Buyer does not cover PayPal fees

[Stephen Perry]

I seriously doubt most people actually read the user agreement, or remember it more than 10 minutes.

[Ryk Loske]

Relative to the "firm" question. (I have an ad in now with that dreaded ... by some ... word.) Firm tells the prospective buyer that that is the price. I can appreciate that some folks want to dicker and i'll play that game myself at times. On an expensive item, like the one i'm offering, i could pad the price and play the game ... or ... by letting folks know what i want for the item they can save themselves the trouble and at the same time know that they could not have gotten it any less expensively. I very much try to treat others the way i would like to be treated. If the item doesn't sell at this go-round perhaps it will next time. It ain't gonna rot.
Ryk

[Dacraw54]

Relative to the "firm" question. (I have an ad in now with that dreaded ... by some ... word.) Firm tells the prospective buyer that that is the price. I can appreciate that some folks want to dicker and i'll play that game myself at times. On an expensive item, like the one i'm offering, i could pad the price and play the game ... or ... by letting folks know what i want for the item they can save themselves the trouble and at the same time know that they could not have gotten it any less expensively. I very much try to treat others the way i would like to be treated. If the item doesn't sell at this go-round perhaps it will next time. It ain't gonna rot.
Ryk

" Price is firm at $xxx which includes shipping within US, Pay Pal fees and donation to the Café "
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"If you have used PayPal you have read and agreed to the way Pay Pal operates. If you won't honor that agreement what is there to make a seller comfortable purchasing from you. Read the agreement.
Ryk"

You are violating both the letter and the spirit of your Paypal Agreement by charging the Buyer your Paypal Fees.

[Mark Gunter]

You are violating both the letter and the spirit of your Paypal Agreement by charging the Buyer your Paypal Fees.

He is quoting a firm price, and telling the buyer that the price already includes all this overhead. That is not a violation of PayPal agreement. It may not be a very good sales pitch, but it's not a violation. Buyers should assume that a seller covers his costs and makes a profit, hopefully. Buyers don't need to know what a seller is doing with the money he collects. But telling a seller that "I'm going to pay all these fees and donations with some of the money" does not violate the agreement.

Quoting a lower price, and then telling the user that if they use PayPal there will be an additional fee above the quoted price simply because they are using PayPal is what violates the agreement.

[Ryk Loske]

" Price is firm at $xxx which includes shipping within US, Pay Pal fees and donation to the Café "
.
.
"If you have used PayPal you have read and agreed to the way Pay Pal operates. If you won't honor that agreement what is there to make a seller comfortable purchasing from you. Read the agreement.
Ryk"

"You are violating both the letter and the spirit of your Paypal Agreement by charging the Buyer your Paypal Fees." Decraw54

It could be read that way, and given your stance on the subject i doubt you could read it any other way. Or you could read it the way i understand my agreement with Pay Pal: I absorb the Pay Pal fees and will gladly contribute to the Cafe.

I'm done here,

Ryk

[Dacraw54]

Semantics.

[mrmando]

One can do some simple math. If the price you will accept is x, then (x + 0.294)/0.95158 is the price you should charge. Both the PayPal fee and the Cafe donation are built into that equation. Easy peasy.

If people ask me to reduce a price, I tell them I'll give them a break on shipping if they'll pay with a cashier's check or money order. (Not on Cafe transactions, since Homie don't play that.) That way, part of what I give up on the price is offset by not having to pay the PayPal fee.

[Dacraw54]

In other words being upfront and stating your breakdown of price is unacceptable but hiding your breakdown is acceptable. Much ado about nothing.

[DHopkins]

I have to agree with multidon. The "family" thing is a bit of a stretch. This gene pool probably needs a little more chlorine, anyway.

But, if one is going to use PayPal and take advantage of the protections it provides, they should follow the rules.

[dhergert]

I'm not a seller at all, and in fact I do mostly in-person purchases nowadays anyway...

