Costs of a Premier Paypal account

JonnyF_2 · 25 September 2005 at 10:45PM

Hi,

I'm very new to ebay. I've just made my second sale (I now have a feedback of 5, soon to be 6). I used paypal for both my sales (both items are cheap 2nd hand books).

This evening I sold my 2nd item, for 1p plus 50p P&P. The buyer paid via a credit card on paypal. I know I have to upgrade to a premier account to accept this. But I'm having trouble finding out exactly what the costs are for the premier account. I understand each credit card transaction will be charged at 20p + x% (I can't remember what the %age is).

1. Are there any other charges I haven't discovered?
2. If there are, can I refuse the payment? Should I send the book anyway (I'm perfectly happy to send it and lose 51p if it means I won't get a negative damaging my 5/5 positives at the moment).
3. Are there any other options?

Thanks,

Jonny

masonic · 25 September 2005 at 10:56PM

If you listed paypal as a payment option, then you are obliged to accept credit card payments through paypal. However, if you want to send the book anyway and return the payment, I can hardly see the buyer complaining. The way around this is to not tick the paypal box in the payment methods of your listing, but mention within the listing that you accept non-credit card payments by paypal (that might make people a bit suspicious, however).

You should also note that, after you upgrade, all payments (not just credit card payments) will be charged at that rate. If you are selling cheap items regularly, then you may need to pass on that extra cost in the price (don't say you are doing this!) if you decide to upgrade.

EDIT: You might want to try writing a grovelling e-mail to the buyer explaining things and asking if they would consider making the payment again using a debit card (or from their bank account if they are paypal verified) after you return the original payment. You never know, they might be happy to do this; just don't expect them to.

Jellicle · 26 September 2005 at 1:40AM

I reckon you have 3 options:
1. Accept the payment by 'upgrading' to the premier account and continue to pay the increased fees.

2. Accept the payment by 'upgrading' to the premier account and THEN downgrade back to a "Personal' account - You can only do this once and I don't know how much hassle it is.
(Certainly not worth it for 51p)

3. Email your buyer and explain that you were not aware you that you would have to upgrade your Paypal account. Refund the payment to them (just before you email them) by "refusing" it, and ask them to pay by cheque pretty please.
- However it will cost the buyer 27p to post the cheque to you and since you're only looking for 51p I would be inclined to tell them you will send it to them anyway free of charge.
(Maybe you could suggest to them that if they ever have 51p credit in their Paypal account they could send it to you!)

- I'm impressed your P&P is only 50p though, does that really cover your costs! (PS. I've aslo sent you a 'PM', ie. 'Private Message')
Cheers :beer:

competitionscafe · 26 September 2005 at 2:34AM

masonic wrote:

If you listed paypal as a payment option, then you are obliged to accept credit card payments through paypal.

Interesting - I bought an item a couple of weeks ago and Paypal was listed as one of the 2 payment options -so I paid as soon as the auction ended (which is what I usually do) and then was a bit puzzled when the seller emailed me with a bit of an abrupt email saying they could not accept credit cards. Never had this problem before, but anyway sent a cheque and all was well - didn't know they were obliged to accept payment. Only thing was the item was delayed by about 8 days (with weekend etc) waiting for cheque clearance - so if I had wanted it quickly I wouldn't have been that impressed.

soolin · 26 September 2005 at 7:28AM

masonic wrote:

EDIT: You might want to try writing a grovelling e-mail to the buyer explaining things and asking if they would consider making the payment again using a debit card (or from their bank account if they are paypal verified) after you return the original payment. You never know, they might be happy to do this; just don't expect them to.

The buyer can't use a debit card either as paypal, being US can't differentiate between debit and credit cards as most show up as 'Visa' or somehting like that.

The buyer can only pay by direct paypal transfer unfortunately, although as you say it would probably be easier for the seller just to return the payment and send the item anyway.

Soo

soolin · 26 September 2005 at 7:37AM

competitionscafe wrote:

Interesting - I bought an item a couple of weeks ago and Paypal was listed as one of the 2 payment options -so I paid as soon as the auction ended (which is what I usually do) and then was a bit puzzled when the seller emailed me with a bit of an abrupt email saying they could not accept credit cards. Never had this problem before, but anyway sent a cheque and all was well - didn't know they were obliged to accept payment. Only thing was the item was delayed by about 8 days (with weekend etc) waiting for cheque clearance - so if I had wanted it quickly I wouldn't have been that impressed.

This is always a difficult one, personally I only ever pay by paypal and since I don't keep a balance in there all my payments would be card funded. If I ever had a payment refused I would not be willing to send a cheque as I would be worried enough by then, a seller who lists something without accepting it and then wants me to send a cheque which is unsecure would be a problem for me. This is also a fairly common scam, you see hijacked accounts that advertise paypal then when you pay suddenly say they can't accept it as their paypal is having problems or such like and persuade you to send a cheque instead.

For small items I would probably just ask the seller to wait until I had funds in my account to pay them, for larger items I would try and persuade the seller to accept my payment, or just report them to ebay for changing their auction terms after auction closed.

Soo

JonnyF_2 · 26 September 2005 at 8:59AM

Jellicle wrote:

I reckon you have 3 options:
1. Accept the payment by 'upgrading' to the premier account and continue to pay the increased fees.

Thanks everyone, I've decided in the interests of honesty, I'm going to go for this option. I want to sell through ebay a lot more in the future, so I'd have to accept cards sometime. I suppose I was just lucky my first payment was a direct paypal one. I wasn't aware that a debit card has the same problems as a credit card!

I was mainly just wanting to make sure there wasn't a monthly premier paypal subscription fee or any other charges I'd not noticed.

Jellicle wrote:

I'm impressed your P&P is only 50p though, does that really cover your costs!

Well, it's a very small book, and its quite old - to be honest I was expecting the actual auction price to go a bit higher than 1p! As I sell these things I'll learn more about how much these things cost to post - I didn't really want to make the postage OTT.

Thanks again,

Jonny

soolin · 26 September 2005 at 9:13AM

JonnyF wrote:

Well, it's a very small book, and its quite old - to be honest I was expecting the actual auction price to go a bit higher than 1p! As I sell these things I'll learn more about how much these things cost to post - I didn't really want to make the postage OTT.

Thanks again,

Jonny

Many things will go for opening price, so maybe you could do a little research, set a slightly higer price so that you at least break even and hopefully go into profit.

As a rough guide basic listing fees are 15p for items with a start price of less than £1, FVF (which I can never remember the percentage) but say 2p, plus your paypal fee of approx 25p means you have already paid out 42p before adding the cost of the envelope and postage.

You've also got to remember that you pay the listing fee regardless of whether the item sells or not, so for every book you do sell, you might have another 5 unsold with listing fees totalling 75p to reduce your profits on what you do sell.

Actually, typing it all out like that rather makes me want to give up entirely _pale_

Soo

Costs of a Premier Paypal account

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