The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Paypal is trying to stop "gifts"

tom in mpls

Active member
Here is the text of an email received today from Paypal. They don't like sending "gifts" it seems. I think the way to avoid problems is to be careful about the text included in the payment. DO NOT specify that it is payment for any item, and DO NOT include a "shipping address". The address can be supplied in a direct email or PM. From now on, I will add a note such as, "Dear Uncle Fred, Here's the money to cover your bail."

"Dear Thomas,

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and we are not able to respond to inquiries sent to this e-mail address. If you still need assistance please log in to your PayPal account.

We recently changed our pricing so that all PayPal customers can receive money from friends and family within the US for free. PayPal merchants receiving money as payment for a purchase, continue to incur fees.

We're not sure if you are aware of this, but we noticed that some of your customers are sending you personal payments for purchases. Unfortunately, this violates our rules, and we need your help correcting this. Please don't ask or allow your customers to use personal payments to pay for their purchases.

If we continue to see such activity after March 5, 2010, we may have to disable your ability to receive personal payments, and then you will pay fees for all money received through PayPal.

You can find more information about payment types and fees in sections 4.1 and 8 of our User Agreement – just click "Legal Agreements" at the bottom of any PayPal page.

If you have any questions, concerns, or think we may have made a mistake, please contact us at www.paypal.com/contactus. Thank you for helping us resolve this matter.

We know situations like this can be difficult, so thanks for working with us. If you have more questions, visit our Help Center by clicking "Help" in the top right corner of any PayPal page. Sincerely, MatthewPayPal Compliance DepartmentPayPal, an eBay Company
 

LJL

New member
Not taking a side in this, but ran across an interesting article the other day that sort of provides a history of how fees and charges have been put into place and upheld rather tenaciously....for profit reasons, of course.

It is looking like the entire financial house of cards may soon be coming under more attack on the transactions front, and personally, I cannot wait to see this happen. There still is the issue of financial risk and liability that goes along with many transactional issues, and probably why PayPal is working to keep things like "gifts" versus "sales" separated, both for record keeping and for liability issues. Just a speculation on that last part, but it would not be a surprising justification on their part.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_futureofmoney/all/1

it is an interesting read with some very interesting future possibilities that may not be so far off. I dropped all other merchant services with my business and now only work through PayPal or cash....trying to cut as much of the middleman charges out of things, though PayPal still collects its fees, as noted, but mostly due to history, profits to keep things going, and liability to cover transactions, since they are not a clearing house or banking operation as other agencies. I think that may start to change once they can still make some money for operations, but reduce charges significantly to reduce the transaction "friction" and move greater volumes of money through their system. Just some thoughts.

LJ
 

ecsh

New member
What tips paypal off is the purchaser trying to cover his butt putting down that its a gift for a purchase. What they do not realize is that they are not covered by paypal protection, such as it is, in case of a dispute. How can they come back and dispute a gift.
 

tom in mpls

Active member
What tips paypal off is the purchaser trying to cover his butt putting down that its a gift for a purchase. What they do not realize is that they are not covered by paypal protection, such as it is, in case of a dispute. How can they come back and dispute a gift.
1.) It's just as (un)safe for buyer as sending a personal check or money order.

2.) I have been using this only when there is complete trust between buyer and seller. Otherwise it's better to use eCheck or regular Paypal. In those cases, we both know that there is no buyer protection offered through Paypal.

3.) If the transfer is from one private person to another (not a business), with no message to indicate anything to the contrary, how can Paypal know it is NOT a gift?

And as far as Paypal having any liability or costs, they can still make a big profit from smaller fees. They could also have tiered rates, with a smaller percentage on higher amounts.
 

monza

Active member
I have sent and received 'personal' payments quite often, but never mark as 'gift', I always mark 'other.' And I never include text like "Here is payment for the Leica M6!"
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Yup!

Send them as money owed, etc. Don't add any notes or references in that and chat about it in separate emails.

BTW, I heard a horror story about an eBay seller (one of my favorites). He had an accident (during X-mas season), was hospitalized for a few weeks. eBay assumed that he defaulted and took twice the amount he sold from his bank account. Now, he has quit eBay.

I did get the stuff I bought from (though a bit late).
 
Top