Just a heads up. AMENDMENTS TO THE PAYPAL ACCOUNT USER AGREEMENT

[prettypaperprints]

Item highlighted in red will affect me the most...

AMENDMENTS TO THE PAYPAL ACCOUNT USER AGREEMENT-

We are updating the PayPal User Agreement, and the Combined Financial Services Guide and Product Disclosure Statement (CFSGPDS). These changes will go into effect on May 6, 2019. If you agree to these changes, you don’t have to do anything. If you don’t agree with these changes, you may close your account. If you close your account before May 6, 2019, the changes will not apply to you.

Amendments to the PayPal User Agreement and the CFSGPDS

• We’re removing the flat rate pricing for sending money to friends and family members who have PayPal accounts in a country other than the Australia and introducing a new variable fee of 5% based on the amount you send with a minimum of 0.99 AUD and a maximum of 5.99 AUD per transaction. We’re also removing any variation depending on the recipient’s country. 
• We’re changing how we treat refunds. If you refund (partially or fully) a transaction to a buyer or a donation to a donor, there are no fees to make the refund, but the fees you originally paid as the seller will not be returned to you.

[love_of_cars]

I saw that about the refund fee too and was going to post on here about it!

I thought this is just no good!  But then I thiought, PayPal did provide the service of allowing us to receive the money from the buyer and it is not PayPal's fault a buyer changes their mind or there is a damaged item or whatever.  So I'm understanding about it.

[digital*ghost]

---

@love_of_cars wrote:

I thought this is just no good!  But then I thiought, PayPal did provide the service of allowing us to receive the money from the buyer and it is not PayPal's fault a buyer changes their mind or there is a damaged item or whatever.  So I'm understanding about it.

---

I think retaining the 30c flagfall is fair enough, probably even currency conversion fees, but retaining the percentage take of the payment is a bit on the nose to me (maybe not so insulting when it's a $10 item, but would be harder to swallow for more expensive items, especially as things like high-priced tech, which can be prone to spurious returns, tend to have some of the lower profit margins around) - I mean, the costs to trasfer numbers from one place to another is relatively small, and most of the charges would be to pay for other services PayPal provide, like buyer / seller protection (which isn't applicable to a refunded payment). 

Still, they are not the first payment processor with this policy - I hope it's not used as a means to justify eBay doing the same thing when they fully roll out their system and phase out PayPal (i.e. their favourite justification is "everyone else is doing it", except they say "it's industry standard"). 

[5kazam]

I recently did two refunds for overpayment of postage

$8.30 - PP refunded 22c of that

$10.10 - PP refunded 26c of that

I can live without that small contribution by PP to a refund.

Though I'm sure the changes will impact on sellers who have to deal regularly with fully/partially refunding for various buyer reasons.

[johnoshop]

Is there an obligation to give a full refund just for change of mind?

---

@oz-e-seller wrote:
So basically you can just ruin someone by purposely by accident sending them money then immediately claiming it back. Or just buy up all their ebay stuff then cancel the lot.

---

[johnoshop]

I wonder how much extra revenue this will bring in to PayPal..?

[digital*ghost]

---

@johnoshop wrote:

Is there an obligation to give a full refund just for change of mind?

---

Not an outright or official obligation, but rather a heavily implied one, at least within the first hour after purchase (during this timeframe, buyers can send a cancellation request as long as the order hasn't been marked as shipped, after the initial hour, they have to message and ask). In both circumstances, it's still 100% up to the seller whether they agree or not, but generally speaking, and in normal circumstances, it's better to cancel and refund than send an order to someone who has already made clear they don't want the item, even if you don't accept COM returns, plus providing buyers with an official means to send a cancellation request implies (to the buyer) that they can cancel the order, rather than it be at the discretion of the seller.

Still, it would be (IMHO) a fairly tedious way to try and financially ruin someone - sellers can prevent buyers from purchasing too many items within a 7 day period via buyer blocks (you can stop buyers from purchasing anywhere from more than 1 item, up to 100 items [with several thresholds to select from in between], within a 7 day period, and also  opt to only apply it to buyers under a certain amount of FB, or all buyers), so if that block was in place the buyer would not only have to purchase in batches (can't checkout more than 40 items at once), but also across multiple accounts, during which time the seller likely could detect what was going on and take some preventative action (not to mention the buyer would need to be able to fund all the purchases, so they'd need a decent amount of cash and / or credit). 

[stick.it.good]

I'm confused on how this will work

Just last week a buyer bought something, we'll say for $200. Then requested to cancel it. I processed it.

The refund went as follows
Buyer received $195 refund from PayPal
PayPal kept $5
PayPal withdrew $200.30 from my account (30c PayPal fee?)

PayPal are already keeping their fees, in this case from the buyers side since he initiated it.
What's going to change on May 6th??

[brerrabbit585]

You've got that wrong. If you sold something for $200 only $194.50 goes into your account and paypal keep the other $5.50. If you refund that $200 payment the buyer gets the whole $200 back, but only $194.80 comes out of your account. The other $5.20 was originally charged in fees but now goes back to the buyer from paypal. That'll change when the new rules come into effect - paypal won't refund the $5.20 that was originally collected in fees. They'll keep it and the seller will lose $5.50 overall.

[stick.it.good]

Ok, the figures in my first post were wrong. Just ignore thay

So you're saying from a $200 sale, I'll get $194.50 from it as normal.
And then when the buyer requests a cancellation, PayPal will return the $194.50, and debit a further $5.50 from my bank account so that the buyer gets his fill $200 back?

Doesn't seem right 

Is there anywhere that this is confirmed for the buyer requested cancellation situation?

[lyndal1838]

Why doesn't it sound right?

All it means is that paypal will no longer do transactions for free.  Why should they transfer money twice at no cost to buyer or seller?   It has always been user pays....paypal is just catching up with everyone else.