SELLER WANTS 50p EXTRA TO COVER PAYPAL FEES

Tirian

Not true - all eBay purchases are protected up to a value of £120 (minus a £15 excess). There's a couple of stipulations, can't remember exactly what - the seller has to have over 95% positive feedback or something I think.

But anyway, if you can show that you paid and did not receive your item - or recieved something materially different than was shown, you can claim up to £120 back from eBay, no matter how you paid.

jenniferpa

The point is, I think, that paying via a credit card, via paypal gives the best possible protection - no £15 deducation, and no waiting. Depends on the quality of your credit card company though.

Tirian

Not necessarily. If the seller has already downloaded the money from their Paypal account, you won't get anything back. You might be able to get your credit card company to refund you the money, but this is against Paypal's t&c and they may suspend your account.

Paypal would love everyone to believe that they super-secure, but a lot of it is just big words.

Tirian

soolin

Jenniferpa is correct, a credit card chargeback does not require the seller to have funds in their paypal account.

Soo

jenniferpa

They've never suspended my account, and I've done credit card chargebacks. They've spent a lot of time and money ensuring that they are "out of the loop" in a legal sense, and to be frank, I think the statements that they "might" suspend an account are as valid as some of paypals own assurances - not worth the paper they are written on. In fact they say:

The Buyer Protection Policy does not replace or reduce any other consumer rights Users may have, including reversal rights that may be granted by a User's credit card issuer. You acknowledge that we do not control the outcome of any reversal decision initiated through a User's credit card issuer.

If you abused this, they might suspend you, but I suspect you'd be having problems with your own credit card company before it got to that point.

Timmy

Tirian wrote:

Paypal is supposedly "more secure" than other forms of payment because of the chargeback facility. In practice, this means nothing.

As a long time buyer and seller, I have found that you are at risk from Paypal:

As a seller, if you send something out and someone files a chargeback, even if you have sent the item via insured post then Paypal will automatically deduct the money from your account unless it was sent by a signature delivery service. There is no obligation on the buyer to actually go through any of the requisite insurance claim processes that can recover compensation for the item.

As a buyer, if you file a chargeback and the seller has no money in their Paypal account you will not receive anything back.

So frankly, a lot of the "security" of Paypal is a facade by eBay to persuade you that it is somehow safer to use. It isn't. It just makes more money for eBay, because they own it.

I used eBay for years before Paypal was around, and paid for hundreds of items with cheques or bank transfer. If you use common sense and buy from people with good feedback, or ensure you get contact details beforehand then to be honest you are just as safe as paying with Paypal.

Also, there wasn't always a rule against surcharging for Paypal. Until eBay bought Paypal, and revised the entire European T&C in order to make it possible for them to make a rule against it. And whatever they may say, it's not a matter of just 'factoring it into the price'. It's an AUCTION site. Auction houses almost invariably charge the fees to the buyer - it's only eBay that seems determined to foist it all on the seller, in their drive to turn ebay from an auction site into some kind of super-shop where everything is fixed-price with the fees "factored in". In an auction you can't 'factor in' the costs, you take what you get. Or else, as many people do, you hide the surcharge in the "postage" costs - but I feel that is both misleading, and unfair to those who choose not to use Paypal, because they end up effectively subsidising those who do.

Still ... as has been pointed out, it is against the t&c so if you want to make a fuss about it and get them censured by eBay, you can.

Fully agree but I do have to work paypal charges into postage otherwise it's almost not worth me selling at all. I do offer big postage discounts on large items for those happy not to use paypal though.

code^express

Paypal sucks!!! I myself as a seller/buyer charge higher P&P to overseas buyer in order to cover the paypal fee,etc. Like previous member says : Ebay charge us left/right & center & Paypal is part of ebay as far as I am concern.

I only accept paypal from outside UK buyer. There is nothing wrong with using bank transfer (from UK seller) / wire transfer (from overseas buyer) - I have used it number of times.

Bank transfer is no different from issuing a cheque. Your cheq. still show your sort code & bank account No. so what wrongs with bank transfer? It save buyer stamp & raising a cheq.

Feedback does help though .... I only pay seller who has 99 - 100% feedback via bank transfer.

jenniferpa

You're missing the point - there's nothing wrong with bank transfer or cheque if as a seller you are happy to accept them, and accept any risks that are associated with them. There's also nothing wrong with them from the point of a buyer with the same caveat. The issue the OP has raised is that he/she chose to bid on an auction that listed paypal as a payment method. He chose that method, and now the seller wants to add a fee. I ONLY bid on items that I can pay with via a credit card/paypal and I accept that sometimes that means that I pay slightly over because the auction reaches higher prices because of the convenience factor. I know that there are sellers on this board who claim that not allowing paypal has had no effect on their prices, and that's fair enough, but in the same way that a seller has a right to set their payment terms, I have a right as a buyer to choose if I want to accept them by bidding on their auctions, and I won't if they don't accept paypal. Adding a fee on top of what I've already agreed to is unacceptable, whether it's 50p or £50.

Tirian

jenniferpa wrote:

They've never suspended my account, and I've done credit card chargebacks. They've spent a lot of time and money ensuring that they are "out of the loop" in a legal sense, and to be frank, I think the statements that they "might" suspend an account are as valid as some of paypals own assurances - not worth the paper they are written on. In fact they say:

The Buyer Protection Policy does not replace or reduce any other consumer rights Users may have, including reversal rights that may be granted by a User's credit card issuer. You acknowledge that we do not control the outcome of any reversal decision initiated through a User's credit card issuer.

If you abused this, they might suspend you, but I suspect you'd be having problems with your own credit card company before it got to that point.

If it works for you, then congrats ... but, from personal experience, eBay / Paypal often let things pass for a while and then go on a big crusade about it when it suits them.

Case in point: when they changed their terms to prevent people from adding a charge for Paypal usage. For a long time afterwards they didn't actually follow up on the many people that did this. But then, suddenly, they started closing auctions and suspending users over it.

When, at some future point, they get a bee in their bonnet about credit card chargebacks then quite a few people may suddenly find themselves in a sticky situation. And that point will be when enough people are doing it that it starts to hurt their bottom line.

Timmy - I agree with you. Having tried all sorts of other options, none of which were very satisfactory, I am thinking of introducing the discount for cheque / cash / bank transfer payments. The trouble is that ebay / Paypal don't want to allow any encouragement to pay via other means, because they make more money if it goes through Paypal.