Originally Posted by JuliaW

I'm in the minority here; I don't take PayPal as a method of payment. The fees charged are too high. I let clients know they can pay by cheque or by Interac Money Transfer. If the client is set up for online banking - and most are - they can do a transfer to me via email and the charge at my bank for this service is $1.50. The sender of the money pays the fee and it is much less expensive on a large invoice than PayPal, so I don't have to absorb the percentage charged by PayPal nor do I have to add an extra fee to my invoice to cover this. As far as I am concerned, it's a win-win. Besides most business people pay suppliers by cheque and I'm no different than any other supplier.

These are all great readings ladies. This is what I have found through Paypal. When working for the virtual staffing company, I always got paid through Paypal and never paid any fees. How I did this was made sure my Paypal account was verified. By this, I have my checking account linked to my Paypal account and have given them my SS#. I do not have a business account with Paypal, therefore, it is all free. Since the company I worked for was a member as well, there were no fees accessed. I remember setting up a website for my sister and sent her a "Request Money" email from Paypal. She was not verified through them, so it did take out some fees. Since I don't have my own clients, I would like to send them an invoice via email (a nice fancy one) and have them pay through Paypal and then there will be no fees. It's a great idea to have a link on your website where they can just pay by credit card.

I'm with you here, Prime Solutions, think I will stick to cheques, too
Kind regards from
Drusilla (in England)

Still looking for the best payment method....Thanks for all the input.

I think I am a little confused...I have a free Paypal account that I use to receive money and I also did the verify account method and gave them my social security. It is linked with my checking accounts. Is this the same Paypal method that Tess is referring to? I don't know because I don't pay fees to receive any money from clients. I don't know if they have to pay to send me money.

Originally Posted by va4eva

I think I am a little confused...I have a free Paypal account that I use to receive money and I also did the verify account method and gave them my social security. It is linked with my checking accounts. Is this the same Paypal method that Tess is referring to? I don't know because I don't pay fees to receive any money from clients. I don't know if they have to pay to send me money.

Ahh, that's a good question. I believe if they have an account through Paypal (doesn't matter what kind), it does not cost them money to send through Paypal if tied to their checking account. There might be a fee to send via credit card though and I didn't even think of that. Can you tell I'm a newbie? LOL!! I'm reading through a lot of the payment processing options and of course, hardly anything is free. Looks like I have to read some more - thanks for your input!!

I should clarify - I have a verified business account with Paypal...

It does not cost anyone to send money via Paypal, under any circumstances, as far as I'm aware.
The fee is on the receiving end, for the cases where there is a fee at all.

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I had a bad experience with Paypal. My Paypal account was highjacked and my checking account emptied. I will say that Paypal was wonderful and worked with me but I still have not got over the fact that it happened in the first place. There seems to be security issues somewhere. I had not shared my account information with anyone, not even my husband. Paypal was very apologetic and refunded my monies. This happened about a year ago.

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PayPal is easy enough to use. If you're going to accept credit card payments, it PAYS to have a business account, as the fee is higher to accept credit card payments with a personal account. I had a merchant account through my local bank and there was a fee of 5% of the deposits deducted, plus a $12.50 charge per month statement charge.

Given a choice, I'll choose PayPal over the merchant account, for now. That might change later when I 'grow' more.

I'm going to be meeting with the regional sales director and VP of the company for CalliPay. They're small, but they're looking to move into a more "service provider"-oriented payment processing system, and they LOVE the prospect of servicing the VA industry.

If anyone has any specific requests or questions, please PM me with them. I'm meeting with them on June 19th at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

Sorry, I am super new to Paypal, but I do want to accept credit cards, and I'm thinking that is the way to go. I have a few questions though.

What is the difference between a personal and business account? Why would you chose a business account if you are charged as opposed to a personal and you are not charged?

The charges are just on the receiving end right? So I would be charged if I received a payment from a client?