Rip Off!!!

[skipdnyc]

Yesterday I sold a painting on Ebay for $15K. By default I allowed the transaction to flow thru PayPal. I was shockeded to see that PayPal "Instantly" took 3% or over $435 as a fee. A fee for what? Outrageous.

Has anyone else had the great misfortune of this happening with large sums? I'm staggered by this and need to follow up for some sort of explantaion and reinbursment from PayPal. Not my Pal for sure.

[DPCreations]

Nothing  unusual about the fee.  It is simply PayPal's standard fee of $0.30 + 2.9%.  It's all part of the User Agreement which you accepted.

[skipdnyc]

True enough, but no sliding scale as as tranasactions increase in value? I receive the same service for free from BofA, Venmo etc. PayPal added no value to this transaction and lifted a hefty fee,

And the rich get richer. All the cheerful marketing aside, PayPal is just another financial grifter. Have they deliverd $430 worth of service to me in 2017, not a chance.

[Whac-A-Mole]

Paypal does add value,some value,by offering buyer and seller protection.

i bet you must know you would need online viewable tracking from a commercial carrier and signaturec onfirmation to qualify for Paypal seller protection in case buyer said I did not get my painting.

Nothing can protect you from item not as described,if he returns a piece of toilet paper .

[Whac-A-Mole]

Paypal has a merchant account to accept credit card,and it accepts credit card payment for us.

The discount rate I would guess based on its volume is 10 cents per transaction and 1-1 1/2% discount rate,

Paypal does charge a lower discount rate,lower than 2.9% if you do enough volume,you can find out from Pyapal ,it should state what rate you are paying in your PAYPAL account based on volume.

there are Ebay sellers who do over a million dollars worth of sales on EBay and their Paypal rate is much lower than 2.9 %

BTW,do you know if your buyer uses a foreign card,the rate is 4.4%-cross border transaction. 

[Whac-A-Mole]

Your mistake is to sell it on Ebay and accepting Paypal payment.

but if you sell it at one of the boutique auctions,the fee would be higher,with Ebay and Paypal,I FIGURE YOu paid 15%,they would take 20-25%.

but then I dont know what is the painting,you could get more.

Paypal is for weekend warriors who do not have their own merchant account to accept credit card,2.9% reflect the risk a payment processor is willing to take to serve folks like us who have no store ,no retail experience and work out from home and sell one here and sell one there.

[Whac-A-Mole]

you should have state local pickup only so you can accept cashier check or wiretransfer.

Hate to rain on your parade,in case this is fraud,Ebay has a customer service dept which handles high value item,aka anything over $1k/

you can also cancel the payment or cancel the order and relist or sell elsewhere.

give this dude a call and chat with him,offer him an attractive discount if you two can do a cash transaction,size him up and see what he has t o say.

[Whac-A-Mole]

5 figures change hands on Ebay,antique watch sellers would sell watches $10k to $50k on EBAY.

a FLORIDA shop 2t yearsago sold a 34K watch and shipped Fed Exp,buyer returned an empty box,they call the polic and open the box and file a police report,call Ebay and was told to refund in full in 3 days and take it up with Fed Exp.

Just a few months ago,you can search this forum,a seller sold a $30k watch to a buyer whose shipping address is blank on Paypal payment notice but in the comment section,give a shipping address.

Once they got the watch,they file item not received,seller upload tracking but Paypal robot takes the tracking to match the empty shipping address adn found no match,so seller lost .