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PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

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71–80 of 249 posts

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#71
post #7

PayPal is awful for small transactions, I regularily get donations for my projects that are literally 0 USD, because all of it is eaten away by PayPal fees, and even for a 5 USD donation you end up losing around 15% of the transaction amount. Do you know of any other service that is suitable for microtransactions, besides cryptocurrencies?

What about Venmo? Or Cash App? Venmo has been ubiquitous for years—everyone seems to have it. I’ve used it for everything from buying plants at the farmer’s market to paying rent and medical expenses. Edit: Of course the default broadcasting of your payments to a social feed is bonkers and needs to be turned off.

Speaking of Venmo. Venmo for some reason would not let me confirm my bank or credit union no matter what I did or what email address I used or however long I waited, the error message is one of those non-sensical catch-all error messages originating from some black hole. And customer service cannot do anything because "it's not up to them". Cash app worked instantly though. Anyway I would not recommend venmo or at least offer an alternative.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#72
post #11

This was actually announced in a easy to miss email with the subject "Upcoming change to your account" sent on June 30 2021. It did get a little press that day but on the fee increase day I saw little reporting. These changes went into effect on August 2nd 2021. Here is a PDF that has a breakdown showing all the changes that happened that day [1] To PayPal's credit, this was their first rate increase in a very long t…

> To PayPal's credit, this was their first rate increase in a very long time if not forever.

There is no reason to assume that rates should go up at all, it's not like the % you take needs to be corrected for inflation.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#73
post #36

Has anyone ran a recent A/B test for Stripe direct CC-based checkout + paypal vs Stripe only in the context of B2C subscriptions? Last time I've checked circa 2014-2015, there was consumer trust in Paypal (for cancellation/etc), and so having that option added ~+10% conversion rate (or so), but would appreciate more recent data, thank you!

No but I bet some people are turned away because of Paypal. I use it and customers occasionally inquire "Do you accept credit cards because we don't have a Paypal account?". It's aggravating that they make the credit card option hard to find compared to the shitty Paypal account login.

I am one of those people that is put off by PayPal.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#74
post #32
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this, and all that other Silicon Valley financial infra, because direct bank tranfers are (presumably?) not known or difficult or impossible. From my northwestern European perspective, it's weird this straightforward solution that we've had since, well, the fifties? is overlooked.

There's no way to do peer to peer direct bank transfers in the US. Also, in the US, credit card providers accept all liability for fraud, as a consumer there's no way you will ever lose money to credit card fraud.

ACH does work, but it's just not accessible via an API and such.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#75

When I moved to the Netherlands, I was at first irritated that my credit cards weren't accepted anywhere. But as the debit (maestro) card transactions are often free [1], paying 3%+ to a card service does seem exorbitant. For online payments, the Dutch use the IDEAL system, which is even easier than online credit cards. This also prevents vendor lock-in, like Amazon. And, the banking apps make it super easy to send m…

It's a bit of a stretch to equate Paypal with "all American transactions." There are of course Visa/Mastercard (variable but about 2%), debit cards, Venmo, and older bank transfer technologies (ACH).

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#78

When I moved to the Netherlands, I was at first irritated that my credit cards weren't accepted anywhere. But as the debit (maestro) card transactions are often free [1], paying 3%+ to a card service does seem exorbitant. For online payments, the Dutch use the IDEAL system, which is even easier than online credit cards. This also prevents vendor lock-in, like Amazon. And, the banking apps make it super easy to send m…

It's a bit of a stretch to equate Paypal with "all American transactions." There are of course Visa/Mastercard (variable but about 2%), debit cards, Venmo, and older bank transfer technologies (ACH).

A service that costs a fraction of a cent to perform but charges tax on total revenue plus a big old fee has a big barrier to entry or it has zero customers tomrrow.

"all american transactions" - who cares what proportion it is? It's the most vulgar display of market power imaginable. "We will tax this large chunk of the economy." And I'm not even seeing anyone saying they won't get away with it.

It's really quite astounding!

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#79

Time to put all this on crypto rails and disrupt these bastards out of existence.

Will that work particularly well since PayPal also adopted crypto? They have the money and resources to out-maneuver any weaker attempts at using crypto to displace them.

Yes because it's PayPal again in the middle with whatever fees they wish to apply. On crypto.

The difference between crypto and cash is that the bank can refuse a cash transaction, from either end, and through. With crypto the network accepts the transactions with no recourse to block it, reverse it, or impose their view on how money should circulate.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#80
post #76

Meanwhile, accepting Bitcoin Lightning Network payments is free of charge. Can't wait for more adoption.

I dislike Bitcoin but Lightning Network is effectively a decentralized Paypal. Assuming it works, it should have a very easy time competing against these excessive fees.
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