Paul Edwards Reptiles, in Charleston NC...anyone do business with him?

Jim,
I know Paul as well, and he stayed here with another friend prior to doing the Tampa show last month. He is to be trusted, as all have said. Call me biased if you will.
We see this "PayPal surcharge" show up all the time. I have no surcharges or handling fees, etc. To each his own if they feel a need to post the practice of someone else doing it, quote the PayPal TOS, etc.
I would expect any consumer who doesn't want to pay it won't, to the extent of cancelling the deal, and buying elsewhere. I wish it were handled that way, instead of seeing it in threads here all the time so as to cast a shadow on someone's business. The seller has the option of raising prices across the board to cover this added cost if they so choose. While some states have laws against credit card surcharges, some do not, which indicates that it is not high on the "moral wrongs" list, if at all, in many places. I frankly scoff at PayPal, who are charging for and making a tidy profit off the deal, telling someone else how to run their business. Wouldn't I enjoy a Constitutional challenge to such things some day. Any seller could jumble up enough other fees so that the buyers pay the PayPal charge anyway, and at least those making the decision to be up front about it are being honest and straightforward with their buyer. Undoubtedly there are those who will see this as a blemish on the integrity of the seller, while if they did raise all prices 2% and did away with the directed surcharge, they would be OK. That relegates it all to semantics. Being up front about it at least targets the cost where it is incurred.
PayPal's TOS are not statutes, merely grounds for them to cancel your account. It is one reason I would recommend to Paul that he bury the charge, if he must collect it, in other fees. Not because I feel he is wrong doing it, but because you never know when someone might come along and say something "good" about you, and then float the practice of your PayPal surcharge for whatever reason on the backside of their compliment.

I don't feel he is wrong in trying to re-coup that 3%. I myself don't like paying it (when I first started using Pay Pal I used to charge customers the xtra 3% myself). And if it were for something I wanted bad enough, and were left with no other options - I guess I would pay it. But as mentioned before, it's a price of doing business.

I also feel that if it were reversed, and the customers had to pay the price for the luxury of using Pay Pal ... I believe most of them would use a differnet means of payment. In most cases it is cheaper to purchase a Postal Money ( about 90 cents + a stamp).

HomeGrown, I thank you for the clarification. I had wanted to inject a perspective for readers here to not be so critical of the practice, in the hopes of possibly influencing a few. Many recognize the characterization which you used here:

But as mentioned before, it's a price of doing business.

I would like to re-phrase it as few do, which is that "its the price of being a consumer." Fees, taxes, etc., that are aimed at the business owners, corporations, etc, are all passed on to the consumer, whether via higher prices or related fees, a fact that many do not fully grasp. We can have a good debate about whether it is wise for Paul and others to handle the fee as they do. I would only hope that a smaller number of people would view it as wrong.

Originally Posted by Chamco

Call me biased if you will.

I agree with you. 100%

Dennis, if you were a fish, this would be about the 3rd or 4th time in a month you've been boated too easily. I do still hope that your more thought-out posts are worth reading. Who knows, maybe some day you'll have a business ! Stranger things have happened !!

Originally Posted by Chamco

Dennis, if you were a fish, this would be about the 3rd or 4th time in a month you've been boated too easily. I do still hope that your more thought-out posts are worth reading. Who knows, maybe some day you'll have a business ! Stranger things have happened !!

What? That was pretty derogatory.
Jim, I can’t agree with you?
The post you made on the subject only a couple of weeks ago.

Seriously, it is rather improper, poor from a PR standpoint (that would be public relations, not Puerto Rican), I believe a violation of PayPal policy, etc. I think it far wiser to just raise all prices by 2-3%.

I guess the meaning of ‘rather improper” isn’t the same for all.

Then we get this spin when it comes to Paul.
The rest of us will try to abide by the terms we agreed to.
It is illegal to add a surcharge in my state and the law is enforced.

Is it so hard to charge for an item $103 instead of $100? Why do people insist in openly stating that they charge for that 3% when it can be imbedded in the price of the item? It is as if they purposely wanted to go against PayPal TOS just for the mere satisfaction of doing so or to loose customers.

With all due respect, I think it is time to move this particular debate to the General Business forum...it really has no place here.

Good point Harald, and even there the topic has been discussed "ad nauseam".

Regards

Dittos Dan and Ken. I also think it likely that the "snipes" out there will continue to use the practice of credit surcharges in BOI threads when it suits them in attempting to discredit another, trying to elevate it to an integrity issue rather than a business choice in a free market, albeit sometimes a poor choice for reasons well covered. Don't we all wish we had been the inventor of PayPal, which BTW makes virtually all of its money off surcharges.