A question about PayPal

[chromotone]

I have a friend who suffered a debilitating illness. So much so his friends have set up a PalPay account for donations to help his wife and daughters.

I would like to donate, however, I'm wondering if it might be better for me just to send the money to his home rather than go through PayPal to avoid paying charges.

Anyone know what percentage PayPal takes?

[freshwest]

1. I'm sure they'd appreciate a direct gift. The PayPal isn't for their close friends, I'll bet.

You could tuck it in a get well card and mail it to their home.

If you don't want to send cash or a check in the mail, you could mail a VISA debit card purchased from a store to use as they will.

Unless you want to be anonymous? Sorry, don't know about PayPal.

[CBGLuthier]

2. Depends upon the type of account

If it is a personal account they take NO fees. But no one can use a use a Credit Card to make a payment.

If it is a business or merchant account they take 1.9 to 2.9 percent plus 30 cents.

[pitohui]

3. no fee charged if you mark it "gift," kind of account no longer matters

personal, premium, or business all pay the same fee that you mentioned for merchandise

no charge for sending gifts/donations IF you mark it correctly as a gift and the money is sent from funds you have in your account

there is always the fee if you pay by credit card

the only advantage to giving them cash rather than paypal is if you don't want them to know you gave the gift, for fear of being hit up again later for more gifts, paypal is not set up to send anonymous gifts or i haven't been able to do it, when i give thru paypal the other party always knows who it is...

people are not taxed on gifts nor are you taxed on giving gifts, so i think paypal is the way to go because they can send the money to their own checking account, or put it on their own debit card or use it however they need without raising questions with the IRS, because the source of the money is clearly a donation/gift account

[RandomThoughts]

4. Without talking about paypal,

I did want to mention, I am glad many Pals got there guns out of their holster, for sure.