Rig-Talk

Attention Buyers and Sellers - Way to Send Pay Pal for Free if you trust the person on the other side.

Saw this on another forum and thought it would be a good sticky here regarding Pay Pal, under certain circumstances, PayPal transfers money for free. The criteria are:

Must be labeled as a Personal Transfer. You have this option when you pay.
Also, the money must be in your PayPal account and be going straight to another PayPal account. The money cannot still be in your bank account.
Well that's about it. If the money's already in your account, and you go to pay somebody, click on:

Send Money
Enter the email address and the amount
Now where it says Purchase, to the right of that is says Personal.
Click Personal
Choose either: Gift, Living Expense, Payment owed, or other and it's done. Nobody pays the fee. Sellers will like this.

Well enjoy that tidbit. It was news to me and I am stoked. Use it when you can.

Keep in mind that you will have NO Paypal buyer/seller insurance if you do this. If you get scammed, Paypal won't care because it wasn't supposed to be used for buying/selling purposes in the first place.

ALSO, you need to provide the opposite party your shipping address. Doing the gift transfer does no provide any shipping info.

FWIW, I have used this several time with people I trust and it works great. Please keep in mind that you are only allowed to gift $13,000 per person (or $133,000 to a non-resident alien spouse).

I wouldn't use paypal again even if I had to. World's largest unsecure bank. People don't see it until they get screwed and have to deal with them.

The whole idea is to only use this method when your comfortable with the other party and they are a known "Stand Up" guy. You guys can feel free to pay me that way, I won't let you down.

That's how I sent payment to Brad.
Within 3 days the amp was at my door!

yeah this was over on the randall forum for a while. do keep in mind you are totally screwed if the person decides to not send anything and/or there is a mix-up involved with the money transfer.

its not like paypal has ever really helped anyone anyway - but this is a sure fire way to zero anyones chances of help if it is used for purchases. just an FYI.

like brad said, im sure the well known and excellent guys around the forum would not have a problem with this at all. 3% on a 50 pedal isnt much, 3% on a 3,000 amplifier is a different story.

Is it really a big deal at all? Personally I think it is tacky when a seller ask for 3% on top. If you can't handle $90 on a $3,000 amp, then ask $3100. I wont even bother if the seller wont take paypal or wants fees on top.

The convenience of paypal works both ways.

YMMV

Do it as a pair of transfers - one as a gift, the other as an amount so you can have recourse/papertrail. 10% would be a good number.

Agreed. PayPal fees are unfortunately just the cost of doing business these days.

Well..everytime some happy ass uses his or hers credit card at any given establishment..music store,restaurant etc,etc,,The business owner gets dinged with fee's to so..Ya don't wanna pay fee's?? don't use it or put a little cushion on your asking price..In my 25 or so years in retail I've never once experienced any customer offering to pay the credit card fee's??? Strange??

Paypal is convenient for both parties tho' ... I've paid fees or shared fees on some stuff..seems a reasonable thing to ask....if I'm paying via credit card, it's not really fair the buyer loses 3% for my convenience.

If I work a local retailer on the price pretty hard, I always pay with cash at that point. I think it is poor taste to haggle over the price, and then offer up a credit card for payment.

Of course, I may be in the minority on that.

25 years of working retail? who said i was a business?

to me thats a business expense - whoever says anyone who sells 1 item is automatically considered a business and thus required to pay the same fee's - is rediculous. however - from a safety standpoint on the fee - i dont mind paying it at all.

i've heard countless stories that paypal wont do shit if the money is already released or spent. if the address's are verified and the accounts are linked than there is still hope - but many many times over people dont link their accounts and dont bother to check to see if the addresses are verified when sending money via paypal. if something happens to the money you send and the crook takes the money and runs without verified addresses or linked accounts - then there is nothing you can do or paypal can do.

they will consider the despute "in your favor" but have no way of getting the money back. so that 3% does not guarantee you safety 100% - you have to watch what you are doing. if you choose to send it as a gift like the above mentioned process and they take the money and run then paypal wont even bother to help you because you took a shortcut in getting around their proper money sending system. so either way you transfer yo ucan still get royaly screwed. thats why people usually say "transfer to verified accounts and address only".

recently i experienced a witholding on the money sent to paypal and only released within 31 days or positive feedback if you are using ebay - whichever comes first. that is another feature that is pretty lame - but will help prevent people depositing and then withdrawing the cash within 4 days of money being sent.

