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the new fees (Paypal mass payment suggestion)

A topic by Winter Wolves created Nov 29, 2018 Views: 1,229 Replies: 8

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I just got the email about the new fees. I am fine with it, but I only wanted to point out regarding the new Paypal fee, that I believe it's possible to have 0$ / no fee when sending paypal payments, through the "mass payment" system. I know because the vendor I was using before and others use it, they were from USA too, and I always got the payment without any fee.

Not sure how it works exactly but I think worth investigating, since paying a fee of $20 each payment when it could be avoided could be annoying :P

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leafoAdmin6 years ago (1 edit)

Hey,

We did look around but we didn't see anything from PayPal. I know the standard "send money between PayPal accounts" is generally free, but that's designed for personal transactions, and not for business to do payments. I don't think that system is suitable for sending large amounts of money, and I don't want to break any terms with PayPal.

It's possible the other vendor you used has a special deal with PayPal, I can try asking our rep there if there's anything they can offer us.

Thanks

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Winter Wolves6 years ago

Uh you're right, I thought there was zero fees but checking the site indeed is not like that anymore! Strange I think must be something they changed in the last couple of years...

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Deftware6 years ago(+1)

So now itch.io can issue retroactive fees on past payouts to cut into future payouts? Seriously? I'm sure the 3-week total wait between customer payment and actually receiving the payout isn't going to change. That is, of course, unless it gets WORSE.

Jeez. You're slipping itch, slipping.

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leafoAdmin6 years ago(+1)

Sorry you've had issues without payout times. Most platforms have a monthly schedule, so I like to think we generally get people their money relatively fast. We need to have some buffer time to give opportunity to handle any fraud or refunds. Once we give someone money we can't get it back, and people do try to game the system.

Payout adjustments will reduce the risks associated with refunds for us, so I can see us having faster times for established sellers. Additionally, we've added a minimum payout amount of 5 dollars, which should help clear up our review queue a bit. If you ever need a payout expedited then feel free to reach out to support as well.

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Keiwan6 years ago(+1)

I agree that on average your payouts are definitely faster than most other platforms (I only experienced one very long and annoying delay when you were figuring out the whole tax stuff), but overall payout times are not really a problem at all.

The part that is just unacceptable is retroactively applying payout fees after specifically stating multiple times that payouts have no fees associated with them. Just to be clear about this, I'm not talking about adjustments because of fraud or refunds. Those make perfect sense. It's also not about having to pay a payout fee at all if one exists (I understand that it's PayPal who's charging the fee). It's about having trustworthy terms of service.

You cannot simply change your rules and fees and then retroactively apply them as if they had always existed (for the sellers - it doesn't matter if they already existed for you). All you're doing is making your site look less trustworthy. Again, I couldn't care less about the extra PayPal fee, since I can always readjust the revenue sharing slider to stay at an overall revenue loss of roughly 30% (payment processing fees + now payout fees + itch.io cut + PayPal currency conversion fees and lower rates).

I think you made a mistake here, not by introducing the new fees but by retroactively applying them. I really hope you guys can figure out ways for how to reduce these fees (e.g. talk to PayPal about payout fees, look into direct bank payouts at proper conversion rates...). I would love it if you were the ones to receive the 30% cut instead of PayPal but given the current amount of fees that are just passed onto the sellers that is not even close to being realistic at the moment.

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leafoAdmin6 years ago(+1)

Thanks for replying. Can you tell us where we said all payouts are free? Our TOS says that payment processor fees will be passed onto account holders. We've been running a balance for all accounts, but our payout system didn't have the functionality to include debits until this update. For the update we ended waiving the majority of the fees, the amounts there applied to developers should be very small, with most seeing something on the order of a few dollars.

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Keiwan6 years ago

Here are two instances I just quickly found: https://itch.io/post/434189 https://twitter.com/moonscript/status/732941480206049281

I definitely also remember there being more examples, since I specifically researched this question of potential payout fees a lot (around the beginning of this year).

I fully understand that the TOS have always given you the potential to apply any additional fees before making a payout, I have read them entirely. My point is that you have communicated something else, are now going against that and officially introducing new fees (perfectly okay) but also applying them retroactively (not okay).

Let's have an example. You are currently not charging a fixed hosting fee, but have instead implemented your "Open revenue sharing" model. You still have to pay hosting fees yourself, I think everybody knows that. Your TOS give you the option to deduct these fees from every payout but you have communicated that you don't. Based on this information people are deciding on a revenue share. Now, you could come along and replace the open revenue sharing model with a fixed percentage fee, but then saying "Well, we've always had to pay hosting fees, so now you're going to have to retroactively pay them as well" would again be unacceptable (even though technically in accordance with your TOS). It's a communication and trust issue.

As I've also tried to stress before, (at least to me) this is absolutely not about the amount of extra fees I've had to pay. As you said yourself, it was not that much in the grand scheme of things, which then again makes me understand even less why you didn't decide to just waive them as well instead of setting the precedent of introducing new fees against what was communicated and retroactively applying them.

Quick sidenote, since I just noticed it: The link for "Read more about PayPal fees" here is broken.

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Evolutionary Games6 years ago(+2)

If you've now got a minimum payout of $5 - but if someone doesn't claim their payout they will be charged fees. Does this mean that someone earning less than $5 per annum will simply forfeit their money?

Have you ever done the exercise of working out if you charged a fixed commission like Google / Amazon and covered all the fees from that if it wouldn't simplify everyone's life? I would prefer it myself.

Or even tiers for example:

up to $100 = 35%

up to $5000 = 30%

thereafter 25% etc.

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