Sounds as if its as you described and they saw it as an international transaction.
Give them a call and see if that was the case and if they will refund you...
Click on the words "Help / Contact" at the bottom of paypals pages and use the phone option in the blue band at the top OR very bottom of page dependent on what country you are in. Scroll down past the list of help questions and click on 'Call us' bottom of that page. Log in and get the code. Freephone from a UK landline or UK mobile number.
OR
have you considered contacting Customer Service via Facebook or Twitter? You can send them a personal message from their facebook or twitter pages. It's: https://www.facebook.com/PayPalUK and @AskPayPal for Twitter.
Advice is voluntary. Kudos / Solution appreciated.
So today, someone sent some money to me and I got charged. I got upset at first because I thought they sent it good and services. I refunded them the money, not knowing that I was still going to get charged the fee. PayPal got my money and transaction was never even completed. So I had someone else send me the same amount, knowing for sure they did friends and family and I got charged again. Not only that, but now I can’t make any transaction using my PayPal account. WTF? I have had issues with any of this until today!
I have also had fees deducted from amounts sent to me from family using their paypal balance or their bank account. I just finished a chat window with a Paypal agent and agent told me to refund the money and fees would be refunded as well. Then the agent told me to have the family member resend the money being certain to choose send money to family and friends. I wanted to ask the agent where exactly that would show up but after that response, I was cut off and unable to ask anymore information. Agent did comment that there was an update that changed some of the page format. I haven't tried this yet to see if it resolves the problem....but hoping it does and hope it helps any of you as well!
If they were international payments you sent/received then there are fees for this. You can find more information under the Fees tab at the bottom of the PayPal website.
As a follow-up, I was also told to watch out for payment protection that is on a screen and will automatically default to that if you don't unselect it. I'm told that this possibly changes your friends/family selection to a business transaction although the agent did not mention this and I haven't confirmed this. Just a heads up to watch for it.
Hey Jack, I'm not sure if you got an answer for this or not but I'll tell you my experience and see if this will help or not.
I had a few friends of mine send me some money and all 4 of their transactions got charged a fee. I even watched them select friends and family and STILL it charged a fee. What was crazy is when I look at the transaction in my summary it fell under goods and services. Well I got fed up with this and contacted support. Explained the situation and of course they said that my friends were doing something wrong, in a nice way of course. The tech then researched for a couple min and came back. The tech said that my account was a business account so it defaults to goods and services, and then explained on how to fix it. Well, while I was in the chat with support I got my buddy to send me a transaction and I told him to take screen shots of showing that he was selecting friends and family. Well surprise surprise when he did it NOW it came through with no fees. I have NO evidence of this, other then me watching my friends select friends and family and it still pop up on the other end as goods and services, but I think if you get in touch with paypal support they'll "fix" it but not tell you they did anything. Also, tech said these transactions are "automatic" so can't go back and refund the fees even though they weren't for goods and services.
Here’s a transcript of your chat with PayPal from Mon Mar 25 2019 <removed>
TL:DR Contacted support, they said my friends were doing it wrong. Had my friend try it while on with support and it finally went through with no charge. Pretty sure they fixed it when I brought it to their attention.
Happened to my husband transfering me money from as bank account, US to US, and it even did not mention the fee but here I am slapped with a huge fee on my end for an unknown reason. I tried to call the 888 number and listened to 10 minutes of ads and never got prompts on how to resolve my situation. I feel scammed!!!
