Friends and Family only.. compiling a list>

General Yo-Yo
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I scroll down the Board just about every day.

I’m always looking for something interesting.

As often as not, what turns out to be ‘more interesting’ than the yo-yos for sale, is the increasing number of people selling yo-yos that specifically state ‘friends and family only’.

I have noticed the subtle change. First it was goods and services. Then, goods and services or friends and family, g and s preferred. Then…. Friends and family preferred or buyer pays the g and s fees. Then, friends and family preferred.

Now, friends and family ‘Only’.

After ‘All’ the threads on the fee subject. And ‘All’ the potential negatives of using friends and family, the f & f option seems to be increasing instead of decreasing.

….My first thought for this thread was to take a Poll. But, I have a better idea to get enough meat to make an actual sandwich people might find edible….

For just about everybody not brand new to the forum, we have learned a few things about both options.

Firstly, PayPal is a For Profit Business model. They are not a Non Profit. They are not the Salvation Army. They are not Goodwill. They do not work for Mother Teresa. They are not an extension of Santa’s Generosity.

PayPal makes money by moving money. They facilitate part of the process of getting deals done. When Goods and Services is used, PayPal makes it more difficult to ‘Go South on a transaction’.
They Police the deals and try to keep things on the level.

PayPal ‘earns their fees’ and anybody that suggests they don’t is insulting their own intelligence and the intelligence of others. People seem bent on coming up with countless ideas, rationalizing why PayPal should work ‘for free’.

No doubt, PayPal has come to realize the error of them coming up with the friends and family option. Their reasoning was simple enough. To be generous enough to allow people to legitimately make transactions with ‘actual friends and family’. To encourage good feelings and allow people to make some moves because they shouldn’t need buyer protection when dealing with friends and family.< What could go wrong with people you trust, right?

That being said, it seems to be the American way to perpetually figure out ways to take advantage of others and skirt the Rules.

Now, here is the purpose of this thread>

We all know, by now, the IRS stating that those generating over a certain amount of money, will be subject to possible taxing on the monies made.

We also all know that the Government spends 24 hours a day trying to figure out how to squeeze every damn penny out of us that they can.

So… with that being stated, here is the purpose of this thread>

I want to compile a list. Or should I say two lists? One list will most likely be much longer than the other. So we will have option A and option B.

Goods and Services is Option A and it’s pretty simple. You use PayPal to make transactions. You fully understand tha PayPal gets paid fees for providing money moving services and buyer protection.

Friends and Family is Option B. To play nice and not deliberately lie, you use friends and family specifically when dealing with actual friends and family.

Or…. All of a sudden, Everybody ‘is’ your friends or family, avoiding fees and keeping the IRS from pinning the tail on your donkey.

So, besides not wanting to get taxed on the money you make using PayPal, how many other reasons/advantages can you name that justify using friends and family?

Can anybody name any or all possible advantages of the f & f option?

PS… this isn’t an ‘I’m right because you’re wrong’ challenge. I can honestly say that a reasonable number of those requesting f&f are respected members of this yo-yo community. They have no problem suggesting you look up their Positive feedback reputations. So, I am not at all saying they are trying to pull a fast one on a buyer. I just want to understand any and ‘all’ the advantages of friends and family besides the Tax threat? Simple…

PS #2. I would actually like to thank the friends and family ‘only’ people. Because every week I see a few yo-yos that would love to buy. But, sadly they seem to be mainly F&F only.
….So, I am saving a whole lot of money each week as a direct result.

Thank you :wink:

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For me it’s a sign of implicit trust. We already have pay it forwards and trades that operate entirely on trust and good will. There are no protections for those activities.

F&f is just an extension of that built trust. Trust In the community, trust in the buyers, trust in the sellers. G&s is a tool for those that have no history of trust prior. No validated activity nor transactions. In the end I don’t mind either option. If let’s say a well known entity in the community is selling a yoyo has a long track record of honest sales and activity I don’t mind f&f. If the person is a business or new to sales and trades I don’t mind g&s. to me it’s just a part of the price if it’s g&s and fine either way.

I also trust the post office to get my package to me without added protection. 9 times out of 10 things arrive as expected. The other times it’s disappointing but logistics are not perfect all the time and there will always be risk of losing a package. It’s all trust in the end.

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To add to the above:

It’s worth noting on certain G&S transactions PayPal will place the funds on hold.
The seller is required to upload tracking information and the funds are only released to the seller after the tracking indicates the items have arrived.
On transactions with international shipment, the seller can often wait several weeks for the item to be delivered and access their money.

An additional advantage of F&F is the funds are transferred and available instantly.

Below is a PayPal notification from a recent G&S transaction I did.

