Buyer does not cover PayPal fees

[Jeff Hildreth]

Easily resolved in my case.
I will NOT do business with PayPal and will not do business with anyone who does business with PAY PAL.

Simple.

Why..
PAY PAL attempted to defraud me and compromised me by lying to a retailer.

I finally got them, but it took months.

PAYPAL N E V E R.

As to your issue.

Tell him.. no deal.

Deals are like busses and girl friends, miss this one, another will come around.

Be prepared to walk away,.


From "fatt-dad"

..... "Firm," "No-Lowball," or "Cover PayPal fees" receive zero further consideration from me. It creates an intended wall from person-to-person discussions. Anybody that feels the need to start off that way has limited me as a buyer."

A complete turn-off and a deterrent to purchase.. ie color me "gone".

[j. condino]

A lot of the people who do business and transactions here on the cafe are small business owners. To us, paypal is just another accepted credit card type of transaction. I've been burned by paypal several times, but....they also open up a tremendous market of people for whom that is how they like to pay for things. I've gotten burned by paypal far less times than by people with personal checks. The instant someone advertises or wants to pay with a personal check, I walk away. I have not had a checking account with an actual checkbook in ten years.

I'll take your credit cards and paypal and applepay and bitcoin, trades for cars and motorcycles and old machines and all kinds of other things and offers, but no way a personal check. NO millennial is going to get you a US postal money order and mail it to a stranger on the internet- none! They are going to buy from someone else and pay with their phone using something that offers some kind of perceived security.

The banks and the taxman take 20% right off the top of every transaction- that hits the little guys hard. If you wanna meet in person out behind the truck stop with a big gangster roll of 20s and 100s, I'll gladly bring some backup and give you a cash discount. I regularly advertise a cash discount, because a certain portion of the population remember it from days past.

Carry on with, "You kids get off my lawn...."

[Jeff Mando]

Agreed. I've done a little over 8000 transactions and I've been burned by Paypal about one time in 1000 transactions. That's not bad and I consider that the price of doing business. Well worth it for the business it brings me, IMHO. $50-200 hits, I can eat. The $1000 ones sting a little more, but are still worth taking for the 999 sales that went well, which I mostly credit to selling nice merchandise and being honest with the descriptions. Some people get burnt once with Paypal and they are done. Those people are NOT in business, IMHO.......

[Russ Jordan]

I've been burned by paypal several times, but...."

Would you mind to give an example of how you were burned? Thanks

[Folkmusician.com]

I've received millions of dollars through PayPal over the past 20 years. I had an x.com account when it was first available. They are not seller friendly. That said, it has also been hugely responsible for my life as I know it. The same can be said for accepting credit cards through a merchant account.

For private parties, it is great! The fees are not that bad and it makes it so much easier to sell your personal instruments.

For dealers, it becomes a large chunk of profits. With the fees calculated by gross, that few percent can easily be 20%+ of your net. Dealer's know this, it is a cost of doing business, and it gets factored in. We are doing a fair volume of sales, and we are used to thin margins.

The group that this seems to hit the hardest are part-time sellers that are flipping instruments or selling at a low volume. Possibly doing it as a hobby. This is the business model that gets hit hard. To the point where it may not be profitable. They don't have the volume to absorb it. I don't think that circumventing the fees is the correct way to go here, but I do understand their situation. It's a tough way to earn a living!

[Jeff Hildreth]

For years folks did business without PAY PAL....

I got burned as customer, not as a seller. Burned by PAYPAL not the seller.
The seller was also burned by PAYPAL in the same transaction.
We both got on the phone in a conference call which we both would characterized as the adversary speaking "weasel words".
He was screwed and I was screwed. Don't need them.

As to "only" being burned 8 times.. 1 each per thousand transactions, that's 8 times too many.

I make stuff. I sell around the world. 21 countries plus USA and CANADA at last count. I do not use PAYPAL.
I accept cash, checks, money orders and credit cards via SQUARE.
I have never been burned... not once.


"With the fees calculated by gross, that few percent can easily be 20%+ of your net"

20% off net.. hmmm that would not be "net"... net is what you take to the bank after costs and expenses (fixed and semi-fixed)

I would guess that to be 20% off of gross profit (not gross or gross sales, but gross profit)

Gross profit being gross (or gross sales) minus costs (not expenses but costs)

FYI

[Folkmusician.com]

I should have been more clear. You are correct, that would no longer be net! haha.

I was factoring in expenses above and beyond COGS. My figure was meant to be downstream of GP.

[Seter]

I have a friend who works for Square, and so try to use Square when possible. Ebay is ditching PayPal for Adyen, which is what Netflix, Facebook, Etsy, etc already use for payment processing. All of my instrument selling though has been through craigslist, and I just deal in cash to make to make things simple.

[Mandobar]

Paypal was originally designed for the layman to use, not businesses. It has gotten extremely complicated with all the additional users, technical support, etc. They've had quite a few lawsuits, user squabbles, etc. Their fees and the bevy of rules that govern its use have changed significantly. Bigger is not always better.

