Okay, I know this is an excellent example of "beating a dead horse" but ...
On the matter of fees, having been in business for several years and shipping items perhaps, several times a day the 3% falls into the "Cost of doing business" category which is a tax deductible expense. However for the individual who is just trying to sell an expensive item every few months or maybe just one time the fees are pretty steep. Selling an item for a hundred bucks and paying a three dollar fee is no great sacrifice but when you get up into the thousands, say four thousand, the $120.00 is quite a bite out of your sale.
I seriously doubt expenses for processing four thousand dollars are that much more than those for a hundred.
Now on the matter of the legality of charging for these fees, I'm sure most of you have seen ads for everything from the gas pump to the local newspaper inserts with the cash price listed lower than the CC one. Also if you have been watching the news recently you have seen where businesses that accept CCs can now charge an additional 3% or so on CC purchases. They are supposed to have a notice posted informing you of this.
I am very seriously considering refusing PPal for high dollar sales in the future. I have superior feedback here and have worked hard to build that hoping to generate confidence in would be buyers.
You are within your right to not take PP for payment but you will eliminate many potential buyers. I have always been happy to pay the 3% even on large items. I consider the fee as convenience of doing business over the net.
As a seller (or a buyer for that matter), you can set policy however you like.
As a buyer, I will not do Paypal "gift" or bank transfers, regardless of the person's feedback. Unless you can provide another escrow service or money service that provides me with some level of protection, I won't shop with you.
Last I read on Amazon Payments, for instance, they would only cover up to $2500. Well, now we're back down into the area where the 3% is a fairly negligible expense so I don't see the point, and I'm certainly not buying an item where I might only be eligible for part of the total cost.
If you have a secure checkout website where I can securely pay by credit card, and be covered under my credit card's policies, I will be happy to pay that way
To each his own: I've had several cross-ship, personal check, and a time-payment plan for a lens shipped straight-away, and did so with members whom I "met" on a couple of the Boards here and in whom I had utter confidence that the transaction would be w/o incident except for feeling good about what we had done.
Also, to be clear, I would make exceptions in specific situations, but someone simply having a bunch of good feedback doesn't automatically make them perfect. Problems happen, sometimes even to good people who have good intentions.
