PayPal Adds Fees On Personal Accounts

If you use your personal PayPal account for goods and services because you were not being charged fees, you may want to check your account and think again.

From an article in PCWorld by Jared Newman:

"But when money started rolling in last month, I noticed that a fraction of it (2.9 percent, plus 30 cents) wasn't making the jump from my employers' accounts to my own. In June, PayPal had started charging for payments classified as "Goods" or "Services," even if you have a personal account. It's possible to send money for free as a personal transfer, but this is only intended for friends and family."

To read the rest of the article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/169843/paypal_adds_fees_sneakily.html

You just have to question this comment from PayPal in the above article:

"We didn’t want to make a huge formal communication out of this pricing change, because we weren’t really adding any fees, and we were hoping it would be a more useful experience for people,” Charlotte Hill, PayPal’s PR manager said."

Since when has adding a fee to a service that was previously free - become "a more useful experience for people"? What people was Ms. Hill referring to? Certainly not PayPal users who are now paying fees.

When PayPal made the announcement that personal accounts could no longer be used for goods or services, part-time online sellers and other infrequent users were caught off guard. In many cases, they didn't even know about it. Those who do not use PayPal frequently also tend not to check PayPal's announcement board or blog.

It's too bad that PayPal didn't flag all personal accounts with a notice that reflected the costs of using the service after a certain date. This notice could have been front and center for the user to see upon log-in. There could have been a little agreement box for the user to click to acknowledge agreement with new policy before they could continue on the site. With the kind of techie staff PayPal employs, one would think this would have been easy for them to implement.

It is our opinion that it is time for the federal government to take a look at PayPal. With their antics such as the 21 day holds, counterfeit handbag heaven and etc..., they have become difficult to trust. If PayPal was regulated and had to operate under the same standards as banks, this kind of behavior would not be allowed.