I just wanted to share some info here on a topic that's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when it comes to forum selling.
Sending money as a "gift" to avoid a couple dollars in fees is an enormous risk for both the buyer and seller. We're all adults and can decide if we want to take those risks...I'm not here to judge, just want to make sure people are educated enough to make that decision.
When I made this post on the other forum I was shocked by the number of comments and messages I received from people who had no idea the risks involved when not using their paypal accounts properly.
This was written geared towards a wet shaving forum that has a stong emphasis on old fashioned values and respect....just keep that in mind in the last couple paragraphs if you start to wonder what the hell I'm talking about LOL
Let me start off by saying this isn't aimed at anyone in particular...it's a trend that I've seen both here and on many other forums, and each example given below is something I've encountered on more than one occasion.
gifting: i will not buy a product from you using the 'gift' option on paypal unless i personally know you...and even then there will be limitations to it.
Some people may not realize this, but if you send money as a gift and have any sort of dispute (never received, not as described, damaged, etc) you have absolutely zero recourse through paypal.
True, some people would be decent enough to refund you of their own free will, but think about it....they're willing to break the TOS they agreed to just to save a couple bucks, are you going to rely on their upstanding character to resolve the situation?
Not only that, but paypal looks out for people abusing this option and won't think twice about cancelling your account for it.
I had an issue a little while back that ended up with me calling paypal customer service. The first thing the rep said after pulling up my account history was "Was this sent as a payment for goods? I see a lot of 'gift' payments listed here". I explained to her that my gf uses paypal as a gift to transfer bill money to me each month. She sat there and looked through my history to verify that most of the gifts were to/from a single person and didn't list any comments about any goods purchased.
buyer pays fees: does anyone remember what it was like trying to sell something online before paypal was around? Accepting instant, verified payments is a benefit to the seller, not the buyer. (remember when pay-at-the-pump was used to get customers to go to one gas station rather then the one across the street? Now that just about everyone takes cards at the pump and it's no longer a perk to lure more customers, places are starting to charge more for credit purchases so you're paying their fees. It's the same principle...and i won't go to those gas stations either.)
If it's a large purchase i don't mind splitting a fee, if it's mentioned up front. There have even been times when i felt i was getting a good enough deal, the seller was nice to deal with and they were polite enough not to ask for it, where i've gone ahead and thrown the extra 3% on top when i sent the payment anyway
buyer pays more than fees: :scratchhead:
example: "Asking $25 shipped with paypal as 'gift', add $4 if sent as 'goods'."
yeah......no. Paypal charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (assuming domestic transaction). That would be $1.03 in that example. I'm not giving you an extra $3 on a $25 item just for the luxury of...ummm, what exactly? Making you take responsibility for the item you're selling? Not risking having my account closed for avoiding fees? :shrug:
hidden charges: if your ad says "$50 including shipping and paypal", and i pm you and ask for your paypal address, assume i will send you $50 as goods. If you pm me back and ask me to include extra money if sending paypal as goods, then what exactly did you mean by saying the price included paypal? You mean you calculated for me what it would include if i used the method that costs nothing and dissolves you of all liability? Gee, how kind of you
It just irks me, and maybe a little bit more here than on other boards.
Here, where you can see people reminding those leaving comments to act like upstanding gentlemen, then scroll up to the op making a public request to participate in fraud (for lack of a better term) and no one bats an eye at the irony of it.
Here, where we can spend hundreds of dollars on a brush or a razor that does exactly what the other brushes and razors in our collection do, yet we feel the need to cheat a company out of a small fee for a service we use on a regular basis.
I don't usually defend big businesses, but i'm not looking forward to the day when they decide the only way to deal with this is to do away with the gift option all together and start charging fees from both the seller and the buyer on every transaction.
In this particular case, the end result after a few pages of discussion was that the management of the site agreed that there is too much risk involved and, more importantly, too many people don't even realize the risk is there, and the forum rules were changed to reflect that publicly asking for payment as a 'gift' will not be allowed.
While I think that's a wonderful idea in general, that wasn't really my goal, but I was still happy to see a topic I raised had a positive impact there.
What I was hoping for, and what I would love to see on any forum I'm a member of, would be more like a sticky in the wanted/for sale sections with a short write up of general "safe practices" for online transactions.
