Heads Up: Paypal Funny Business - New unannounced fees

[Force Flow]

It looks like paypal has added UNANNOUNCED fees of 2.9% + 30 cents for payments classified as "Goods" or "Services," under personal, seller, and business accounts. Personal transfers appear to remain free.

http://consumerist.com/5334161/nobod...dding-new-fees

http://www.pcworld.com/article/16984..._sneakily.html


And in another incident (note: this is not confirumed through any other sources as of yet), paypal seller accounts may be victim to a 20% hold on funds from sales:

http://consumerist.com/5334528/paypa...olling-reserve

[Khalil]

What a scam, they reported massive profits last year, why are they raising fees?

[MaxRat]

paypal sales are victim to a hold of 100% for 21 days on Ebays sale on items over 100.00 and/or sellers with 100 feedback or less according to new Ebay rules...

this is why I recently quit selling on Ebay and using Paypal...

I got money held for 21 days because I have less than 100 feedback...I refused to ship a product until I was payed...member filed a disput claim and paypal held the money...

it was only then Ebay released the new rule...I either had to ship 1st or the buyer leave positive feedback to get the money or wait 21 days for the hold to be lifted...

beings the buyer filed a dispute the money was held until I shipped it and he was satisfied...luckily he was but I WILL NOT ship another product without payment and Ebay deems that against their TOS....

[Khalil]

Damn, I did not know this Max, I guess because I have over 1000 feedbacks on ebay with 100% positive. 21 days? Are you kidding me?

[MaxRat]

no sir I would not kid...

It happened to me twice in one week....and I had perfect feedback just a low one...over half of the people I have sold to never left feedback even though I requested it....

I was actually selling on Ebay locally for alot of people and when something sells they want paid...I was doing this part time and it got to a point the 15% I charged wasnt cutting it....

last auction I had was for a welding helmet....Ebay pulled the auction twice die to high shipping charges,,,I had it listed with a 20.00 shipping charge they deemed that too expensive...

when it sold it cost me 26.75 to ship it...and the only way I could list it was with a 15.00 shipping charge or something like that...either way the seller wasnt happy eating the cost...

I sold on there under dr_bowtie0

EDIT: an FYI if you sell on EBAY I was told by Ebay when I called the only way to save your butt as a seller is to ALWAYS sell with delivery and Signature confirmation...if you dont do both they wont cover you....

[David M]

I think they need some competition.

[HAL9000]

That's just it David... when I was working in the fraud department of MasterCard, I quickly found out there are MANY other services that do the same thing.... but ask anyone to name them... you know only one.

[Force Flow]

Google Checkout, maybe?

[quartet-man]

As far as selling, Amazon Marketplace is doing some damage to eBay, but apparently not enough. As far as paying, Google Checkout might be one. I used billpoint years ago, but I think that was with money orders through Western Union maybe so it isn't the same as paypal.

[HAL9000]

There are actually many virtual credit cards where you deposit money via your own credit card, but then when you checkout, you don't have to use your real CC number, but rather the virtual one... Monavie (if I spelled it correctly) was actually quite popular for money transfers... don't remember the other ones off hand. There were several that were being used when Bank of America banned online gambling with their credit cards... so people started depositing to these services and then made their payments through the service instead.

[inflames988]

Originally Posted by David M I think they need some competition.

I've been talking to a few friends about this - I'm a software developer and would love to create the next eBay (I have plenty of talented friedns to help) BUT i feel like eBay is way too well entrenched, anyone have thoughts on this?

I can confirm the hold thing, they held my money for a lonnnnggg time when I sold my netbook.

[Force Flow]

I've seen a whole slew of eBay knockoffs come and go. Unless you can bring what the golden years of eBay brought and do enough marketing to make your service a household word, it probably wouldn't fair well either.

But, then again, there are so many complaints about ebay and the way it's run that I'm sure people would jump to a good, viable replacement.

[inflames988]

Originally Posted by Force Flow I've seen a whole slew of eBay knockoffs come and go. Unless you can bring what the golden years of eBay brought and do enough marketing to make your service a household word, it probably wouldn't fair well either. But, then again, there are so many complaints about ebay and the way it's run that I'm sure people would jump to a good, viable replacement.

I'm sure the big eBay sellers would flock to something new - I know I personally am getting sick of the outrageous fees. But yeah, the household factor and the sheer number of people who jump to eBay when they want to buy something used make it a tough one to go up against.

