PayPal

[Androo]

hey, i don't get something with paypal.
To sign up it's free... but do they charge money when someone pays you???
ps i live in the country of Canada

[Trip]

Yes, i think they take something like 10% of the profit, which really isn't all that much if you're a designer.

[Dusky]

To sign up it's free... but do they charge money when someone pays you

Last week, my buddy wanted to pay me 100 bucks I had loaned him. Since I hadn't stopped by his house in a long time, he thought I should get my money some other way. He looked into PayPal. He thought it really was free. He sent the money to my Email account, and I got a message from paypal saying someone had sent me money, that all I had to do was sign up, and then I'd be able to transfer my money to my checking account. I signed up. My buddy gave Paypal 100 bucks... PayPal was going to give me between $95 and $97.50. Simply because they had deceived my buddy, I did not accept the money transfer, and I instead closed my account. Rats.

[Trip]

Dusky: that's how paypal works. They need to earn money, and that's the easiest way. It's really great if you think about it. $5.00 charge? No biggy.

[Dusky]

Dusky: that's how paypal works. They need to earn money, and that's the easiest way. It's really great if you think about it. $5.00 charge? No biggy.

I do understand that they need to earn money. I'm used to seeing the placement of ads creating revenue for online companies.

As to them charging 5 bucks in a 100 bucks transaction, I think it's a biggie. With five bucks I can make a student of mine smile five times for getting him a cookie and a milk each morning, for a whole week of school.

It's also a biggie if we take into consideration the following:
1. I don't have the need for 100 bucks ASAP.
2. If I wait a couple of weeks until my friend and I meet, I'll have the whole 100 bucks, not 97.50.
3. In a savings account, you place 100 bucks and at the end of the year you have 101 bucks. A one dollar gain. It'd have taken two years in a savings account to earn those two bucks difference.

Am I a cheapskate? Not really, but I just might be in denial. When I go to my favorite Mexican restaurant, I leave a 20% tip although it's not a custom to leave tips in restaurants like that one (fast food place, cheap). I pay 2 bucks for 2-liter of soda when I know I can go to Ralphs and get the same bottle for less than $1.25. Third and last example, I'm hopeful to get a good amount of money back from the IRS this year so I can give 33.3% of it to my mother (good for a plane tix to Mexico), and 66.6% to my father (help pay his truck, which he bought for work).

Hmm, I do have underwear with holes in them. Pictures later...

[Trip]

Originally posted by Dusky
If I wait a couple of weeks until my friend and I meet, I'll have the whole 100 bucks, not 97.50.

Which helps me bring up my next topic: nobody said you guys had to use paypal. Heck: i don't really know anybody who uses it for personal things. I know many business that use it, but really no personal people. That's what you have to understand.

[Dusky]

Which helps me bring up my next topic: nobody said you guys had to use paypal.

That's right. But somebody asked if it was free, and I responded. Someone else (you, Trip) said 5 bucks weren't a biggie, and I begged to differ. Now you say...

"i don't really know anybody who uses it for personal things."

Hehe, online you do... me. Well, someone who tried it, anyway.

But really, I wasn't trying to tell Androo to forget PayPal. I was just saying that it's not as free as he had hoped, and as it's advertised. And don't say "nothing in life is free." Some things are arguably free. Depends on whether you value the expensed (other than money) more than you value the gained.

I heard something like...

In the region where I was born, during political campaigns, citizens were given "free" food by XXXXX political party if they vowed to vote for the party when elections came. People went for it. Had one of them been asked if it had indeed been free, they'd have answered "yes, all I had to do was lie to the stupid/corrupted SOBs..."

[binaryDigit]

Well just like many things what you're paying for is the convenience. If your buddy mailed you a check, and you had to drive to the bank to deposit it and wait a few days for the money to become available, is it worth $2.50 - $5.00 to avoid all this. If the answer is no, then the choice is obvious, send the check. If the answer is yes, either because the bank/nearest atm is far away (i.e. it would cost more than that in case to do the deposit), or you want access to the money immediately (vs 3-5 days for mail + time to deposit + funds availability), then you would say yes, that amount is worth your time. Of course the biggest benefit of PayPal for most is that it allows someone to effectively "accept" credit card payments.

I can see how you might be confused by the fact that they advertise as being "free", but it is for buyers so it's not totally untrue. And I believe that they are very upfront about telling you that if you accept payments, that they take their cut.