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PayPal Fee's Asking Classmates to Pay

Forums: General Discussion
Created on: 07/22/08 06:56 PM Views: 1633 Replies: 7
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 6:56 PM

Do you guys (and gals) think it is of proper etiquette to ask your classmates to pay for the Paypal Fee's?

Like is it okay to tell them that PayPal charges 2.9% and 30 cents per transaction and that it will be added to their total if they choose to pay through PayPal then also give them the option of sending in their check?

Our ticket prices are $58.00 each for a 2 night event so that is $1.84 for a single ticket and $1.98 for 2 tickets. I am opening it up so that those that cannot make it to the reunion on Saturday and want to come to the casual get together on Friday can purchase a ticket for $15. Then they can also pre-order the reunion class group portrait with logo and graphics $12, CD of candid photo's from the pre-party and reunion $16, couples portrait $12, raffle tickets $1 each or $5 for 6, memory book $22 so those would add even more fees taking away from the funds going to the reunion. All of which have been discounted for pre-orders and would allow them to use their credit cards by using PayPal if they bought now. On the night of the reunion they will have to pay cash or check.

I know that some have just added that into the ticket price but now that I have added all of these other options I am wanting to make sure I don't offend anyone by asking them to pay for the PayPal fee.

I have negotiated some GREAT deals for our reunion and for $58.00 they get the Friday night private pre-party with hors devours, and a no host bar with 4 of our classmates as the live band. For the Saturday reunion they get a cocktail hour with hors devours, a full 5 course sit down dinner complete with dessert and a bottle of red and white wine at each table, a photo booth w/free photo's, DJ, Photographer, photo montage DVD souvenir, contests, and drawings to win gifts.

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Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 9:28 PM - Response #1

Absolutely, Tracy! If you are like us (and this is our 9th reunion) every penny counts...A lot of the classmates actually think we make money on these things! Reunions 1/2/3 were break even, 5/6 made a few bucks, (about $20 each) and 7/8 we lost about $100 each. The economy is tough right now and the committee has to balance the books. We have kept financial ecords for all of them just in case someone has a beef.

You have a good deal going for two nights...Good God if anyone complains about that tell 'em to stay home!

Ours on August 9th, 2008 is $50 for one night per person, buffet diner NO wine, NO photos, NO dvd!

You can plan our 50 yr reunion in 2013!

You Go DUDE
JIM

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Edited 07/22/08 9:31 PM
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 10:31 PM - Response #2

I think a better approach would be to have a set price and offer a "discount" for checks/cash payments. Like the other post, every penny counts and you don't want to have to make up the difference in the end

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Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 11:37 PM - Response #3

Website Administrator wrote:

I think a better approach would be to have a set price and offer a "discount" for checks/cash payments.

Oh I like that idea! Thank you. Very Happy

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 4:25 AM - Response #4

Funny this thread was here. I just came in to ask about paypal and how it works to be on the receiving end of it. I've only made purchases.

Anyway, we initially decided against paypal to keep the cost down. However, even though we've had over 100 people respond that they will attend, we've only had about 15 pay and our deadline is Aug. 15th. This is how we worked it:

Pay $45 by Aug. 15th
Pay $55 by Aug. 29th. No tix after Aug 29th or at the door because we have to give final numbers to the venue by a certain date and we wanted to make sure to give time for cheques to clear and to get people to send their payments by offering the lower cost alternative.

Since people have been slow to pay, we're getting really concerned. Did anyone else experience this? I can't remember if this happened for our 10 year or not.

Anyway, we were thinking of adding the paypal option, but incorporating the fees into it, which would make a paypal payment about $47 give or take. We think the added convenience may get people off their bums to pay. However, I have never done the receiving thing.

We have some people coming from overseas. How do we charge them to accommodate for the cross border/foreign transaction fees that are on top of the paypal percentage? We can't have a list of different payments on the site because that would be confusing. Most of our classmates are in Canada, but there are many in the US. So, what do you do in cases like this?

Do the normal accounts allow for c/c payments? I'm confused b/c the paypal site says you can only accept 5 c/c payments per calendar year. That seems like a small number.

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 9:44 AM - Response #5

Cathy,

You cannot just have a standard personal account to accept the amount of credit card payments you would need to accept. You would need to have a premier account or business account. The fee's for these accounts are much less expensive too.

For receiving money from people in the US it is 2.9% + 30 cents for each person that sends you money. If they send you money from a foreign country then it is 3.9% + 30 cents. It really is not that much more.

What you can do is add the PayPal fee as one of your items and ask them to include it in their order. The one thing I have found though that no matter how you do the calculation you will never be able to re coupe the 30 cents.

1 reunion ticket $45.00
1 PayPal fee ( US) $1.60
1 PayPal fee (foreign) $2.05

Maybe if you do an incentive like I am getting ready to post that the 83rd person (year of your class) to purchase a ticket will win that ticket for free will get some sales going for you. Nothing like a contest and the word free to get people going.

PS I think we are neck and neck lol

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 12:03 PM - Response #6

Tracy Estrada wrote:

Cathy,

You cannot just have a standard personal account to accept the amount of credit card payments you would need to accept. You would need to have a premier account or business account. The fee's for these accounts are much less expensive too.

For receiving money from people in the US it is 2.9% + 30 cents for each person that sends you money. If they send you money from a foreign country then it is 3.9% + 30 cents. It really is not that much more.

What you can do is add the PayPal fee as one of your items and ask them to include it in their order. The one thing I have found though that no matter how you do the calculation you will never be able to re coupe the 30 cents.

1 reunion ticket $45.00
1 PayPal fee ( US) $1.60
1 PayPal fee (foreign) $2.05

Maybe if you do an incentive like I am getting ready to post that the 83rd person (year of your class) to purchase a ticket will win that ticket for free will get some sales going for you. Nothing like a contest and the word free to get people going.

PS I think we are neck and neck lol

OMG! you're ahead of me! I better catch up! lol

The rates for Canada are similar. I read on the paypal site that a request payment notification can be sent with the price including the fees and then they can pay from that. Since we have several classmates in the states and a few overseas, then we could tailor the fees to account for exchange rates, etc. Has anyone made use of this feature?

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 12:23 PM - Response #7

I built the price to add a bit 'extra' to cover any expenditures like this one....

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