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Why yes, doc. I consider the people here who have a good reputation my friends, in a way. We’re all part of a hobby that doesn’t appeal to many, and sales don’t just boil down to the tax situation. @Captrogers ’ comparison to pay it forward threads and the occasional blind trade is a great parallel for how I see the sales and trades that take place here. The BST is very well policed by users and I think it’s hard to argue against the vast majority of F&F sales, blind trades, and pay it forwards having been followed through on. I am still not above asking for G&S if someone has zero feedback, but I think that’s a reasonable request given the few cases that have slipped through the cracks over the years.

Objectively there is not an advantage for the buyer in most F&F transactions, but this is often the closest thing that we have to a handshake deal between two people who trust each other nowadays. You’re old enough to realize that risk is an inherent part of a relationship. Whether or not you want a relationship with the people here is up to you. I say put your money where your mouth is. And it sounds like you are. Not intending anything discourteous here. To a degree, I do see the F&F option as a sign of respect, though. Online methods of communication have changed how that respect is earned. Give it to people (within the small community that we are a part of) who have earned it.

Maybe I’m making too much of all this.

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I ask for f&f because 95% of the time that’s what is expected of me whenever I buy something. F&f is preferred for most of the reasons mentioned above, but for me it’s just following what everyone seems to do: rep check, make an agreement, and f&f is usually a hassle free avenue. I’ve done international transactions where G&S is the only option. Nothing wrong with that. I’ve been selling on eBay for 10 years and am used to not getting money from a sale right away. The idea of another tax sheet sucks but it’s whatever. It all boils down to convenience. There’s a compromise between buyer and seller and who’s willing to compromise. I’m not here to die on any particular hill, I’ve done both and am willing to do both. Just prefer one over the other because obviously it’s the smoothest way on the sellers side.

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No problem glad I can help you save money.

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I think it’s a mixture of people being confused and scared of potential more work with selling g&s but the main factor that gets people to ask friends and family is so they don’t have to pay fees. We’re all cheap.

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Whew lord. Its all been downhill since they started taxing ebay purchases. As someone who works in the finance department for a small county, that brings our county over $325,000 a month. Its not just from ebay of course, but all online sales that charges our state sales tax. Your county will give you that info for free. We have 54 counties in our state and we all get broken off evenly out of the pot.

My wife was elected mayor in January of our small town and she is planning to ask the city council to raise the city taxes due to our town needing improvements and updates and the city needs that income. About 40 minutes from us there is a town exactly our size that has allowed the Jordans gas station sell beer and they city has now brought in over $1.5 million dollars in taxes accumulated from the booze tax and the gas station bought the high schools football stadium! :exploding_head::exploding_head::exploding_head: I live smack dab in the bible belt, and my wife thinks selling booze in our town would be a problem to our community, while the gas station sells weed gummies already. We are a house divided because I feel like she is trying to tax the wrong citizens when this business wants to invest in our community, but sell them beer that our citizens are simply driving to the city over to get the booze.

My point to say all of this is to say I see it both ways. There are younger people in our community and I judge each situation differently. When I was 23 I was waiting tables at Olive Garden and couldn’t afford my bills so taxes were the last thing I worried about. But there is another side of this were I live in a very populated area that has the mindset to abuse the welfare system. You cannot run a business that does 60k a year and not pay your fair share. And I feel the same way if someone made $1.5 million

Maybe if we taxed the churchs as well they would let us trade and sell yoyos in peace.

Iso duncan fhzs and FH1s.

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I remember when I was into yo-yoing in college my mother bringing me a pamphlet from our local church saying yoyo is a gateway to the devil. This triggered that lovely Jem of a memory.

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I would like to think more people will give their views on this subject…

In the meantime, I really appreciate everyone responding so far.

As some may have noticed over the years, I like to start threads that stimulate honest discussions.

There is always that chance the subject material will seem confrontational, which is usually not the intent.

The intention was/is specifically to get different views/feelings about ‘why f&f is increasingly the Sellers choice’?

We all help each other understand. Some folks fear transparency. I don’t…

And the people replying in this thread seem to feel the same.

Much appreciated.

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Trusting everyone on this forum as if we’re all good pals isn’t really realistic. Using G&S helps combat the people who are looking to scam, of which I see posts on here about fairly regularly.

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There is risk. I don’t claim f&f would work for every sake. Mostly those that have a known track record of good faith sales, community members who have given more than they take from the yoyo community and overall honest folks. Obviously random new user with no history is going to be met with speculation and a request for g&s but if a known collector who has 10+ transactions with a thread of great references and hosts a local yoyo club is trustworthy enough to consider f&f and that’s how I’ve purchased most yo-yos on BST. I research the person ask for references and follow up if not satisfied.

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Whether using G&S or F&F, it would be advisable to keep a record of anything that the IRS might decide to deem “income”.

