Quick German eBay question

[anagrama]

Are German sellers still allowed to add a charge for accepting Paypal?
I know it was outlawed on the UK site a few months ago, but I've just won an item from a German, and he's trying to charge me the Paypal fee.
It's not a huge amount so I'll probably pay it anyway, but it's still annoying (I never charged to accept Paypal, even back when just about everyone else did).

[robotriot]

Afaik, the German terms for PayPal do not allow for the seller to charge PP fees, although this seems to be against German law (the buyer should not create extra charges for the seller by the payment method he chose). So it's kind of a grey zone atm - if you don't want to pay the PP fees, you could use bank transfer, which shouldn't be much of a problem within the EU thanks to IBAN.

[anagrama]

if you don't want to pay the PP fees, you could use bank transfer, which shouldn't be much of a problem within the EU thanks to IBAN.

Nope - thanks to the UK not being part of the Euro, I'm pretty sure it would be a much higher charge to do that.

I'll pay the fee, it's just annoying when the p&p (€7 for one game) is already around twice what I would charge to send the same item to Germany.

[robotriot]

Err ... I said EU as in European Union, and last time I checked, the UK was part of that ;) And since 1st of July 2003, bank transfers within the EU cost the same as within your country by European law ... if you use Euro as the transfer currency that is, although you will probably do that anyway if you use PP.

[anagrama]

Err ... I said EU as in European Union, and last time I checked, the UK was part of that ;)

Yeah, I'm well aware of that ;)
There may not be a charge to make the actual transfer, but I'm still fairly sure I would have to pay currency conversion charges to send Euros though. (Last time I enquired about something similar, it would have cost me about £7(~€10)).

[lurpak]

€7 post from germany seems to be a bargain by my experiance as said elsewhere, however IBAN from the uK costs around £20 depending on who you bank with so my advice.. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

[AtariBuff]

I also had one german seller who wanted to unload PayPal fees on me (just EUR 1,50) but I discussed him out of it :D
But it doesn't seem to be forbidden on german eBay to do so.

Shipping costs are another problem - I favor buying from UK sellers then German ones because either postage is really that high in Germany or someone wants to make a few Euros on the side.

[Mayhem]

Yeah was going to make that point... most Europeans are unaware that IBAN costs in this country and I have to point that out to them when they ask me to pay via bank transfer (usually Germans). Why I have no idea... another way to make money no doubt...

[robotriot]

Ok, that's a different story then of course - but why is it that expensive? It shouldn't be if I understood it correctly :/ Here's the bit from the EU website: http://www.euro.gov.uk/crossborder.asp

[yok-dfa]

Afaik, the German terms for PayPal do not allow for the seller to charge PP fees, although this seems to be against German law (the buyer should not create extra charges for the seller by the payment method he chose). So it's kind of a grey zone atm

I would say that German law overrules any Paypal terms, so that the seller would be allowed to charge you extra. I've noticed that almost all european sellers charge extra if you use Paypal which IMHO is pretty understandable...

BTW did it say in the auction description that you -the buyer- has to pay the Paypal charges?

[robotriot]

AtariBuff: Shipping 5kg to Austria costs 17€ with DHL, so yes, it's extremely expensive oO

[video_game_addict]

BTW did it say in the auction description that you -the buyer- has to pay the Paypal charges?


This is what burns me. If the auction doesn't state it, but then I get an invoice that's got extra fees included I'm pissed. But if the seller would just post all fees that he's asking for up front in the auction, then I'm okay with.

[AtariBuff]

@Robotriot
hehe, it surely costs that much money the other way round, too. Our Post offices are known to be some sort of criminal organisation :angry:

[robotriot]

Yea, it's ridiculous - I live in Bavaria, so I can have something shipped 700km north to Kiel for 7€ or 200km south to Salzburg for 17€. Other services (UPS etc) aren't that much cheaper though afaik :/

[anagrama]

I'm not bitching about the charge - as I said in my first post, I will pay it, it's just that UK sellers are expressly forbidden from doing so and I was wondering whether different rules apply across Europe.

And I also realise that German postage costs must be higher - for me to send a single game to Germany would cost about £2 (~€2.80), whereas every German seller seems to charge at least €6 or €7. They can't ALL be trying to scam a little bit extra, can they?

[hydr0x]

mhhh a single game should be doable for 4-5 € if it's not too big or heavy, but that is for uninsured bubble wrap packaging

the reason IBAN costs so much from the UK is the fact that you don't have the Euro over there, so you got to blame yourself ;)

[anagrama]

the reason IBAN costs so much from the UK is the fact that you don't have the Euro over there, so you got to blame yourself ;)

Yeah, that's what I said in my post above.
And it's not my fault! Unlike the majority of my close-minded countrymen, I'm very much in favour of the Euro. ;)

[lurpak]

the reason IBAN costs so much from the UK is the fact that you don't have the Euro over there, so you got to blame yourself ;)

I seem to remeber a news report about 8 months ago that germany and france wanted to opt out of the €uro and join the £ound ;) TRUE !

personally I wishe we were in the Euro it would make my dealing so much easier

[hydr0x]

I seem to remeber a news report about 8 months ago that germany and france wanted to opt out of the €uro and join the £ound ;) TRUE !



well, it might be true that there was such news, but the news weren't true ;)

[AtariBuff]

travelling around Europe and eBay are really two great reasons why I love the combined currency.

@Lurpak: I completed my VideoPac collection last September when I got Backgammon, Blobbers (a complete one (had the cart only)) and Kinder im Verkehr (with System & Box) :D

[jajaja]

VERY few sellers on ebay.de have paypal. I've bought some stuff from there and only 2 or 3 of those sellers I bought from had Paypal.

[anagrama]

VERY few sellers on ebay.de have paypal. I've bought some stuff from there and only 2 or 3 of those sellers I bought from had Paypal.

I dunno, there's a lot more now than there were, say, a year ago. At one time it was a real rarity, but now it seems most of those who ship internationally are PayPal-ed up.

[robotriot]

Yea, it's getting more wide-spread now as people learn that you don't need a credit card for it, which hardly anyone has over here.