It can be very beneficial in helping new members know how to spot a questionable situation and avoid getting into a bad deal. The easier it is for new folks to learn how to protect themselves, the more likely they are to fell comfortable and stick around. Not to mention, the harder we make it for people to pull of scams, the more likely they'll move on to easier targets
Sending money as a "gift" to avoid a couple dollars in fees is an enormous risk for both the buyer and seller. We're all adults and can decide if we want to take those risks...I'm not here to judge, just want to make sure people are educated enough to make that decision.
When I made this post on the other forum I was shocked by the number of comments and messages I received from people who had no idea the risks involved when not using their paypal accounts properly.
This was written geared towards a wet shaving forum that has a stong emphasis on old fashioned values and respect....just keep that in mind in the last couple paragraphs if you start to wonder what the hell I'm talking about LOL
Let me start off by saying this isn't aimed at anyone in particular...it's a trend that I've seen both here and on many other forums, and each example given below is something I've encountered on more than one occasion.
gifting: i will not buy a product from you using the 'gift' option on paypal unless i personally know you...and even then there will be limitations to it.
Some people may not realize this, but if you send money as a gift and have any sort of dispute (never received, not as described, damaged, etc) you have absolutely zero recourse through paypal.
True, some people would be decent enough to refund you of their own free will, but think about it....they're willing to break the TOS they agreed to just to save a couple bucks, are you going to rely on their upstanding character to resolve the situation?
Not only that, but paypal looks out for people abusing this option and won't think twice about cancelling your account for it.
I had an issue a little while back that ended up with me calling paypal customer service. The first thing the rep said after pulling up my account history was "Was this sent as a payment for goods? I see a lot of 'gift' payments listed here". I explained to her that my gf uses paypal as a gift to transfer bill money to me each month. She sat there and looked through my history to verify that most of the gifts were to/from a single person and didn't list any comments about any goods purchased.
buyer pays fees: does anyone remember what it was like trying to sell something online before paypal was around? Accepting instant, verified payments is a benefit to the seller, not the buyer. (remember when pay-at-the-pump was used to get customers to go to one gas station rather then the one across the street? Now that just about everyone takes cards at the pump and it's no longer a perk to lure more customers, places are starting to charge more for credit purchases so you're paying their fees. It's the same principle...and i won't go to those gas stations either.)
If it's a large purchase i don't mind splitting a fee, if it's mentioned up front. There have even been times when i felt i was getting a good enough deal, the seller was nice to deal with and they were polite enough not to ask for it, where i've gone ahead and thrown the extra 3% on top when i sent the payment anyway
buyer pays more than fees: :scratchhead:
example: "Asking $25 shipped with paypal as 'gift', add $4 if sent as 'goods'."
yeah......no. Paypal charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (assuming domestic transaction). That would be $1.03 in that example. I'm not giving you an extra $3 on a $25 item just for the luxury of...ummm, what exactly? Making you take responsibility for the item you're selling? Not risking having my account closed for avoiding fees? :shrug:
hidden charges: if your ad says "$50 including shipping and paypal", and i pm you and ask for your paypal address, assume i will send you $50 as goods. If you pm me back and ask me to include extra money if sending paypal as goods, then what exactly did you mean by saying the price included paypal? You mean you calculated for me what it would include if i used the method that costs nothing and dissolves you of all liability? Gee, how kind of you
It just irks me, and maybe a little bit more here than on other boards.
Here, where you can see people reminding those leaving comments to act like upstanding gentlemen, then scroll up to the op making a public request to participate in fraud (for lack of a better term) and no one bats an eye at the irony of it.
Here, where we can spend hundreds of dollars on a brush or a razor that does exactly what the other brushes and razors in our collection do, yet we feel the need to cheat a company out of a small fee for a service we use on a regular basis.
I don't usually defend big businesses, but i'm not looking forward to the day when they decide the only way to deal with this is to do away with the gift option all together and start charging fees from both the seller and the buyer on every transaction.
In this particular case, the end result after a few pages of discussion was that the management of the site agreed that there is too much risk involved and, more importantly, too many people don't even realize the risk is there, and the forum rules were changed to reflect that publicly asking for payment as a 'gift' will not be allowed.
While I think that's a wonderful idea in general, that wasn't really my goal, but I was still happy to see a topic I raised had a positive impact there.
What I was hoping for, and what I would love to see on any forum I'm a member of, would be more like a sticky in the wanted/for sale sections with a short write up of general "safe practices" for online transactions.
It can be very beneficial in helping new members know how to spot a questionable situation and avoid getting into a bad deal. The easier it is for new folks to learn how to protect themselves, the more likely they are to fell comfortable and stick around. Not to mention, the harder we make it for people to pull of scams, the more likely they'll move on to easier targets
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