Selling fees

[JessBond]

I am message with someone to purchase something from her off of a Facebook group. She mentioned that there is a 2.9% fee for the transition. I have used PayPal several times and have not hear of this fee. I am curious if this only applies when you are paying with a debit/ credit card, or on a merchant account, or if this fee applies to all accounts

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

@JessBond 

The reason you have not heard of it is because it is free for buyers to pay with PayPal. It is the sellers who pay the fee to receive payments for goods and services. This seller is not allowed to levy a surcharge to a buyer using PayPal to pay unless they are charging a flat handling fee no matter what payment method the seller accepts. Charging a surcharge for just using PayPal when buying is against the PayPal user agreement so seller is violating PayPal rules. They can be reported if you so choose. Or, just don't buy from them. It is not against user agreement if the seller builds the fee in to their item price and don't have to scare off buyers by telling them upfront that there is a "PayPal fee". That's just charging enough to cover the cost of doing business.

The fee that sellers pay is 2.9% + 30 cents for domestic payments (US accounts), cross border rate is 4.4% + 30 cents (non-US accounts)