No more PAYPAL at AliExpress

I was somewhat aware of this problem, but did not know about the May 7 change and had not seen the Rossmann video. My awareness of PayPal’s fee structure was from over a decade ago, so I knew that my knowledge was obsolete from a numbers perspective.

If I was a merchant, I would not accept PayPal and this helps explain why many of the AliExpress sellers I’m now seeing are not accepting it. I imagine that May 7 triggered these changes.

Coincidentally, I’ve recently found out that criminals are using PayPal to send donations to some open source projects using stolen accounts or credit cards. Guess what? This costs the recipient, a penniless open source developer, the PayPal fees every time PayPal turns around and refunds the fraudulent charge! In other words, they punish the recipient of the donation as though they were guilty of fraud.

And that was before PayPal changed the 2.9% policy. I’ve even seen claims that people are donating through PayPal with fraudulent accounts on purpose just to drain money from open source developers (or anyone) who the idiots perceive has “wronged” them.

In other words, Louis is dead-right about losers on 4chan doing this just to screw with merchants like him. PayPal is thus culpable in this travesty as their policies have created this form of attack, even if the attackers themselves make no money from the strategy. Basically, PayPal profits from the misfortunes of merchants.

There are no non-PayPal options which have (had) the widespread acceptance of PayPal :frowning: . Regardless, I sincerely hope that this policy change kills PayPal. Keeping their 2.9% for every refund for any reason is simply wrong.

To be fair, however, I do want to admit that PayPal has operated their business with much less overhead than a company like Patreon, which now has hundreds of employees for no obvious reason. How many people does it take to run a website? They surely aren’t hiring people with advanced degrees just answer phones.

Also, PayPal allows me to use my credit card as a payment source with no extra fee. I don’t know how they do this, as credit card companies charge more than 2.9. Some charge 9, which should also be illegal (I’ve hated Discover for decades as they should not exist and would never accept their cards as a merchant).

Let’s be honest. We consumers are pretty stupid, as we now insist upon credit cards that pay us 1-2% “cash back” when it’s our own money they are paying back to us. To get that 1.5% cash back, the card companies have all raised their merchant rates by 3-4!! The card companies make out quite well, but merchants have to charge 3-4 more for their products and services just so we can have 1-2% “cash back”.

Abbot and Costello once did routine where one would trick the other into giving him two 10’s for a 5. Well, it’s not comedy anymore. We’re that stupid. The credit card companies ask for 3-6% extra, give us back 1.5%, and we think we’re financial geniuses. “The card that pays you back.”

Personally I can’t say that I trust them but I have had one dispute with an online seller that was stalling, and as soon as I mentioned I was going to file a Paypal dispute I got my money back.

Not sure how any of the major credit card brands would have handled a dispute, I can’t even say how Paypal would have handled it, but my mentioning of Paypal dispute did seem to have an impact.

One advantage with PP is that disputes or charge backs do not cost anything or they cost less than my credit card provider or bank would charge. If the charge back is related to an ebay purchase there are no fees for the buyer if the seller is domestic (from what I can tell). I am not into all the changes and details that seem to happen weekly.

Ummm, since when does ordering from AX through PP charge tax?

I was all set to pay something like 4.92, and when I clicked to order, the total instantly jumped to 5.35 or whatever (ballpark; just guessing from memory as to the amounts).

Looked at the order details, and I got nicked for 44¢ tax!

Anyone know if this is something new from AX, or is it because I paid through PP?

I don’t have any tax surcharges for any of my AExpress orders, regardless how I pay for them.
there is an actual PP charge, of course, which can be quite high (I just paid a 3.50 $ PP charge for a few items?!).

Well, how expensive was the total purchase?

a bit over 18 dollars. 3.5 dollars for the PP charge.
I think it also depends on whether you are purchasing fewer items or just 1.
(These are cell phone covers)

Oof 18$US.

That’s expensive. Even if you do (18*0,055)+0,30$US, it should still equal to a max 1,30$US in fees.

3,50$US is extreme, and means Aliexpress is not only taking profits from the sellers, but also from the Paypal payment.

the paypal charge is different depending on what item and how many you order. The “regular” pp charge is only 80 US cents for low value items. This charge suddenly goes up if you change the quantity (value) or type of item.

I wonder how the global trade war influences the PP/china ordering ecosystem.

The odd thing is, the total showed the <5buk figure right up to the point where I clicked, then bam!, 5’n’change.

It might be actual tax, though, ’cause here local tax is ~9%, and that’d be just about the right amount.

That’s why I’m not sure if all of a sudden PP is declaring POP (point of presence) “jurisdiction” and charging tax, vs direct payment to them nice little fellas in China.

It’s definitely coming from there, Yanwen shipping, expected delivery something in mid-July (2021, probably), and so on. Ain’t like it’s coming from a US-based warehouse or anything.

Different seller on AX, and they just did it again. Got nicked for “tax”.

Don’t wanna order anything with my “real” card, and don’t need anything from a different company (GB, FT, etc.) yet, so am wondering if it’s an AX thing, automatically “charging” (but of course not remitting) tax, or if it’s a new PP thing.

Followup:

Doesn’t seem to be a PP thing but an AX thing, nicking people for tax.

Just ordered from GB, amount charged (through PP) was exactly what it said on the tin, nothing “extra” taken for tax.

So, PP is in the clear on this one. :wink:

If you want extra security use Revolut and create virtual cards for every order.
After you pay you can just deactivate the card and create another

I’ve been on Internet since it started.
Paypal sine it started. Once they got the wriggles out of if.
Nowadays. I buy through PayPal only.
No Paypal. I go elsewhere.
There are plenty of reputable dealers that use it.

I’m totally new to Aliexpress and wanted to buy a Convoy 21A with 12 modes from the Convoy flashlight Store site. I prefer to pay with Paypal oddly I initially saw paypal as an option with a small fee but then on changing my mind to go with a 5000k tint intead of 6500k I now find PP isnt available. Should it be a valid paypment method? Any help would be appreciated.

You can contact Simon from Convoy flashlight Store via aliexpress message center, say him what you need, your shipping address, and ask him if he could accept payment with Paypal. Simon is a nice person and in 99% of cases you would find an agreement.

Thanks for the advice. I’ll try that

When you ask to pay with paypal and the vendor accepts it as a favor, do you use Friends and Family to save the vendor on fees or it’s not worth it?

F&F used to be free but I think they added some fees, right?

As far as I know when you send money using family and friends you lose protection from any dispute. I figure that’s why its free, paypal isn’t going to lose anything.
I would ask the seller how much will the fees be or just send extra to cover it and pay as a transaction and add a brief exact discription of what your buying in the notes section.
If its Simon (convoy store) your buying from I’m pretty confident you’ll get what you order or he will make it right so family and friends maybe fine.
That’s up to you though.

Thanks again. I’ll message the Convoy Store (Simon) shortly. Happy to pay the fees too of course.

Issue I have is that I dont have a VISA card nor immediate access to any of the other payment methods. I do prefer Paypal as it’s been a reliable option in the past too.