F&F won’t trigger a 1099K from PayPal (for now), but that does not mean that the IRS isn’t preparing (or already prepared) to track these transactions and ask taxpayers to account for them at some future date (including retroactively).

AFAIK, F&F is PayPal’s way of accommodating an IRS exception for payments that fall under defined circumstances. It allows PayPal to keep those transactions in their network and presumably encourage additional (profitable) activity. PayPal doesn’t police the use of this exception, but I wouldn’t bet on the IRS failing to note a huge shift from G&S to F&F.

Whether G&S or F&F is appropriate for a given transaction is up to the buyer and seller. Whether income is reported as required is up to the buyer seller(1). I understand that these requirements are cumbersome (my income is 100% 1099 based), but IMO a 1099K from PayPal is benefit.

(1) Edit: corrected

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As an international buyer and seller on a platform where majority of the users are based in US, I always go for F&F whenever I can… as PayPal absolutely love to take fees from us :melting_face:

These are just for F&F:

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Another problem is G&S fee calculators for international transfers are always inaccurate, if someone knows an accurate one pls lemme know.

It seems that the tax law and layer of “trust” amongst BST members are whats creating this F&F trend in the US, and internationally it’s mostly due to fees. For countries that only have G&S option with their PayPal probably won’t even have to worry about all this.

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@yoyodoc I also want to reiterate that F&F is not free, the Friend sending the money pays the fees so the Friend or Family member who is broke and needs that scratch can recieve the full amount.

My speculation is that this current F&F trend over G&S won’t be substantial and F&F abusers will be reported or picked up by a data algorithm and get on the IRS radar for fraud. Especially users that have a lot of transactions. Again there is alway risk with any transaction. I wouldn’t be surprised that there is something buried in the lengthy user agreement users need to accept that frees PayPal/ Venmo of this liability.

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We can be friends, good friends allow each other to pay how they want :wink:

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My take;

As consumers, we all try to pay the lowest amount possible.

BST is a great avenue to get your hands on items no longer available from retail.

We pay taxes on retail purchases.

I think the community here is 98% Honest. Yes, there can and have been bad apples.

I also believe the Buyer should set the terms. If they want G&S and pay the fees, the deal “should” go through.

Ultimately it is up to the seller to accept the price and terms.

I personally dont mind paying F&F as everyone I have purchased from has been upstanding. (I do realize that I “Can” get burned).

I also find it interesting that people will gladly pay a high dollar (Relatively) for a yoyo and baulk on low dollar fees, taxes, shipping, consumable items… “Where can I get the cheapest strings?”…

There are other ways to accept money also. PayPal seems to be the most convenient. In a time of instant gratification, it is the go too.

“I will buy that yoyo. Check is in the mail, let me know when you receive it and it clears your bank.”

Have fun.

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as a former vehement advocate of g&s, regardless of the relationship, i’ve since somewhat become more flexible, and amenable, to f&f. this is not however set in stone.

i’m not a tax evading al capone looking to stick it to the man. i’m not making a career’s worth of loot on ff transactions. i don’t belong on some arbitrary ‘that guy’ list for a simple and flexible preference. i have made a lot of friends and built a solid reputation for bst.

there’s nothing cut and dry about this debate, except that g&s is going to be taxed. nothing is sure in life but death and taxes. this proves it.

BUT, i strongly recommend noobs, people that can’t validate a rep, etc…. ya know, people that are not your friends… use g&s…. it’s CHEAP insurance

i don’t have a dog in the fight, businesses are here to make money… paypal isn’t a charity, bit i do have a lot of friends i bst (TRADE especially) with that i have become good friends with. folks i trust with my money - it’s rare you can point to a lot of people you’ll do that with.

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I think there was already a post and many reasons are already in there which are acceptable and derive from their own experience.

From my own experience with my past business of me and my friend, even with G&S there is a possibility of being scammed and this is true story that happen often on various platforms. Yes I got scammed once even with G&S because G&S is mostly on buyer side ( like Poshmark) and sellers will be responsible even that is not their fault. Also I mentioned, many with student visa like myself, we are not provided any document (unless we are in OPT), so how do we claim tax/loss in US, so if anyone wants to cover the cost of 24% withholding then yeah go ahead.

Lastly, as a person who asked for F&F, I put my dignity and name on the line so that I make sure it will not be tainted by some pennies. At least that is what I was taught when selling/buying something.

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i’m curious where the penny pinchers were before the irs made this ‘paypal’ bill. there were people making ‘income’ transactions through paypal for decades without making a squeak…. this was never an issue with bst transactions on the forums before. and, we have hundreds (thousands) in ‘gifts’ of yoyos without any taxes taken out… ‘where’s the outrage’ lol…. really though, where does it end… or start?

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