Are you happy to pay 10% deposit fees ? Bank transfer was free now is 5%
Are you happy to pay 10% deposit fees ? Please vote, comment.
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Edit : July 14th 2017 : After complaining about the 10% , PPH created a new farce to breakdown the 10% fee as follows: 5% + £0.6 transaction fee + 5% service fee.
Result : Bank transfer was free now you should pay 5%
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Official comment
Hello Mohammed,
Firstly, I would like to apologize for the how you feel about our buyer and seller fees, and promise to forward your feedback to the products team regarding these. Furthermore, I would like to suggest you consider using bank transfers instead of PayPal to make deposits as we do not charge a fee for this transaction method as it is determined and applied directly by your bank.
Regarding the seller fees and the amount sellers will need to reach every month in order not to be moved over to the new service fee scheme, yes, the earnings their earnings must be (or exceed) the amounts £50 | €60 | $65 a month. I can understand that the change in fees is not something you may be comfortable with, however if there''s anything I can do to help or if there's anything you need, please be sure to let me know and I'll be happy to help.
Kind Regards,Comment actions -
Kelly,
Thank you for taking the time to reply to the above post, but there seems to be some inconsistency.
The terms clearly state that PPH doesn't charge for payments, but ONLY passes on costs incurred.
There isn't a single payment processor or bank in the world that charges £0.60 plus 10%, so where does that figure come from?
And yep, just checked a recent client for a £200 job, ended up paying £221.
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I've been regularly using one seller but suddenly expected to pay much more because of the 10% - I have checked back over my emails from PPH and did not receive anything informing me of the increase in "buyer fees". I know they don't want to call them that but that is essentially what they are.
As a comparison Paypal's fees for buying goods and services are 2.9% plus $0.30 USD.
PPH - if you claim to just be passing on processing fees then who/what is charging you £0.60 + 10%?
I think all buyers deserve some clarification on this issue as this buyers fee seems extortionate.
And I agree that it is not a matter for a support ticket for individuals but an issue for all buyers.
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CS :
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The 10% fee is broken down as follows: 5% + £0.6 transaction fee + 5% service fee.
The payment fee covers the cost of conducting the transaction while the service fee is paid by the buyer for the use of the PPH services.
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ME :
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the 5% service fee should not apply when :
- I deposit money to buy credits
- I deposit money to pay for a dispute.
- I deposit money to feature/promote my profile/Houlies.
- I deposit money for any other possible reason(s) other than hiring and paying for a Job/Hourlie (once I deposited money to clear a negative balance)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CS :
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I have forwarded your message to our legal team as well but I would suggest you put it up on our feedback page here so others can share their views as well. -
I've also had a similar response after raising a support ticket:
The fees have been updated but our terms and conditions page is still in the process of being brought up to speed.
The 10% fee is broken down as follows: 5% + £0.6 transaction fee + 5% service fee.
The payment fee covers the cost of conducting the transaction while the service fee is paid by the buyer for the use of the PPH services. -
Here's the solution, it requires a little patience from buyer and seller.
buyer goes to 'my money' section of their PPH profile, and will see an option to deposit funds (into their PPH) account.
if they do this via bank transfer, then there are no fees from PPH. The buyer then buys an hourlie, or pays invoice by using existing funds.
I've already started advising clients to do this.
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PPH have now updated their Terms to reflect that there is now a 5% Service Fee in addition to the £0.60 + 5% processing fee for buyers. Meaning a fee of more than 10% for buyers.
As a comparison here are the buyers fees on similar sites:
Freelancer.com 3%
upwork.com 2.75%
Fiverr.com 5%
guru.com 2.5% -
the joke is how when I deposit via bank account, there is no 5% service fee??
Edit
Nice , sent request about why bank account is free, they added 5% ?
I should work as term guy.
Edit 2 :
But these should be called "deposit fees" not "Buyer fees", as a seller I need to deposit too for many reasons other than hiring or buying an Hourlie, like paying for a dispute, buying credits, promoting profile etc...
I don't have to pay Buyer fees if I'm not a buyer and not buying.
Edit 3 :
I should change my post to : are you happy now ? bank transfer was free now it's 5% , I believe I screwed it, I complained about the fee made it worse... I take back what I said :)
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These fees are nuts, the way they are presented to buyers is very sly (waiting until after I've entered my credit card details) and the way you're not offered the banking option unless you dig around for it is... can I suggest PPH is trying to push buyers into the most expensive option?
I cancelled a job earlier today because of the fees, but a VERY loyal PPH seller persuaded me to stick with it and try the bank transfer option. But PPH can't even get that right. I went through all the palaver of setting up their bank details as a payee at my bank, I entered the reference number (which didn't work because they're using unauthorised characters) and after transferring the money I had to go back to the PPH site to confirm I had transferred the money.
But then I got a glib "Ooops! Our crappy payment system isn't working" message so I tried again. Only now, there's a NEW reference number (and I've already paid using the old one). And that means each payment has its own reference (rather than each client) so EVERY time I want to make milestone payments I have to go back to my bank account and set up the PPH account details again from scratch, then add the new reference number... how can you possibly have messed this up so badly? Smooth payments are the hallmark of a well-run operation and you guys are screwing this up SO badly, it's almost as if you're doing it on purpose.
Why anyone continues to use this system is beyond me. I have worked with other systems and I thought I would try PPH, but right now you have a crappy business model, a borked payment system, crappy customer relations and you're ripping off both your buyers and your sellers.