IMHO ill only use the gift feature for family reasons. theres no way to check if the addresses are verified or the accounts are linked, and there is no witholding process either. like the proper way mentioned. all of these restrictions are gay but prevent the ease-of-use from being abused. with that being said - i dont mind doing it.

+1 on that with any transaction. If you are going to agle about the price have cash in hand don't whip out a checkbook

I thought about setting up an account, but i heard about my relative's boss who got screwed by the company.

But retailers do pass the fee to the buyer up front in many cases (e.g. Gas Station, Cash & Credit Price)

Which is the whole problem. People want to work you down when you might be already taking a $1000 hit on an amp THEN want you to pay the paypal fee and pay for the shipping. I do understand because I too want the best deal I can get, but when buying I do try to understand that the seller sometimes can't absorb that kind of hit. Retailers ALWAYS have a considerable markup. They will always make money or at the very least break even. Not so with selling used gear on these forums. I have NEVER came out good when selling on the forums. I have lost money 100% of the time. I do always try to give a great deal, but sometimes paying the PayPal fee and the shipping is just too much.

Just my $.02

+1

Another tip for consumers using Paypal outside of a market like Ebay is to make sure the individual or seller sends you a Paypal invoice or "request for funds" to your Paypal email address and then proceed with the transaction from there.
Without executing the transaction this way, a buyer is exposed to losing a dispute or claim thru Paypal.

Paypal is just an unsecured bank that are angle artists/wallet overhaul specialists!

I have won numerous paypal claims w/o invoice, when buyers decided to rip me off.

Brad, while this might work for the "money already in your paypal account" thing, it won't if you're using credit/debit cards to fund your payments. When you choose Personal Transfer it only provides an option of choosing who pays the fees. Also, please keep in mind that Personal Transfer cannot be reversed/claimed back. Just wanted to point that out.

International paypal fees are still 4%

This is great. I hate paypal and love not giving them a % of my money, ever. They have caused me soo much time and anger

It's over, they have fixed their bug. It was kinda getting out of control, everybody wants the gift.

I just did it.

It still works as long as you have the funds in your pay pal account. I just sent Pay Pal gift funds this morning.

I don't think not spending the $5 on echeck is worth risking coverage, but that's just me. The cc option is gone.

I'm with you on that.

You can prevent fraudulent reversals as a seller and have some protection as a buyer.

I just sent someone a "gift" and part of the money was paypal funds and part was direct from bank account, went thru just fine. The speaker arrived 3 days later.

But I still don't like paypal....I dont mind paying fees, but both paypal and ebay fees are too high. Ends up being about 10% of every sale when I add up listings, etc.... I might give my church 10%, but not baypal.... or should I say paybay...

^^^+1,000,000--If you're in the minority then I'm right there with you. You gotta do business as a stand-up seller AND buyer.

If you have a good working relationship with a person (in my case my local music store) I KNOW they get dinged with fees, even if I use my debit card. On anything I have them special order or any high-ticket item I ALWAYS pay cash as a courtesy to them. In exchange, they beat everyone's prices on the things I want that they can get. They're getting me a matched quad of cryogenic 6550's right now; they're beating everyone's price, and I'm paying CASH!!

Cheers,

Yes, but you do pass through the sales tax to them. According to the letter of the law sales tax is to be payed by the merchant. So, every merchant passes that sales tax on to the customer.

I've offered to pay or split CC fees to merchants on high-ticket items. Funny, they've never offered to pay the tax. Seems EVERY merchant passes the sales tax on to the customer.

Granted, there's no law that says the purchaser HAS TO pay the sales tax, but good luck getting a retailer to sell you ANYTHING without paying sales tax.

<descends from soap box>

I also did it today, but that was to Scott, and since we go back a long way, I had no second thoughts about it at all
Like Brad says, as long as you know the receiving end of the business, no problem

edit: I also sent it to Mark5150, because I feel the same way about him. Stand-up guy, and I had no worries.