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More Paypal nonsense

regretsy.com

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Re: More Paypal nonsense

#121

Post by Strom »

saurik wrote: post #87
sk5t wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What world do you live in, where "donate" necessarily implies some kind of accounting whargarbl? Unless there is some more complicated scheme afoot here that I have failed to comprehend, it appears the Regretsy folks were collecting money, 100% of which would be used for the benefit of needy people, without claiming to be a 501(c)(3) or anything of the like. Still sounds like a donation to a worthy cause. Only when P…

In the US you cannot run that company: if you accept money in exchange for goods (or even sometimes services), and are not a registered non-profit, you need to pay sales taxes on the sales, must declare any residual as income, and the people giving you the money cannot claim it as a write off. Regretsy is in the EU, not the US, but I don't believe that changes the point. In the EU, everything that is traded, whether…

In the EU, everything that is traded, whether it be a good or a service, is subject to a "value added tax".

Incorrect. I own an Estonian (an EU member) company that can sell stuff and offer services without VAT. VAT is actually optional until a certain revenue threshold.

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#122

Post by brazzy »

bphogan wrote: post #26
geuis wrote: post #18

At the risk of being perceived as the devil's advocate, let me ask a question. I've heard of dozens of stories about Paypal along a similar vein. "They locked my account for unreasonable reason X and now are keeping the money". Most of these stories seem anecdotal. Can someone point to a rigorously documented set of cases where both Paypal and the customer's side of things are reviewed? Over the last few years, all o…

I can't. I replied elsewhere in these comments that it happened to a client of mine. I made a lot of money in one weekend doing emergency "I told you so" payment gateway switching for him so he could take reservations. But it's my recollection they're not a bank, and so they have no real obligation to act like one. So when they do this kind of stuff, I'm not surprised. And I wouldn't want to be them. They probably de…

Actually, Paypal's European operation is officially registered as a bank in Luxemburg.

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#123

Post by zem »

sk5t wrote: post #90
dangrossman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have several websites; some sell products, some monthly subscriptions, some target consumers, some businesses. Universally, on all of these sites, customers choose to pay with PayPal more often than credit card. For the most part, my payment pages are a secure credit card form with a "or Pay with PayPal" button to the right of the form. More people choose to click through to PayPal than to just put their card in to…

Have you added Amazon payments as an option as well? I would choose that every time, given the choice, if for no other reason than Paypal is always trying to trick me into paying from my bank account, when I really want to pay with credit card for rewards and security. Amazon doesn't try to trick me.

same here - my preferred options are amazon, credit card and if there's no alternative and i really want whatever it is, paypal.

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#124

Post by robin_reala »

Strom wrote: post #121
saurik wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US you cannot run that company: if you accept money in exchange for goods (or even sometimes services), and are not a registered non-profit, you need to pay sales taxes on the sales, must declare any residual as income, and the people giving you the money cannot claim it as a write off. Regretsy is in the EU, not the US, but I don't believe that changes the point. In the EU, everything that is traded, whether…

In the EU, everything that is traded, whether it be a good or a service, is subject to a "value added tax". Incorrect. I own an Estonian (an EU member) company that can sell stuff and offer services without VAT. VAT is actually optional until a certain revenue threshold.

Also, VAT isn’t charged for certain product categories in the EU. In the UK, for instance, children’s clothing is VAT-free.

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#125

Post by etheric »

masklinn wrote: post #100
danilocampos wrote: post #24

I've been sitting here for the last five minutes trying to make a point eloquently. I'm having a hard time with it. So I'll just put it like this: What else can we really expect from a product whose parent is eBay ? This company is a fucking fossil with all the hunger for customer satisfaction of a used tissue. Is it convenient for users? Yeah. Is it worth gambling your entire business on? Given the lack of accountab…

> Why trust a business to such a stagnant concern? Because there is no alternative and they fucking know it . Oh if you're in the US for the US you might be able (and want) to gamble on an other younger service, but in the wider world? It's a fucking wasteland , it's either Paypal or Big Bank Merchant Account, and those are no fun at all either. My card expired (and was renewed) recently, I decided to stop using payp…

>>Because there is no alternative and they fucking know it.