But as a potential buyer from online places like Cafe or CL or EB, I hate online price haggling, it's too fraught with delays and misunderstandings. I'd like to know when a person names their price online, that's what they need to get, period. That way I have a firm understanding of what I need in order to purchase.

So, I guess I'm coming out in favor of firm, no-negotiations online pricing, however a person wants to word that. "Or best offer" type of sales always leave me wondering what the real story is.

I guess it takes all kinds...

[Dacraw54]

I hear you, Don. OBO just seems to mean disregard the price I'm asking. I also dislike ads that ask for bids/offers cold. If I want to bid I'll use an auction site where the bids are tracked fairly and are visible.

[Br1ck]

The asking for seller to pay fees is something that has me moving on fast. No picture does that too. Or how about no price at all? Move on.

And pricing something higher than you will take gets me loosing interest fast too. I want to see your best fair price, go that's reasonable, and pay it. I have no need to think I got a hundred bucks off your hundred dollar overpriced offering. I have no problem with firm. That just says don't waste either of our time. If it's too much, it will sit there. I also tend to stay away from you horse traders flipping instruments. I'd rather pay the price from a dealer who wants my repeat business.

I don't mind the stories. MAS commeth is as good a reason to sell as any. And saying you bought that old Gibson, fixed the cracks, and did a refret is something I'd like to know and reward. But I wonder about those 2017 mandolins being sold. That bad you're taking a thousand dollar bath? Of course some have third stage MAS, others just a mild cold.

In the end, it's up to the seller to do what they want, and the buyer to act accordingly.

[sgarrity]

It's all a semantics game. You can offer a cash discount but you can't "charge" PayPal fees. It's one thing if you're a business but most people on the Cafe are just occasionally selling their personal items. I negotiate everything and have rarely done a transaction where I did not speak to the other party on the phone. But I'm mostly out of the buying/selling game. I have what I want and MAS has been in remission for quite some time now!

[Stephen Perry]

In general, "semantics" constitute the constitutions or other foundational papers underlying today's world. In specific, semantics constitute contracts, whether under the UCC as enacted in various jurisdictions or other (including common) contract law. That is precisely what we are dealing with here. The contract with PayPal indicates one cannot do a certain thing. Whether that makes sense entirely from a non-contract perspective proves immaterial.

Another example we run into is the notorious "MAP" pricing model. Personally, I can't see how SCOTUS lets this stand, but it's not my call. So I can advertise "list" of $2000 with an "or offer" - which indicates that's not the real price. Or I can advertise "MAP" of $1600. But not with "or make offer." So a buyer can see this and go "ah ha!" and offer $1400. The seller responds with "1500 including shipping." And the seller's agreement with the supplier is not violated.

The PayPal examples above fall into general mess.

So it's ALL a semantics game. Packaging. And I don't believe anyone likes it. Not liking it doesn't mean that it isn't a realistic way of handling issues among various contracting parties.

Tide may be turning. For those interested, entities wishing to enforce their will on merchants may well be pushed back a little, if the American Express anti-trust action is any hint.

[Roger Moss]

I hear you, Don. OBO just seems to mean disregard the price I'm asking. I also dislike ads that ask for bids/offers cold. If I want to bid I'll use an auction site where the bids are tracked fairly and are visible.

I always translated OBO as meaning "I tried to get this price, but nobody wanted to pay that much, so I'll take as close to that as I can get."

[mrmando]

In other words being upfront and stating your breakdown of price is unacceptable but hiding your breakdown is acceptable. Much ado about nothing.

If you want to know how much your seller will pay in PayPal fees and Cafe donations, you can always do the equation in reverse.