[David M]

Originally Posted by HAL9000 That's just it David... when I was working in the fraud department of MasterCard, I quickly found out there are MANY other services that do the same thing.... but ask anyone to name them... you know only one.

How about a nation wide auction site that does listings for free that is paid for by ad revenues? That would take Ebay right out of the running if it were free to everyone. I think many people have pretty much had it with much of Ebay's BS. Ebay has become dirty and heavily bureaucratic, between the scams and the ripoffs by those who list, Paypal and all its hassles and all of Ebays new rules and limitations. Any company that comes along that is better and cheaper would take much of their business.

CraigsList manages to do something very similar for free.

Its amazing how a little competition causes companies to clean up their act....most of them at least.

[inflames988]

Originally Posted by David M CraigsList manages to do something very similar for free. Its amazing how a little competition causes companies to clean up their act....most of them at least.

Much as i hate to defend eBay, CraigsList is pretty much the wild west of the internet.
I posted my laptop for sale locally, and quickly got flooded with e-mails that seemed *somewhat* legit, but found out quickly that these were your usual "I need this item right now, I'm willing to pay an extra $100 for shipping, give me your paypal..." scams.

And the same goes for buying - see a good deal on craigslist, it ends up being one of those "outside of the county...send me payment via *insert untraceable payment type here*"

But you do have a valid point - craigslist does offer listings for free.

[EzyStvy]

I wouldn't mind loosing $3.29 on a $100.00 item versus waiting a week for snail mail to bring the money.

[Force Flow]

Originally Posted by EzyStvy I wouldn't mind loosing $3.29 on a $100.00 item versus waiting a week for snail mail to bring the money.

...and many people would probably agree with that. However, the point was that the fee was not announced...it was added silently, so folks were only finding out after the fact when a purchase was made with no clue what the heck happened and why there was a bite out of the payment.

[Floppyman]

Never used eBay much and still don't -- I've only bought hard to find items from there a couple of items and don't feel like dealing with the hassle of selling.

As for Craigslist, tread very, very carefully. That place is crawling with scammers as I found out when I sold some furniture on there roughly a year ago.

[HAL9000]

Originally Posted by Floppyman Never used eBay much and still don't -- I've only bought hard to find items from there a couple of items and don't feel like dealing with the hassle of selling. As for Craigslist, tread very, very carefully. That place is crawling with scammers as I found out when I sold some furniture on there roughly a year ago.

Same here... I think I have bought 3 things from e-bay... ever... Haven't sold anything through them... we have a local website for listing used items that is VERY effective and people come pick up the stuff, so no worry about delivery fees and such. There is also another site that people list free stuff to give away... the deal being that you can pick up free stuff too. I haven't used it, but a friend of mine uses it a lot.. they list a bunch of crap, people come and get it, she browses the site and picks up stuff from people.. and quite often, some really good stuff too... like an older car that needed a new carb.. nothing wrong with the car itself... not sure why the carb was missing.. but they picked up one at the wrecker and it runs great.

[bucksfanjimj1]

freecycle.org I believe is what your talking about.

[doubledragon5]

Ebay doesn't just hold money from those who have less than 100feed back. I have sold and bought many items on ebay.. Not long ago (less than 6 months) I sold a mother board, ram, cpu.. They held my payment to me ( even though) it was listed on pay pal as being paid until the seller received his items.. And their shipping calculator isn't even right as well. My items that were being shipped totaled $12 on their calculator, but when I actually shipped the items it cost me over $20. Since I haven't sold or bought anything from Ebay and probably won't buy, unless it is a good deal. Then again, a lot of their items that people sell are waaaaay over priced..

[David M]

Never been scammed on CraigsList but I have had plenty of responses from people who were obvious scammers....who wanted my bank account number so they could deposit the money...yeah right. I accept cash only...period. I also pay in cash only in person only. Cash keeps the transactions clean and worry free.

[inflames988]

My personal favorite is my schools "misc market" bulletin board...Only people within the school know about it, you meet up somewhere on campus, pay them in cash, and it's done. I sold my old hard drives this way and its a win win because you can charge lower prices (no fees!).

I need a new PSU for the dell computer I found and spent a few days fixing up, and I looked on the board and sure enough someone was selling an Antec 450W, just what I needed (and then some!) for $20. Beats buying one from newegg because I don't have to wait on shipping or even pull out my credit card - just gonna head to campus with $20 cash.