Off the top of my head, https://payments.amazon.com/ is a great alternative. Not sure how the rates stack up, but I definitely trust Amazon more than I trust PayPal. I'm sure there are more alternatives available, I don't know why so many people insist on using PayPal. I think Amazon allows donations cause kickstarter.com uses it, and you don't necessarily get anything if you fund a project. I'm guessing the tricky part here is the "donations", but PayPal certainly has a poor customer satisfaction record.

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#126

Post by slowpoke »

tallanvor wrote: post #110
gergles wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's histrionic. PayPal's customers are the people who use it. You, as a merchant, are not a customer of theirs, but a necessary evil to keep the customers coming. PayPal's customers love it. PayPal's merchants don't like it because PayPal has fraud prevention methods that are opaque and hamfistedly applied. That's a fine complaint, but this breathless "for the sake of the world don't ever use PayPal" garbage…

First, the merchants are the customers - they're the ones paying the fees to provide the service to their customers. Second, you don't have to be a merchant to hate PayPal. Most of the time I will simply choose not to buy something rather than use PayPal. --The last time I couldn't avoid them was about 2 years ago.

>Second, you don't have to be a merchant to hate PayPal.

Exactly. I refuse to use it more due to ethical reasons[1] than anything else, but there are a metric shit-ton of reasons for not supporting and using Paypal.

We need more (viable) alternatives. Paypal is a bit like Windows - it gained a monopoly because it was successful early on due to the lack of viable competition, and now we are at a point where we need to get rid of that monopoly, but it's difficult to do so - but we must.

[1] See the Wikileaks blockade, amongst other things. It's by far not the first time they pulled that shit, the WL incident just was the worst example so far.

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#127

Post by dvdkhlng »

Too much is too much. Closing my PP account. So far I haven't seen an online shop that doesn't have alternative payment options other than PP. In Germany (Europe?) we have ClickAndBuy [1], which works great so far. Buyer protection is usually sold separately via Trusted Shops [2] (but has to be payed for by the seller). This also eliminates the various COI arising from the payment processor also trying to police account owners. And I can choose to not add additional buyer protection costs for shops that I trust in.

[1] http://clickandbuy.com

[2] http://www.trustedshops.com

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#128

Post by saurik »

waitwhat wrote: post #106
saurik wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US you cannot run that company: if you accept money in exchange for goods (or even sometimes services), and are not a registered non-profit, you need to pay sales taxes on the sales, must declare any residual as income, and the people giving you the money cannot claim it as a write off. Regretsy is in the EU, not the US, but I don't believe that changes the point. In the EU, everything that is traded, whether…

In the US you cannot run that company: if you accept money in exchange for goods (or even sometimes services), and are not a registered non-profit, you need to pay sales taxes on the sales, must declare any residual as income, and the people giving you the money cannot claim it as a write off. The sales tax issue is a red herring. Regretsy was (presumably) buying the toys at a rate that included sales tax, and if the…

I believe this is only true if the sales tax as purchased is less greater than or equal to the sales tax as sold, and even in that case I believe still requires a business registration and declaration of the non-taxed receipts. I am not yet, however, an expert at this stuff, and would love to be given more information to learn more about how sales tax works in these situations (I am unfortunately starting to sell physical products, but luckily am not currently reselling anything I purchased at retail, so this specific detail isn't the kind of thing that would burn me ;P).

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#129

Post by saurik »

robin_reala wrote: post #124
Strom wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the EU, everything that is traded, whether it be a good or a service, is subject to a "value added tax". Incorrect. I own an Estonian (an EU member) company that can sell stuff and offer services without VAT. VAT is actually optional until a certain revenue threshold.

Also, VAT isn’t charged for certain product categories in the EU. In the UK, for instance, children’s clothing is VAT-free.

...and sales tax is different for different classes of product in the US, with some things getting better treatment, such as groceries, and some things worse, such as car tires. I did not expect it to be relevant to this specific case, but yes: I guess children's clothing is an interesting one for this Regretsy charity drive; that said, they stated "toys", not "clothing", and I don't remember toys being on that exemption list (which I actually have read, as I needed to see if any of the things I was selling had different rates).

(PS: the coolest one I've seen is that bound physical books often have much better tax rates than other goods, leading to hilarious situations where shipping someone a physical pamphlet that includes base64 might be much cheaper than selling them an expensive piece of software on CD. ;P)

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