Thread: How to avoid paypal fees?

Hi everyone,

I heard that if you send the item as a gift you don't have to pay the fees but how do you do that? I mean I'm a little confused because when you sell something to someone you give them your paypal addy and they pay you, as soon as money in your account the fees are already taken out! Am I wrong? How is it makes a different or more like how do you do that?

I just sent money as a gift and paypal charged me $1.11. I have never been charged before but it might have been due to using my CC and not a paypal balance? I'm not sure.

Originally Posted by GhagariyaHalawa

Hi everyone,

I heard that if you send the item as a gift you don't have to pay the fees but how do you do that? I mean I'm a little confused because when you sell something to someone you give them your paypal addy and they pay you, as soon as money in your account the fees are already taken out! Am I wrong? How is it makes a different or more like how do you do that?

• log into paypal
• add email of recipient
• there is a tab where it says is this a payment for goods, ebay transaction, next to that tab is a tab to send as gift
• send as gift, avoid paypal fees
• post on swapmeet how you got swindled and have no further recourse because you sent as gift
• alternatively, have a customer report you to paypal for fraud and lose your privileges of using it as a credit card company

for the last two, I'm being facetious. I only send as a gift to those people who I have purchased from before. If the seller asks for that and is not a person that I have a history with, i don't buy the item.

There have recently been a number of "seller concerns" posts that have this issue.

Do you think it is ethical to use Paypal's services and not pay for them?
I think people should just include the Paypal fees in the asking price when they are selling something. If the gift option gets abused, it might eventually disappear. I use it when I am truly sending a gift, otherwise I pay the fees if the seller insists. Why not just include that in the selling price?

Originally Posted by dunyah

Do you think it is ethical to use Paypal's services and not pay for them?
I think people should just include the Paypal fees in the asking price when they are selling something. If the gift option gets abused, it might eventually disappear. I use it when I am truly sending a gift, otherwise I pay the fees if the seller insists. Why not just include that in the selling price?

I agree.

Originally Posted by dunyah

Do you think it is ethical to use Paypal's services and not pay for them?
I think people should just include the Paypal fees in the asking price when they are selling something. If the gift option gets abused, it might eventually disappear. I use it when I am truly sending a gift, otherwise I pay the fees if the seller insists. Why not just include that in the selling price?

You know I actually agree with you. I am the seller in this case and I asked the buyer to pay the fees but she suggested that I send it as a gift to her so she doesn't have to pay the fee!

Originally Posted by GhagariyaHalawa

You know I actually agree with you. I am the seller in this case and I asked the buyer to pay the fees but she suggested that I send it as a gift to her so she doesn't have to pay the fee!

...

Originally Posted by GhagariyaHalawa

You know I actually agree with you. I am the seller in this case and I asked the buyer to pay the fees but she suggested that I send it as a gift to her so she doesn't have to pay the fee!

I do believe that asking the buyer to pay the fees goes against some of paypal's rules....but I am not sure.

I have had several people send me money as a gift, and that's fine- it's their choice in how to send it. However, I will not send the money as a gift, even if I know the person. I would rather pay a little extra to cover the sellers fees. The reason is that if there is a problem with the transaction, there is NO RECOURSE AND NO PROTECTION if you send it as a gift. That's just it- it was a gift. You can't get it back, no matter what.

Originally Posted by ozma

I do believe that asking the buyer to pay the fees goes against some of paypal's rules....but I am not sure.

I don't know about that as you maybe guess I don't do such transactions very often if I did I would already know how to and wouldn't ask such a question. My bad! Now I feel like I'm being blamed for something I didn't even had in mind in the first place. And I am not the one requested the paypal service it's buyers choice why do I pay the extra fees I didn't count on? To put it straight I sold something already at a bargain price because I'm in need of. I, at least want the amount I ask for..
But anyways thank you all for your replies!

Originally Posted by ozma

I do believe that asking the buyer to pay the fees goes against some of paypal's rules....but I am not sure.

It is. Ebay, for example, will not allow your listing to your stay up if you ask the buyer to pay the fees.

