading this post. How does it compare with PayPal?