I'm out.
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Linda, I wish it were possible to tell everyone, but there is a workaround to pay no fees.
Click on profile and then payments and on my money, so long as you have a bank account as a payment method you can transfer funds and 'load up' your PPH account, for no fees.
3-4 business days later and those funds will be in your PPH account and you can buy whatever you want, using the existing balance, for no fees.
You're welcome.
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Hey Sean, it's 5% fees for bank transfers not "no fee" , may be less fees to be more exact, plus bank transfers were FREE, 0% fees nothing to pay, they went 5% only I said only after I complained about the 10% fee, and it is written in the official answer that Bank transfers are free.
Damn slavery
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There are no fees when transferring funds from PPH to your bank account and similarly I would expect (and have heard nothing to the contrary) for the reverse.
Similarly, I recall reading a n official response that said bank transfers were no fees, because it is the bank that handles the transaction and not PPH, therefore there are no processing costs to pass on.
However, I now see a different table in 8.1 of the T's and C's showing 5% fee on bank transfer where there used to be none.
PPH, SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!!
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And what is even more annoying is that PPH have not informed anyone of these changes i.e. the addition of a 5% service fee for buyers for ALL methods of payment.
Banks are obliged to tell their customers when there has been a change to T&Cs that affect how much they pay - it would simply be decent behaviour for PPH to do likewise...
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Hi what is terrible is the money they also take from the seller. I accepted a proposal and I was very pleased with the quote. it was more than fair. I have now been told on this forum that the seller loses around 20%. This as well as my 10% buyer fee to PPH. I would not have been so tight on their proposal quote if I had known. I feel rather guilty. More transparency is needed. As already said will never use this site again.
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*** I added the message below on Thursday 27th July. As I edit this (a week later) it's still marked PENDING APPROVAL, probably because of the links I added. I have been told that all posts are moderated by PPH staff, but it's hard to believe they're checking anything, otherwise they would SEE how angry people are and they would DO something about it. ***
Like all of you, I am stunned by the extortionate fees PPH is charging to both buyers and sellers, the way they're padding the payment fees (which some people are suggesting may be illegal?), the half-baked excuses PPH give for increasing the charges, and the standard "I will pass your comments on to the product team..." message from Kelly which appears regularly but which doesn't seem to achieve anything.
As a buyer, I was ready to proceed with a $5k job here recently, till I got to the very last page of the payment process and discovered a 10% surprise waiting for me just as I was about to hit the payment button. No mention of it before then. Nothing.
There is clearly a lot of anger and frustration here on PPH right now. Sellers are being hit by the new charges and buyers like me are walking away when they see the charges.But PPH aren't doing anything about it and so far everyone's complaints seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
Can I suggest one of the more active sellers here (maybe Sean or Mohammed?) collates some of the posts to bring everyone together? You guys will be stronger if you work together and it might actually result in PPH doing something instead of ignoring you.
There are various posts in the forum querying the new fees and expressing frustration at PPH's new policies, but they're all over the place -- maybe it would help to bring them all together by posting a few links like the ones below?
http://support.peopleperhour.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115005669627-Extortionate-buyer-transaction-fees
http://support.peopleperhour.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/203302697-Service-Fees
http://blog.peopleperhour.com/blogroll/important-announcement-regarding-service-fees/
http://support.peopleperhour.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115006963267-Buyer-Fees-Seller-Fees-ripoff-
http://support.peopleperhour.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115007001827-fees-charged-to-buyers
http://support.peopleperhour.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008368308-Are-you-happy-to-pay-10-deposit-fees-
http://support.peopleperhour.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115006763507-New-service-fees
http://support.peopleperhour.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115007114467-Ridiculous-Buyer-Fees-Please-Advise- -
I agree with everyone here that the fees are extortionate and a massive rip off. I was astonished to see 5% for using paypal/credit card, and then an extra 5% for 'service fee', making a massive 10% additional cost to anything i pay for to get done on this site.
It's enough to turn people away, it's very bad for business. The fact they also take a large amount from the freelancers doing the work is also terrible - burning the candle at both ends. It will very strongly encourage people to take payments elsewhere. If the fees weren't so ridiculous, then people would feel much less encouraged to violate the T's and C's regarding keeping payments through PPH only.
I was also quite unhappy when I saw a 'total amount' of 200 pounds, then go to the next screen to pay for it and it suddenly jumped up to 220.6 pounds with zero explanation, except for on the previous screen where it says 200 pound, there's a link text to the T's and C's which has the fee chart showing the extortion of 5%+0.6, and another 5% service fee.
For the sake of PPH, I truly hope they see the damage they are doing to their own resource - literally the buyers and sellers, by charging this much.
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Not happy! Went to deposit money in the Escrow. Charging 10% is excessive and misleading. I think there should be a fixed fee. I think before I was only charged something like $1.50 per transaction, which is more reasonable Why don't PPH just say there is a buyer's fee?
I don't think the system encourages loyalty, especially for long term contracts where buyers could easily pay freelancers through other portals.
Very disappointed!
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I discovered this thread when recoiling at the 10% payment fee. Haven't read all of the above, but also registering my disgust at this policy - especially as I had no idea until accepting the proposal.... very clandestine.
Will seriously consider how frequently I use PPH going forward. A real shame, as I think the talent of sellers is top quality.
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