Originally Posted by GhagariyaHalawa

I don't know about that as you maybe guess I don't do such transactions very often if I did I would already know how to and wouldn't ask such a question. My bad! Now I feel like I'm being blamed for something I didn't even had in mind in the first place. And I am not the one requested the paypal service it's buyers choice why do I pay the extra fees I didn't count on? To put it straight I sold something already at a bargain price because I'm in need of. I, at least want the amount I ask for..
But anyways thank you all for your replies!

It was not my intention to attack you. I don't know you. I'd only recently heard that changing the price of an item if a person uses paypal so that the buyer pays the fees goes against the rules set by paypal. You have three choices and I have no desire to negatively judge you for whichever you make.

You can insist that the buyer pay in the non-paypal way you originally asked.

You agree to paypal and deal with the fees.

Or you can hope nothing goes wrong with the transaction and do a gentlewoman's agreement that has the possibility of leaving one or both of you vulnerable but knowing that it probably will be fine: You can take your chances with "gift" and loose some of the protections paypal offers, knowing you are taking that risk / You can also ask nicely for the buyer to pay the fee knowing it violates some of the paypal agreement but trusting the buyer to not ever mention it if something goes wrong in the transaction.

Originally Posted by GhagariyaHalawa

I don't know about that as you maybe guess I don't do such transactions very often if I did I would already know how to and wouldn't ask such a question. My bad! Now I feel like I'm being blamed for something I didn't even had in mind in the first place. And I am not the one requested the paypal service it's buyers choice why do I pay the extra fees I didn't count on? To put it straight I sold something already at a bargain price because I'm in need of. I, at least want the amount I ask for..
But anyways thank you all for your replies!

I'm not quite sure why you're feeling blamed, I'm not intending on attacking you either. I did say i was being facetious in my answer.



Paypal is a service, one way that you can choose to be paid. If you don't want to accept payment that way, you don't have to. Part of the reason to take paypal payments is because it makes it easier for the buyer. Because it's a service, the seller gets charged a fee for the convenience, just like your local store does for accepting credit cards.

There are benefits to accepting it as well, also another reason to pay the fee. If you're buyer backs out, or says that you haven't sent something, you submit your tracking number and you're all set.

When I set up my paypal account with the express intention of accepting paypal payments for gigs and classes since people were reluctant to trust me with their cc info (totally understandable, i don't give mine out either) I read through the policies.

It makes sense to *me* to pay the fees as a part of the cost of doing business. It's a tax deductible expense as well, so no *real* loss in the long run.

Another benefit is that I paypal keeps my records for me, and when I need to total my sales etc, I can just print it out and file that away in my tax records for that year.

And as I said, I won't buy something from someone I don't know if the seller is asking me to remove *my* protection as a buyer or a seller. Caveat emptor and all that.

Ultimately, as a buyer AND a seller, you need to make decisions around how to handle your funds and what consequences you are willing to take around that.

I'm not preaching or making judgments around what you asked, just providing information based on my own research and business practices.

I didn't mean to attack you or react negatively to your question. This comes up a lot and I was just trying to clarify the issue. Others have shared some great information. Ultimately it is up to you to decide how you choose to proceed, but at least you have options, facts and feedback now to help you make your decision.

I'm glad to see that someone is questioning this. It has bothered me to see this brought up in the Swap Meet.
I also don't like it when I am asked to lie about the value of an item when I am shipping it out of the US.

Thanks for bringing this up. There is never anything wrong with asking when you don't know something.

Originally Posted by lylagus

I just sent money as a gift and paypal charged me $1.11. I have never been charged before but it might have been due to using my CC and not a paypal balance? I'm not sure.

When you send money as a gift the sender is charged a fee. I have sent gifts of money a couple of times to charities and am always charged a fee.

So fees are not avoided if you send money as a gift, someone somewhere pays for them, PP doesn't lose out. They are a service and for the convenience the user/s pay. I much prefer PP to Western Union, you have some sort of comeback with WU you don't.

International payers are charged a conversion fee as well. Our dollar has been at parity and over with the US dollar and paypal still only gives us something like 96/97c to the dollar and charges a conversion fee, so sending as a gift slams quite a few extra charges onto international buyers.