How can I use PayPal for free?

Hermiony

Hi,

I'm hoping someone here might be able to help.

I'm part of a non-profit organisation which organises trips for children. The group organiser will buy say 50 tickets to visit a zoo, and the various parents will then pay her for the tickets.

To simplify the process I installed an e-shop on the group website so that the parents could simply pay directly to the groups PayPal account.

I thought that as long as the parents' PayPal accounts were set to pay by direct bank transfer, it would be free. However, the groups' PayPal account is now being charged a fee per transaction.

Do any of you know a way around this?

RFW

No.
There are other options though, if its a registered charity banks will help (they may anyway but registered charities have more options), if not a simple way would be to have transfers direct to a separate bank account (you'd need to give the bank details direct to parents). Would add another layer to payment but I doubt anyone would mind.

cyberbob

You can't get it for free but you can get reduced fees

https://www.paypal.com/uk/charity

arriva

You can try the "Gift" option. Paypal Gifts are free to the receiver (and the sender).

cyberbob

arriva wrote: »

You can try the "Gift" option. Paypal Gifts are free to the receiver (and the sender).

The problem with that is you have to declare to paypal you are a charity so if they see you accepting all these so called gifts you account will be in danger of being frozen

Paypal wrote:

Service Requiring Pre-Approval
Collecting donations as a charity or non-profit organization

https://cms.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/AcceptableUse_full&locale.x=en_GB

Hermiony

Thanks, I see now that I might be in violation of Paypal's T&C's by collecting money as a non-profit organisation.
I'll get in touch with paypal and discuss it directly with them.

Thanks again.

martindow

Might it not be simpler to get people to do credit transfers to your organisation's bank account? By the way, non profit organisation has no legal meaning in the UK - this is an American term.