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PayPal Surcharge

I have noticed alot of people add a (3% or so) PayPal fee to their items and I wonder if everyone is aware, that is against the user agreement. It seems that PayPal looks at sellers as "merchants". This is cut from the Paypal website:

-No Surcharges. Under Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express regulations and the laws of several states, including California, merchants may not charge a fee to the buyer for accepting credit card payments (often called a "surcharge"). You agree that you will not impose a surcharge or any other fee for accepting PayPal as payment. This restriction does not prevent you from imposing a handling fee in connection with the sale of goods or services, as long as the handling fee does not operate as a surcharge (in other words, the handling fee for transactions paid through PayPal may not be higher than the handling fee for transactions paid through other payment methods). Nor does this restriction apply to Pound-denominated transactions by sellers residing in the United Kingdom listing items for sale on a UK-based website.
dill
jetkitty
53 posts
 
Rockvirgo, you took most of the words out of my mouth. I agree that when a seller offers Paypal as an option, he or she should be the one absorbing the fee, not the buyer. This is strictly enforced on eBay, where I have made a number of Paypal purchases.

Other forms of payment are more time consuming and have the potential for additional headaches - especially for the seller. Since the final selling price of an item is almost always negotiable, it would follow that seller should just factor Paypal fees into his/her negotiations.

The 3% discount idea makes me smile, though!
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
I would not get hung up on it. For a fixed priced classified or an auction, just build in the 3% if it bothers you so much. For a "or best offer" advert: if they offer a certain $$ amount and paypal payment, then that is their "best offer". Take it or counter offer.
thedautch
329 posts
 
PayPal would have no standing whatsoever to challenge a seller's application of a 3% fee. If they somehow tried to, anyone who wanted to take PayPal would just figure out what they wanted to get for an item (say, $500), then add 3% ($15) and just charge $515. If a buyer said they wanted to pay cash, the seller would just offer to sell it for $500 even. There is no way that PayPal could establish legal standing in such a case, and it's even more impossible for PayPal to somehow "regulate" such activity.
4yanx
1,576 posts
 
Hey, if PayPal is so damned worried about seeing the "+3%" notation, they should stop charging it.
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
I believe it has nothing to do with Paypal. I don't think any retail store can charge a surcharge on a credit card payment, period. It might be in the VISA, Mastercard, Etc, agreements that vendors sign....

The same reason some stores "don't take American Express" as the VISA advert goes. AMEX fees tend to be higher, and the stores cannot pass the extra cost on to the buyer.
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