posted on April 18, 2001 03:31:32 AM new
I noticed this announcement:
Payment Surcharges
Notice Date: March 25, 2001
Effective Date: March 31, 2001
Under Visa and MasterCard 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". In order to comply with these laws and regulations, PayPal has amended its Terms of Use so that, effective March 31, customers may not charge a fee for accepting PayPal. 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).
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I have a current seller that posts on their auction & EOA that there is a 2.2% charge for PayPal payments (I am currently the winning bidder). How do I contact PayPal about this? I know getting anything back from PayPal via Email is difficult. Should I mention this "new" policy to them?
posted on April 18, 2001 08:02:41 AM new
This is a discussion that has gone round and round here.
1) It is against credit card rules and illegal in many states to charge a surcharge for using a credit card. This leads to the question of how Paypal can charge sellers, since they are the ones actually violating this rule.
2) There is no law against a surcharge for accepting paypal. However, it is against Paypal's TOS and ebay's TOS.
You might want to email the seller and tell them that they are violating the rules. Maybe they will decide to drop it. However, since the terms were spelled out in the post, you have no right to bid and then complain. If you didn't like it, you shouldn't have bid. By bidding, you agreed to pay it. Whining after the fact is just not proper. Reporting them and getting them suspended or warned won't help you.
In general: buyers have to learn that they are paying ALL of a seller's costs, whether it is spelled out or not. Do you really want sellers to add 2.2% to everyone, whether or not they use paypal? This would not be fair. However, this is exactly what stores do. Every time you shop in a store, you are paying extra to cover those folks who use credit cards. If the silly law were changed to allow credit card surcharges, I believe that prices in general would come down a bit.
I prefer to avoid the whiners by stating the following: "there is a 2.5% handling fee charged to everyone and a 2.5% discount to anyone who doesn't use paypal." Problem solved and whiners muzzled.
In your example, the cash discount would be 2.438%...give em 2.5 and, over the long haul you'd be loosing money if everyone paid cash...IME though, it works out ok...
Having said that, your theory is sound.....I figure CC costs into my COGS...and price accordingly...
. In order to comply with these laws and regulations, PayPal has amended its Terms of Use so that, effective March 31, customers may not charge a fee for accepting PayPal. 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).