[Jeff Mando]

Let me clarify.......here is how I define "being burned." The customer wants to return something without just cause, but he knows Paypal will always side with him, so he files a claim and sure enough, Paypal gives him a refund -- right out of my account. OK, I knew it was going to happen, no surprises. MY GRIPE is that I am buying and selling TO MAKE A PROFIT. Just for example, let's say I bought a guitar for $500 and sold it for $800, if you take off the eBay and Paypal fees, I make about $200 give or take. Once I take the return, I have now paid FULL RETAIL for the guitar -- something no businessman would EVER do. Now, making a profit is out of the question, all I can hope for is to relist it and maybe get most of my money back. The chances of it bidding higher the SECOND time around are almost zero, in my experience. So, I would never actually lose all my money, but I would lose the potential for profit, due to a nuisance buyer. Certainly not the end of the world, but once a sale is completed, I'm ready to move on to the next sale, NOT participate in a do-over!

[Jeff Hildreth]

What's missing..?

$800 minus the $100 fees. .. $700..

$500 was paid for the instrument

The instrument is an asset and it can now be resold.

It now has a cost of $600.

Where did you lose the $200?

That is a paper loss and not an actual monetary loss.

If the instrument is sold at $800 the profit is $200 ( which was never "lost")

If sold at $800 the gross profit is $200 or 25% Gross Profit. . not bad, not great, but still a profit..

Yes I realize there are a few bucks in fees but nowhere near the mythical vaporized $200 .

Please point out the error in my analysis.

All of this also illustrates why I think e-bay and pay pal suck..
Try Craigs List.

[DHopkins]

All of this also illustrates why I think e-bay and pay pal suck..
Try Craigs List.

In many cases, that's true but there are other areas where eBay can help. I'm also a ham radio operator and I can find certain electronic parts that aren't available locally. I can order a new wireless charger or USB plugs and adapters for my cell phone, etc. It all involves careful shopping.

[Mark Gunter]

The few times over the years that I've refunded a buyer's payment through PayPal, the PayPal fees are also refunded from PayPal into my account. If I were to have to refund someone their money after 30 days (never happened), then I would have to eat the fees; otherwise, they are refunded from PayPal.

I can see how Jeff Mando can lose on a transaction like that, though. If you figure costs that are difficult to place a dollar amount on - like the hassle of dealing with the shipping costs and all logistics of a sale gone bad, and the logistics of "restocking" and "reselling" an item like a musical instrument, a gross profit of $200 or so on a second sale is hardly worth all the hassle.

[Dacraw54]

I’m quite happy with a $200 profit and have often made much less. All I’m trying to do is cover the 1.5% or so my money would have made in a Savings account plus having the experience of playing an instrument I would not buy as a keeper.
Making $200 on a $4,000 instrument doesn’t sound like much, but $200 is $200.
To Net that 5% you have to Gross more like 10% to cover fees and have the buyer pay for shipping.

[Marty Jacobson]

I used to ask the buyer to pay the PayPal fee and shipping fee on top of the listed price of the item. Now I just price my item 5% higher. Buyer still pays, but it is not an added cost, it is included in the asking price.

How is this any different than asking the seller to pay the PayPal fees? Except, of course, for the fact that it's more transparent, and if someone should choose not to use PayPal, they don't have to pay the upcharge intented to cover PayPal's fees.

Seems like a lot of us here are just acting as enforcer's for PayPal's fee structure without reference to whether the individual seller is acting in good faith or not.

At the end of the day, you do a transaction based on whether you trust the seller or not. If you don't trust the seller, don't do business with them.

If you've ever been asked to pay for something with a cashier's check, there is a fee associate with buying the certified check. Anyone who has paid with a cashier's check has paid the fee and not thought twice about it. But PayPal is somehow different (because of the legalese which 99% of us have not bothered to read), and so a seller is skeezy if they list an instrument at $x dollars and expect $x dollars to be paid to them for the instrument.

[Stephen Perry]

[QUOTE=Marty Jacobson;1664614]At the end of the day, you do a transaction based on whether you trust the seller or not. If you don't trust the seller, don't do business with them.QUOTE]

Generally, those in business prefer there to be both trust and a very clear and unambiguous agreement. I have set up many many agreements among long time partners, friends, etc precisely to head off potential problems and work out issues first. Prudent, in my view, to understand and apply the agreements in place, or make appropriate ones. They need not be complex.

Another fun forgotten subject is risk of loss allocation.

[WoodyCTA102]

I like PayPal. I've bought and sold at least 30 instruments and musical equipment without an issue. It's convenient. The buyer can have an instrument in their hands in the time it would take for the buyer to get a money order, send it, etc. Heck, many of the big on-line retailers nowadays accept payments by PayPal.

PayPal like Ebay opened up the market for used instruments. I remember pre-web days when you were pretty much stuck with dealing with friends/locals to sell a used instrument, or accepting the 30% of new prices for a mint instrument most music stores would offer. If you were in a hurry to sell, forget it.

99+% of time, if you describe an instrument properly, have it priced accordingly, you won't have a problem using PayPal. If you fail in description or price, you are likely to have an issue no matter what payment method is used.

[Knock on wood because I'm getting about ready to sell a few instruments. Guess I better re-evaluate things.)