PayPal Surcharge


I have noticed alot of people add a (3% or so) PayPal fee to their items and I wonder if everyone is aware, that is against the user agreement. It seems that PayPal looks at sellers as "merchants". This is cut from the Paypal website:

-No Surcharges. Under Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express regulations and the laws of several states, including California, merchants may not charge a fee to the buyer for accepting credit card payments (often called a "surcharge"). You agree that you will not impose a surcharge or any other fee for accepting PayPal as payment. This restriction does not prevent you from imposing a handling fee in connection with the sale of goods or services, as long as the handling fee does not operate as a surcharge (in other words, the handling fee for transactions paid through PayPal may not be higher than the handling fee for transactions paid through other payment methods). Nor does this restriction apply to Pound-denominated transactions by sellers residing in the United Kingdom listing items for sale on a UK-based website.
dill

Showing 2 responses by thedautch

Cadmaniac: Why is it illegal if it is simply against PayPal's rules? PayPal's rules are not exactly the U.S. Code when it comes to settled law. Besides, I still maintain that such a "law" would unenforceable and moot, since the seller would just decide to factor the value of PayPal into the cost of their items, if necessary.
PayPal would have no standing whatsoever to challenge a seller's application of a 3% fee. If they somehow tried to, anyone who wanted to take PayPal would just figure out what they wanted to get for an item (say, $500), then add 3% ($15) and just charge $515. If a buyer said they wanted to pay cash, the seller would just offer to sell it for $500 even. There is no way that PayPal could establish legal standing in such a case, and it's even more impossible for PayPal to somehow "regulate" such activity.