PayPal 'Gifting'. A big mistake

General Yo-Yo
1

(the following public service message has nothing to do with using PayPal gifting as it was/is intended; to send money to friends or relatives. If you can’t grasp that, then reading further is futile)

I have mentioned this before but it seems I still see ‘gifting’ just about every day I check out the BST. Uh, which is about every day, lol.

Here is a typical post> Yoyo for sale. $100. Gift me the money or pay the fees.

The PayPal ‘Gifting’ option is NOT a payment option. Gifting is a Free service PayPal is actually nice enough to offer to allow people to get money to friends and relatives(for free). Actually pretty amazing when you really think about it.

How many Worldwide Company’s provide money moving services that are so fast and absolutely Free?

PayPal provides several different services. But technically PayPal is a Business that makes money providing ‘services’. PayPal is not a non-profit and PayPal is not affiliated with The Peace Corp, Green Peace or 'We like you so much we work for Free, Inc.

I don’t work for PayPal and I am not saying I think they undercharge for their services. But at the same time, personally I don’t work for Free and doubt many of you do either; besides volunteer work we All may take turns participating in.

^^^ What I just stated is just a preface to my core point.

When you buy something from the BST and you Gift the money; if anything goes wrong, you Lose; period.

If you are the Buyer and something goes wrong; you can’t even complain to PayPal. If the yoyo never makes it to your address, oh well.

Gifting option is only recognized as a movement of money and has Nothing to do with Purchasing goods.

If you have a complaint; PayPal will do nothing since you paid them nothing and you misused the Gifting option.

Using PayPal to purchase goods is at least some insurance allowing you to lodge a complaint if the Deal goes Wrong. It keeps people playing fair, so to speak.

So either the Seller should calculate the fees and add them to the price he is asking or just take it in the shorts and eat the PayPal fees in order to get his stuff sold.

No big deal when you really want to sell something. If I want to sell a yoyo for $100 and a guy pm’s me and says 'I will pay you $96.50 plus shipping for the yoyo because the PayPal fee on $100 is $4.50; I am selling a yoyo, lol. And the buyer has some insurance if I fail to get the yoyo to him he can get his money back.

For any of you guys that mail yoyos out to others, you know that the USPS shipping insurance is not really that much different than PayPal fees for the first few hundred bucks.

Remember ‘Gifting’ is free transfer of money to friends or relatives. It has nothing to do with 'Transactions concerning transfers of goods or services.

PayPal gets paid for providing most services. And that fascilitates their subsidizing the Gifting option in the first place.

Some clowns try to rationalize the Gifting option by saying, 'I have no problems asking for money to be gifted. PayPal is a Huge Company and they can afford to do some stuff for free. After all they aren’t really losing money by moving money. Gifting is a perk we deserve for using Paypals other paid services.

Might make some convoluted sense from the Sellers viewpoint. But if you are the ‘buyer’ and you gift money for goods; you: 1 saved the Seller 4.5 percent, 2 took advantage of a Business providing a service and 3 effectively eliminated Any recourse to lodge a complaint with PayPal if you never get what you paid for.

Gifting is only an Advantage for the Seller.

Merry Christmas…

PS… For the dim witted that want to distort what I just said as 'me ranting about something all huffy and puffy; I am having no baby cow about Gifting, lol. I am not mad right now. This is not an elevated blood pressure situation. I am just attempting to enlighten those that may fall into the Gifting option without knowing it Kills any chance of them recovering their money in the probably rare event the deal goes bad.

If you are one of those, ‘Nothing bad ever happens to me while gifting’. Or ‘I trust people so I don’t care’. Or ‘PayPal can afford to work for free, so who cares’. Or ‘Yoyodoc, what do you care; it’s not costing you anything’.

Oh well ,lol.

PS-2 just wanted to clarify something. There is nothing wrong with the seller asking the buyer to pay the PayPal fee. Maybe the seller needs every penny or is asking such a fair price for the yoyo that even with the ‘fee’ the purchase is a good deal for the buyer. Or maybe the buyer really wants the item and a few more bucks is worth it to secure the deal.