[Josh Levine]

We've had this conversation before, but I will say my piece anyways... I am not a merchant, however, I have bought and solid many mandolins over the last several years using these classifieds. I would not say this is a profitable endeavor. I have a job and look for opportunities to try mandolins out so have done the caught and release thing. So, to suggest that a profit is built into my sale is not a accurate assumption. At times I have made some money and at times lost money. I am not a business man. When I buy a mandolin I factor in what it is, the condition, and the price it will cost me. Then, based on several factors decide if it is something I want to acquire. The last thing I would factor in is if the seller wrote something about Paypal or if the price is firm in the add. That is not enough information for me to judge the character of a person or their trustworthiness. My loyalty is to the person I am interacting with and my perception of their trustworthiness, not the Ebay corporation or whoever owns them. I am not going to throw the Paypal terms of service at them at tell them that is how we must do business and if that means somebody doesn't want to buy a mandolin from me because the way I word an add does not strictly adhere to their terms of service, so be it. If we choose to use Paypal as a medium for transferring money with the protections built in that they offer I gladly pay the fee as is evidenced by my years of positive interactions with that company. I have never had to dispute a transaction or done anything to have any negative feedback on my account. If I am buying something I almost always use Paypal and they get their cut. I would hate to limit myself or not get something that I wanted at a price that I wanted because somebody wrote an add a certain way or did not full understand Paypal's terms of services. I get their protections from using them and in return they get alot of my money, I do not need to draw a line in the sand around somebodies crafting of an add. Different strokes, so if that is where you draw the line, fine.

And in the past I have written firm for pricing and I will probably do it again. It is up front and I think the prices I list are typically pretty fair/based on my understanding of the market. If somebody agrees and wants the item great. Sometimes I'll give a little, but I try to price items fairly. And I think if writing firm takes the human interaction element out of a deal, citing Paypal's terms of services does just the same.

On top of all this in the Cafe classifieds you can see how many adds and how many responses to adds people have made... if that number is high and they are still around you can probably assume that they conduct themselves in an honorable and appropriate way.

[dan in va]

The notion that PayPal wants my credit card # and settle potential disputes their way doesn't suit me at all. i simply don't buy anything when a seller insists on PayPal. Besides, i would rather the seller get the full amount.

[Dacraw54]

Sellers don't insist on Payal, at least I don't. It's only offered as a convenience for the Buyer. Seller's don't get any value from using Paypal directly.

[Mandobar]

I seriously doubt most people actually read the user agreement, or remember it more than 10 minutes.

Absolutely, and there are many merchants who don't read their merchant agreements also (and have never read them). However, I do remember several well known businesses that stated one price for cash and one for credit purchases.

PayPal does not necessarily give immediate credit for all transactions. Based on certain criteria, they will hold funds for up to 21 days. I bought a ukulele a few years back and the seller waited until the funds became available to him to ship the instrument. I've gladly paid the fees, and extra for shipping if I wanted an item, and I think this is key here: Do you want the item? The seller sets the terms, not the buyer. You can haggle, but they can always say no. They have the item.

[dan in va]

Hi Dacraw54. Actually, there have been quite a number of ad's that have said PayPal only, in the classifieds, Ebay, Reverb, etc. It's not a high percentage, tho. And some of that stuff i would've bought...sometimes i've been relieved to see that's the only form of payment accepted.

[Dacraw54]

I know EBay only allows PayPal, anything else is a scam on EBay. Reverb have their own payment system that interfaces with PayPal. I’m not aware of any sellers on the Cafe specifying PayPal only.
The only real advantage to Sellers allowing PayPal is that PayPal lets buyers use a Credit Card for the purchase which casual Sellers would not be able to process themselves. Unfortunately all PayPal fees are passed on to the Seller. The cost of doing business...

[108 Mile]

I think it was Lambo who said
“ Buy the seller”

[rcc56]

"Buyer decides to buy from someone else instead . . ."

[LadysSolo]

I merely offer all legit PayPal Options. Using Friends and Family option bypasses the fee, it does not pass it on to the buyer. Everything is up front in my transactions and I offer a Refund unless the buyer is 100% satisfied with the transaction.

Wrong - Friends and Family DEFINITELY passes the fee to the buyer if the buyer has their PayPal account tied to a credit card versus having the money taken out of their savings or checking account. How do I know this? I have my PayPal account tied to a credit card, and someone asked me to do "Friends and Family" and I got hit with the fee.