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Legit Practise?

fireplug

fireplug

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I'm not certain whether the mods will want this here but...I figure we're all building our vehicles this way so it is related...

I bought an expensive car part on Ebay and the seller now wants 5% for using PayPal. AND he wants it on top of the shipping costs (from Germany so it's a few bucks). Does this sound legit?
 
Yeah it's legit, at least in a way.

Paypal sucks, and if you sell things on eBay long enough, eventually you will start running into people who want to pay when they don't have money actually in their Paypal account. I guess they use a credit card instead, but whatever. As a seller, to accept those, you HAVE to become a "business" member, which means on EVERY transaction after you become a "business" member (or whatever they call it) you get charged a certain percentage of the price by Paypal. (Edit: I believe this applies even to person to person transactions, not just auction stuff)

Instead of inflating the item sale price, it sounds like this guy is simply adding it on afterwards. IIRC the fee Paypal screws me for is something like 2% or so.

I would draw the line if additional fees aren't mentioned anywhere in the auction. A seller can't arbitrarily add cost after the auction is over. Of course, you don't want to tick the guy off (even if it is his fault) because negative feedback is negative feedback, for those who care about that sort of thing. It needs to be handled civil-like if you have a problem with it.
 
NO! I had a few ended for please add 3% if you use pay pal.

Here is eBay http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-surcharges.html

Sellers may not charge eBay buyers an additional fee for their use of ordinary forms of payment, including acceptance of checks, money orders, electronic transfers or credit cards. Such costs should be built into the price of the item.


I would ask if he charges fee for a credit card. If he says no go buy one of those cards and put the amount on it and ony leave what it cost. Then he can't jack your info.
 
I thought it was sketchy as it wasn't mentioned IN the listing. And 5%? AND on top of the shipping?

I'll have to handle this carefully, as the item is rare and NOS and I don't want to lose out, and I guess I don't want negative feedback.

Thanks for the input guys.
 
Yeah, it's excessive, apparently against ebay policy, and if it's not in the auction info, he certainly has no leg to stand on, because I'd look at that as a scam. If he thought it was legit to do so, it would have been in the description.

I used to put in my auctions that I didn't accept Paypal if doing so required me to pay a fee, I got an auction closed for that. But don't get me started on eBay/Paypal. If only there was a good alternative...
 
Unless you have the account which isn't linked to a bank account, paypal now charges you a 1% fee for any accepting money at all. It's only free if you have the account which doesn't allow you to cash out your paypal balance.

This means if you combine the item price + shipping into a single payment, the seller still has to pay a percentage of that entire payment to paypal. And if he's overseas, he probably has to pay a foreign currency conversion fee on top of it. Money orders are a nice alternative.
 
bp71k5 said:
Unless you have the account which isn't linked to a bank account, paypal now charges you a 1% fee for any accepting money at all. It's only free if you have the account which doesn't allow you to cash out your paypal balance.

This means if you combine the item price + shipping into a single payment, the seller still has to pay a percentage of that entire payment to paypal. And if he's overseas, he probably has to pay a foreign currency conversion fee on top of it. Money orders are a nice alternative.
Click to expand...

Ok so that explains tacking on top of the shipping I guess.

Though the percentage is still debatable judging from our varied guesses so far.

Ok here is another facet, maybe not important at all, he prompted me to link to his PayPal account directly ie not through Ebay. So should I get him to update the shipping costs to Ebay so there is a record of it? By record I mean both proof that he is trying to scam and proof of my (eventual) payment.
 
Can you even change the cost after an auction ends? I don't think he can, that's probably why he's linking you direct.
 
dyeager535 said:
Can you even change the cost after an auction ends? I don't think he can, that's probably why he's linking you direct.
Click to expand...

If you use the link to 'Pay Now' there is a section for the seller to fill in the shipping costs to update the transaction. I assume he could just put the total or even add a charge for packaging or something extraneous.

Part of my added concern is using the above method to pay directly proves to eBay that I've paid for my item. Going directly to PayPal likely wouldn't?
 
I agree. Although Paypal is owned by ebay, I'm guessing if you go "outside" the ebay realm, you probably lose some if not all protection from ebay.
 
dyeager535 said:
I agree. Although Paypal is owned by ebay, I'm guessing if you go "outside" the ebay realm, you probably lose some if not all protection from ebay.
Click to expand...

Please don't get me started on buyer protection.... :doah:

eBay charges for listing
eBay charges for final vaule fee
paypal gets a fee
and i get
rude_anal.gif
from the fees!
 
LOL!

Ok here's another aspect (does it end?) I wasn't too worried about it originally but the ad specifically mentioned that there was NO BUYER PROTECTION.

Whaddya think?
 
As previously posted, I don't think that is something that can be waived just because the seller says so.

I was going to say you are just going to have to work this out with the guy, because you want the piece, but as you are thinking, you tread dangerous ground. What if he stiffs you completely? Personal experience with Paypal tells me that they don't care so much about you as a customer when you have a problem. :(
 
fireplug said:
I'm not certain whether the mods will want this here but...I figure we're all building our vehicles this way so it is related...

I bought an expensive car part on Ebay and the seller now wants 5% for using PayPal. AND he wants it on top of the shipping costs (from Germany so it's a few bucks). Does this sound legit?
Click to expand...


If you don't mind my asking what is it. I am a web scrounger and might find it in the states?
 
Sorry, call me ignorant, but what's the "D" stand for??? And where do you use this thing?
 
Get a copy of Hemming's motor news. I will try and find one one line.
 
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