I'm Confused What Would PayPal Charge Me to Pay Someone in USA? or Best Method of Paying Small Amounts for Goods Safely in USA?

Scaregdearimasu on 16/01/2016 - 17:22

I've never tried sending money to people outside ebay internationally so I'm a little confused when it comes to sending money to someone via Paypal.

My end goal is to send someone money for a game in the cheapest way possible.
Paypals fees are pretty bad but the person to person market for game sales seems to like it so thats what I've got to work with.

Say for example I want to send them $20 USD for a game. I'd want to use a payment for goods and services. Would they end up with $20 USD on their end (I'm absorbing all the fees?) or do they get fee'd as well and end with less than $20USD?

Do I pull the money from my bank account and pay the paypal conversion fee or do I pull the money from my debit card in USD and pay the banks conversion fee (2.5%)? But then am I fee'd because I'm pulling the money from a debit card?

Or Perhaps I should look into opening two Citibank plus accounts one AUD account and one USD account then put a paypal account on the USD account so I can transfer money between conversions without fees and only pay the normal USD-USD person to person goods fee?

Anyway super confused here, thanks for reading and any help would be excellent thanks.

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Comments

  • IceCreamBandit on 16/01/2016 - 17:38

    I sometimes buy Steam games from someone who lives in Asia where their pricing is much better than it is locally. As per the seller's instructions I've always paid by PayPal's send money function but I have to set it to "Family and Friends" (listing the transfer as a business transaction may incur more fees, I don't know.) and I have to pay PayPal's fee which is ~2% as far as I remember.

    You can choose the currency it is sent in and you'll just get PayPal's exchange rates.

    When it comes to bank fees I would have no idea, I've personally never been charged any but different banks/accounts could be different.

    So for your specific example

    Say for example I want to send them $20 USD for a game. I'd want to use a payment for goods and services. Would they end up with $20 USD on their end (I'm absorbing all the fees?) or do they get fee'd as well and end with less than $20USD?

    If the seller wants $20 USD, just make sure you specify the currency and that's exactly what they'll get. PayPal will just exchange it for you at their rates and charge you the fees as well.

    • Scaregdearimasu on 16/01/2016 - 17:46

      That makes sense if you choose the "friends and family" option.
      It gets a bit more confusing if you choose the "goods and services option" it seems. From what I can tell if you choose good and services option the seller has to pay a fee which as far as I can tell is 3.5% plus .30 AUD. Now that might only apply to money coming from outside australia into australia though. I would assume a similar fee structure though in USA and in that case the seller wouldn't end up with $20USD. If I remember correctly there used to a be a tick box on paypal saying the buyer would pay the fees then the seller would automatically end up with the exact amount you intended.

      Anyhow the whole system of fees they have on paypal for anything more than a domestic transactions gets way too confusing. Thanks for your reply though!

  • whooah1979 on 16/01/2016 - 17:48
    +1

    you want to send us$20 to a seller in the usa.

    the minimum fee in us dollars:
    $20
    +
    3.6% from $20
    +
    $0.30 fixed fee
    +
    3.5% conversion fee if using pp

    = $20 - $0.72 - $0.30 - $0.70 = $18.28 this what the seller will receive from you.

    • Scaregdearimasu on 16/01/2016 - 18:43

      Thanks mate, Seems silly theres no way to insure the seller receives the amount you want(anymore) outside of calculating the price repeatedly until the seller actually receives the appropriate amount.

      Looks like the merchant fees are different on the USA site instead of being 3.6%+.30USD it'd be 3.9%=.30USD. What a mess hah.

  • Morien on 16/01/2016 - 18:30
    +2

    Paying via Friends and Family won't incur the same fees (and you should be charged them). No buyer protection this way.
    Paying a merchent will incur fees that will come out of the $20 US (so the seller gets less), however you will get buyer protection.

  • datafellows on 17/01/2016 - 16:09

    Why not let the seller request the money from you? Saves you the headache.

    Make sure the money goes from a credit card so that you can chargeback if you need to do that.

    • Scaregdearimasu on 18/01/2016 - 09:55

      Thats a potential solution too.
      Not sure whether it makes a difference whether it's a credit card or debit card but it looks like if I load money from a credit/debit card for a personal transaction they put a fee on it. I wonder if it's the same for commercial transactions.

      It also looks like paypals conversion fee is higher than my banks and you can get around it by telling paypal to pull the money from the debit card instead of from the bank account and because of that you can tell them to request the currency type you want so the bank processes the currency conversion and you pay their fee instead.
      Not seeing any way to pull money from your bank account in any currency other than AUD.

  • hal9000 on 12/02/2016 - 07:52
    +1

    i think the best way to minimize the fee is to upload the funds from your bank account (no fees) then convert it to USD (2.5% fee) then send it as personal/family payment (1% fee)

    reference: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/cfsgpds-full?country.x…

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