Paypal, sending money to friends and family

[alkevin]

Paypal says that sending money to friends and family is free. But I noticed a small tax, is that normal?

[dragonlady]

I noticed that recently as well. I guess they decided they wanted a piece of that action too, sigh.

[Stiletto]

The friends and family option is still free if you are sending money within the US.  Looks like all international transactions are being charged a fee, even if sent friends and family.  What a bummer!  There is nothing I hate more then being 'nickeled and dimed' to death and PayPal/Ebay are sooooo good at it.  I'd rather just pay a flat fee monthly or yearly to have access to the service.  Anyway ....

Since the OP is in Portugal I'm curious if Paypal will also charge him for sending a friends and family payment to someone else in Portugal?

[Taffeta]

It would make sense if the fee was related to currency exchange.

I am wary of people who ask for F&F paypal payments anyway, though...I'd rather pay the proper way even if I end up paying a little extra to cover fees as the F&F system doesn't protect anyone. If there's going to be a charge to do it in another currency or across borders even more so. I wouldn't be surprised if Paypal did this to stop people cheating the system to use F&F for transactions...because a lot of people do.

I am guessing that is probably an unpopular opinion but buying and selling to me is a transaction and unless you are sending stuff to someone who is a genuine real life friend or family member, I really think it's wrong to ask someone to use F&F to pay for stuff...just like lying on a custom form...it's a really dubious area.

And yeah, it sets alarm bells ringing with me if a seller  I don't know and have never dealt with before demands use of F&F from people as an automatic rule, because that seller is trying to avoid fees for them, and at the same time doing so at the expense of buyer protection for their customer...

[alkevin]

It is weird they charge fees in a service that doesn´t have protection. When the JP scammer "hit", I asked Paypal if they could retrive the monet, the answer was we cannot do nothing because it was free. And the seller is from Germany and I´m from Portugal.

[Eternia]

There is a small fee if you use a credit card. If you have a balance, or a bank account linked, then it's still free.

[Stormness_1]

I know in some countries, it costs the same fee to send $$, regardless of how you send it, it just changes who pays for the charges. For goods and services, the recipient of the funds pays, for family and friends, the sender of the funds pays the fees.