Paypal changes flat fee to enormous value

My bank account is unlinked because it becomes the default payment method with no way to change it. After a decade of carefully selecting my credit card every single time, it took one single late night mistake to generate a huge NSF fee because I kept the account empty.

My cousin sends money to his sister every month by using Moneygram. Lowest fees and best exhange rates.

You can get a debit card linked to a checking account, where you can keep a 0 balance without penalty.

Transfer only enough to cover any purchases you want to make. Even if hacqued, you lose almost nothing.

If you can do it online (I intentionally didn’t enable that feature, ymmv) you can do the transfer minutes before PPing anything.

Wouldn’t a credit card be easier?

I use that system

thanks for sharing other options for sending money to friends and family… I can see why paypal was not happy doing it for free…

I did a quick test, it seems Moneygram charge 5% to send money within the USA

my kid just had her bank account hacked, they got several thousand dollars
the bank refunded all of it to her account
still very inconvenient, but not by any means a total loss

the scam involved an email she received, that asked her to log in to solve a problem with her account. She logged in through the email. Dont do that! Careful reading of the from address revealed it was not from her bank at all, it was what is called a phishing scam, aka “Social Engineering”. I get those all the time. I never log in to any of my accounts, through an email.

The advantage of using a credit card (not a debit card) as the primary payment source for a paypal Purchase (not talking about sending money internationally to friends and family), is that it gives more time for me to realize I need to add funds to cover my purchase… when I dont pay direct from my bank account,. The bank account is still a backup funding source, which would not be used unless my credit card is declined (which means I have other issues)
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but most of the above comments may not be on topic

Im not seeing anything in the new paypal rules that changes how I purchase things
Im waiting to see what kiriba-ru shares, to educate me if it would help him for me to buy stuff from him using paypal linked to my bank, instead of paypal linked to my credit card…

I don’t sell on Feebay any more … ( Greedy pukes )
Craig’s List / Gumtree to name just two .

It definitely looks like Paypal is trying to cash on small transactions,

I tried to compare other payment services, and realized you have to look at hidden fees as well. they are hidden in the conversion rate.

I looked at some possible alternatives for transfers from USA to Russia and it looks like there are only 2-3 other alternatives:

Here are the fees to send $5-$10 to Russia

HiFX charges around $5 fees
Transferwise $3-$4 fees

Skrill is more affordable:

To send money you get charged with
Credit card fee 2.90 %
or ACH (Bank account) 6.00 %

Sending fee 1.45% +$0.50
Conversion fee 3.99%

So to send $5 would cost additional $0.92 ….$10 would be $1.33

Recipient in Russia has $0 fees to receive the money

but to withdraw the money or not use the account:
withdrawal fee $5.50
inactive service fee $3.0/month (after 1 year)

your post is all about using Paypal the way you might use Western Union, to send money to friends and family internationally

none of that has anything to do with purchases, does it?

If I use paypal to buy a flashlight from China, are any of the fees you are pointing to relevant?

This doesn’t seem to apply to ordinary overseas transactions if you link a checking account to PayPal. I did several transactions yesterday that involved payments as small as $1.27 for some G4 LED light bulbs used for lighting Christmas blow molds. If you are worried about your account getting hacked, simply open a small account at a different bank or credit union and keep enough in it to avoid fees. Most credit unions don’t require a large balance for a checking account and don’t charge fees for transferring money between accounts if you do it online.

I did not get a similar letter from PayPal but I never use it for transferring money to relatives.

Can you try it again but only $900 this time? Moneygram is supposed to only charge a flat rate of $11.50 for anything up to $900 within the US.

You can try it. It has a fee estimator

https://secure.moneygram.com/estimate/receiverInfo

Thanks, I just tried it. They have changed their pricing structure again, but if you send twice $500 within the US, each time the fee is $3.99 so $7.98 total . Much cheaper than sending $1000 at once and paying the $49.00 fee.

It costs $1.65 for a US postal money order up to $1000. to use this system you have to appear in person, with cash in hand, to buy the money order

If you have a bank account and want to send money to someone, using their phone number, there is no fee if you use Zelle

paypals new fee structure are for sending money to friends and family internationally, using a credit card as the funding source

the new paypall fees do not seem to apply to credit card funded purchases of goods and services

so, there are several scenarios

  1. kiriba-ru as a seller does not want to pay higher fees when accepting paypal payments
    status: fees did not change

2. kiriba-ru wants to send money internationally to friends and family
status: fees went up, but only if he uses a credit card to fund the transaction, not if he uses a bank account to fund the transfer

3. Jon_slider wants to buy a flashlight internationally
status: no change in fees

4. Jon_slider wants to send money to friends and family internationally
status: no change in fees if funded by a bank account, not a credit card

5. Jon Slider wants you to send him money
status: pm me for my phone number and you can do a free transfer using Zelle… LOL!

did I miss anything?:slight_smile:

I think someone here mentioned that these Chinese sellers create US Pay pal accounts so that would not apply to you, I assume Crowdifornia is still in the U.S. :slight_smile:

I never knew but it seems like Paypal always charged a lot for international transfers right now around 7-10%

Now this is exactly the reason why crypto will replace other means of money transfer.

BTW:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/the_600_compani.html

Interesting link! on top of those private companies, they also share data (when requested) with pretty much every government agency. Since they have a banking license they are required to do this anyway (AML/KYC at the very least + any other local law) and if the request is legitimate.

Revolut seems a much better solution.

Heh, the author, Schneier, looks like Tony Amendola. :smiley:

Still, is there any way to get away from companies “sharing” (ie, selling) your info? Any time someone collects info that can be used, it’ll at some point be misused and abused.

That’s kinda to be expected. No one’s gonna have something salable that they’re just gonna sit on.