Paypal Payment Regs Enforcable ?

[Helpneeded]

Hi, I accept payment through Paypal in my business selling goods. I am UK based and sell through a .com site, my payment policy states "Paypal at + Fees of 5%. " Am I breaking the terms of the contract and is it legally enforcable ? Thanks

No Surcharges. Under Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express regulations and the laws of several states, including California, merchants may not charge a fee to the buyer for accepting credit card payments (often called a "surcharge"). You agree that you will not impose a surcharge or any other fee for accepting PayPal as payment. This restriction does not prevent you from imposing a handling fee in connection with the sale of goods or services, as long as the handling fee does not operate as a surcharge (in other words, the handling fee for transactions paid through PayPal may not be higher than the handling fee for transactions paid through other payment methods). Nor does this restriction apply to Pound-denominated transactions by sellers residing in the United Kingdom listing items for sale on a UK-based website.

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...iving_payments

[Curlyben]

Re: Paypal Payment Regs Enforcable ?

Honestly I believe you are in the clear, BUT if I had to pay a fee for using a certain payment method I would find another site to use.

[Helpneeded]

Re: Paypal Payment Regs Enforcable ?

Thanks Curly. Its a general website, not my own, and Paypal is not the only method of payment users of the site are able to accept. I accept bank transfers and cheques which do not involve me paying a fee, or the customer being charged any extra.

Unlike other sellers, I do not price my goods or P&P higher to include the fees that Paypal will charge as this makes the price of the goods potentially unattractive for the non-Paypal payer.

Re the above regs, can someone give me thier opinion on this :
"the handling fee for transactions paid through PayPal may not be higher than the handling fee for transactions paid through other payment methods"

The above assumes a handling fee is charged for other payment terms, however it isn't. Therefore there is no handling fee in existence with which to create a comparrison. Under these circs does that make that part of the regs void in my case ?

"Nor does this restriction apply to Pound-denominated transactions by sellers residing in the United Kingdom listing items for sale on a UK-based website."

What determines whether a site is UK-based, and what's your take on the validity of this regulation please.

Thanks.

[Glenn UK]

Re: Paypal Payment Regs Enforcable ?

The line you have quoted doesn't talk about the location of the website, it talks about the 'seller'.

using common logic this would refer to the individual or company entity and their location.

if you're private individual its where you live

If you're a business its where you are registered or do your have your offices

At least thats my take on it.

This would prevent you claiming you were a UK resident and therefore exempt from the controls by using a .co.uk web address.

JMHO

Glenn

[Helpneeded]

Re: Paypal Payment Regs Enforcable ?

Glenn, thanks for your reply, which even having read it several times, I can't figure out your exact angles. The regulations do state references to a UK based website, not just the sellers location. Can you take another look please and see if you missed something.
Thanks.

[Glenn UK]

Re: Paypal Payment Regs Enforcable ?

The point im making is that they issue is where your business resides.

You can register sites using the various country codes from anywhere potentially. So for example my company has the .co.uk; the .ae and the .com variations of our web address.

We could claim expemtion from the pay pal requirements for the .co.uk and .com addresses based on the sentance you highlighted because we can validate the fact that the seller is a uk based entity and that the sites are uk based, ie derived from uk based company, for the .co.uk and .com addresses as they are registered here with nominet in out uk trading names.

We could not do that with the UAE address as this is registered under our UAE name in the UAE. If the UK company had registered the .ae web address and then registered it here in the uk then we could lcaim that was a uk based website and seller irrespective oft he country code.

JMHO

Glenn.