This isn’t about the seller being cheap or the buyer wanting to save a few bucks.

This is more about ‘somebody should pay the fees’ so that everybody in the equation gets a fair shake.

1 PayPal gets paid for providing a service 2 The seller gets his money and 3 the buyer has an option to recover his money if there is a problem.

9 Likes
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Agreed!

One should take this into account when putting down an asking price, then there is no debate, you still get what you envisioned and there is no need to make a point on who is paying fees or not.

It is the same as in any other order of business. you do not quote a fee for services without taking into account how much it will take you to provide the said service.

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Good to know :slight_smile:

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This needs to be pinned to the bst section so people can look at it no matter what time.

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This point needs to be made even more clear. I have bought and sold on ebay for years. Paypal is an invaluable service. Yes, I have also worked for ebay/Paypal in the past also writing mobile apps.

For registered Paypal users, there is an option called “Buyer Protection”. This service is designed to protect both parties in the transaction; not just the buyer. Buyer protection ONLY APPLIES to items purchased by paying the fees for “Goods and services”.

The essence of the service is that the seller needs to be able to verify that a package was sent and delivered to the buyer’s address for the transaction in question. For the Buyer, it means they must have a verified address on file with PayPal. To do this, the seller needs to be able to provide a postal tracking number to that verified address if Paypal requests it in the case of a complaint. If the seller cannot do this, they will lose any cases filed against them.

The fees charged by PayPal are to offset these transactions and to cover fraud and downright criminal behavior. Trying to use the Buyer Protection mechanism on a transaction that did not involve fees (Gifts) will be useless. True, sometimes Paypal - out of the kindness of their corporate hearts WILL try to resolve any complaint they receive, but the bottom line is that they are not obligated to do anything if you did not pay the fees (sent as for "Goods or services).

So, save a few bucks; and send as a gift. Just do not expect Paypal to do anything for you if something goes wrong. Pay the money for fees; and if the item purchased does not show-up; you know you have the weight of a multinational corporation behind your claims.

Your choice. Remeber though; you get what you pay for.

1 Like
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I mostly agree. Using a “gift” option as payment for goods and services is a fraud against Paypal. And, if you intend to defraud Paypal by using that option to circumvent paying your share of fees, you might get what you paid for in the end. And, those of you who get away with it might be part of the reason why they’ll raise those fees in the future, for those of us who paid when we should have.

I don’t know why any seller on the BST would have any reason to even mention shipping fees or Paypal fees in a listing. Give a flat fee for the yo-yo, from seller to buyer, and call it a day. Why would anyone write, “Blah Blah yo-yo for $100, plus $5 shipping, and buyer pays $4 for Paypal fees unless they want to send payment as a gift.” That just looks crazy to me. If you need $109 for the throw, just simply state that as “Blah Blah yo-yo $109 shipped.” No one cares about the break down, if the total money spent is going to be the same anyway. People just want the yo-yo that they paid for to get to their door without all the drama. When I see people propose gifting, who are not my “friends or family,” I prefer to steer clear, because if they’ll defraud Paypal, they might defraud me too. :smiley:

When you buy from a store and make a credit or debit card transaction, you just make a purchase without hearing about fees. The person at the register doesn’t say, “That will be $100, and 3% merchant credit card fee of $3, for a total of $103.” I think people make things more difficult than it needs to be. Just tell me the price, and give me my stuff. No one cares what fees a seller has to pay to get the money. That’s their problem, just like when you walk into a store. When you buy from YoyoExpert, they are paying a fee to process your Paypal or credit card transactions. But they don’t bother you with those details, because they shouldn’t. The same should apply in the BST.

I slowed down on that BST, and I’m thankful that I have a lot of the older throws that I wanted, so I can use it less. I agree that you should beware of gifting, unless you’re actually giving a gift and expecting nothing in return.

2 Likes
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This is definitely good to know. Thanks a bunch, yoyodoc.