All the times I’ve used PayPal it has been to send money into another PayPal account. There is an option, however, to also send money to “anyone with an e-mail address.” What happens when I do this? What does the person receive?
They’ll get an email from PayPal saying “shelbo has sent you $xxx” - they click the link to get to PayPal, and if they already have an account with PayPal, the funds are simply dropped into their PayPal account. If they don’t have one, they need to set up an account. At this point, they can either leave the funds there or kick them over to their bank, or even request a paper check be mailed to them.
It’s not explicitly said so, but it appears to be free for the receiver, assuming they have a US bank.
Also, I think the payment doesn’t go into “Completed” status immediately like it does for normal transactions, and you can back out of it fairly easily.
I don’t know if you mean that they’ll cut a paper check for free, but they’re making the money from charging the receiver a percentage. It’s all those Ebay sellers who are funding PayPal.
I’ve never requested a paper check - but can tell you they don’t always charge the receiver a percentage.
PayPal accounts come in two different “flavors”, basic (where you can receive and send cash), and premium (I think that’s the term) where you can also receive credit card payments. The downside of the premium version is that they do charge the receiver a fee. Not just for credit card transactions (which makes sense) but for all money received, even when it’s funded by cash. If you’re a big eBay seller or something, then that would be a cost of doing business. For a small-potatoes person like myself, it’s not worth it so I’ve held off on upgrading.
For someone who doesn’t have a PayPal account at all: they simply get an email and then they have to set up a very bare-bones account. I think they could send that money to other PayPal users, but there are limits to amounts and volumes of transactions they can do, unless they go to the trouble of “verifying” (providing bank account info etc.).
Just to clarify my own post :smack: - if you don’t have a premium account, then they don’t charge the receiver a fee at all. However if someone tries to send you a credit card payment, you can’t receive it unless you upgrade to premium, then see above.