I have just started selling things on eBay. I've been a buyer for a year and I have used my PayPal account for a lot of purchases.
In the last fortnight, some of my buyers have paid using paypal and I haven't been charged anything.
Two of my buyers have tried to pay via paypal using credit cards, and PayPal has tried to get me to pay charges and asked me to upgrade to a Premier or Business account, which will subject ALL of my future paypal receipts to charges of 20p + a percentage.
My question is: what exactly are my buyers doing when they try to pay? are they paying me from out of their paypal accounts, which take money from their credit cards (like mine does when I pay for something), or are they entering credit card details each time, with or without a paypal account of their own?
If you sell with PayPal as well as buy, you often end up with money left in your account. This can be sent (at no cost) to someone elses Personal PayPal account.
I have two PayPal accounts, one of which is Personal and therefore cannot accept payments funded by a credit card, and the other is an upgraded account which means I lose about 4% of the total. Quite often when selling artwork I give the buyer the option of sending to either account, but paying the extra percentage if they need to send to my Business account. On eBay there is a rule which states that you can't pass on PayPal charges so I just have to lose out.
Wake
Ah... so, when I have cleared funds in my PayPal account, it costs the seller nothing when I pay up, but when my account is empty it has to get funds from my credit card, so the seller has to pay charges?
Now I get it.
so, when I have cleared funds in my PayPal account, it costs the seller nothing when I pay up, but when my account is empty it has to get funds from my credit card, so the seller has to pay charges?
Unfortunately not, if you have cleared funds AND you send it to a Personal account, it costs the seller nothing. If you send it to an upgrades account the fees are charged, irrespective of how the payment is funded. This means I have to explain all this every time I want to give buyers a choice of accounts, and then refuse their payment and ask them to send it again to the other account when they misunderstand me.
Wake
Looks like I'm going to have to accept their payments, upgrade my account, maybe start a separate account for cleared funds only, and stop offering the PayPal option on future auctions for the time being.
Thanks, Wake.