Paypal fees
By Polang
@tkonlinevn (6427)
Vietnam
August 15, 2011 12:04am CST
I have just finished a business transaction with my customer at USA. She bought products from me and she paid me by Paypal.
For the deposit, she paid me 200$. I must pay 8.1$ for Paypal. Then, I told her to choose "Own payment" when she transfer money to me in order I won't be charged fees. However, she was charged 35$ Paypal fee for the second time she paid me 174$ !
I couldn't understand why! She was, too.
2 people like this
5 responses
@youless (114117)
• Guangzhou, China
15 Aug 11
Wow, the charge is so high. I wonder your Paypal account is personal account or business account? As they shall not charge you fees if your account type is personal. Whereas they will charge you fees if your account is business one.
I love China
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
15 Aug 11
PayPal CLAIM that it doesn't matter what type of account you have, the fees are the same. What matters, it seems, is the type of transaction (and not all types of transaction are available to Personal accounts) and what the cross-border charges are for a particular country.
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
15 Aug 11
PayPal fees are not very simple. Although PayPal say that "Our fees are the same no matter what type of PayPal account you have.", there are differences between the way fees are charged to Personal accounts and Business accounts.
I don't understand why a payment of $174 should incur a $35 charge (or was the payment around $200 from which the fees were deducted?)
This page may help you calculate the fees better: http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-fees-outside or there is this page (which is not from PayPal, so might not be accurate if PayPal have changed the fee structure since the page was set up): http://ppcalc.com/vn (I have pre-selected Vietnam as your country of origin).
Using the calculator above (and selecting Cross-border payments), I cannot see ANY instance where she would have paid $35 in fees for a transaction of around $200. I am wondering if she was confused and saw a charge of $35 in fees but didn't realise that it related to more than just the one transaction. I find PayPal statements somewhat confusing, myself!
If there did appear to be an error, or there was something that your client did not understand, it would be a good idea for her to query the fees with PayPal. Their support system is pretty good and I am sure that they will explain the fees charged for a particular transaction, if asked to do so, and, if there was an error, they will put it right.
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
15 Aug 11
I notice that the PayPal calculator page I gave you was last updated in June this year and correctly shows the fee of $8.10 charged to you for the first transaction.
I think that the fees your customer claimed were charged to her may have been because she used a credit card to fund the transaction - transactions which are funded 100% from a bank account or a PayPal balance incur no fees, except cross-border charges.
The more I think about it, the more I am inclined to believe that there has been some misunderstanding or error. Either your customer is not being totally honest (possibly unintentionally - people can often be confused!) or there was a genuine error. You should advise her to contact PayPal regarding the transaction, I think. What PayPal charged her is really not your concern (except that you advised her to choose a particular type of payment).
@stephcjh (38473)
• United States
15 Aug 11
Wow. That is a huge fee for them to take for just one transaction. That is why I just use a personal account with them. I hate it when they take fees out.
@gaiza12 (4884)
• Philippines
9 Apr 12
Paypal always do take charges if you use them with paying stuff online. It really is not too comforting for those who use it to receive money because instead of receiving the exact amount, they will be receiving 2.9$ less than what they are expecting. I believe it's 2.9%-3%, if i am not mistaken. Well, we just can't do anything about it, we're using it after all.
@sswallace21 (1824)
• United States
15 Aug 11
I've never done transactions like this through PayPal. So I have no idea what's going on. If I were you I would contact PayPal and ask them how it exactly works. Best Wishes!
