When you use Pay Pal they make money. You can not cheat them but you can put yourself at risk.
Here is why, you buy an item from me and I ask you to send the payment using Pay Pal and do the transaction as a gift. If you do then you are putting yourself at risk because now if I do not send you the item you have no recourse as you said the money was a gift.
Pay Pal is very aware that this is going on and has addressed it multiple times over the years just as I have. You only screw yourself if you opt to make a payment as a gift.
I have been using Pay Pal since they started. Most all of the "VidPro" (our surveillance camera business) transactions are done using Pay Pal and most of them are over 2500.00 which puts the "fee" at around or over $80.00. I do avert some of the fee's by having my customers create a Pay Pal account and fund it with a credit card. Then I have them transfer the total amount of money needed to pay the invoice to their account before they send me the money. Pay Pal to Pay Pal is free and always has been. This way I do not need to ask my customer to send me the money as a gift (which to me says SCAM SCAM) and they retain the ability to reverse the transaction if I do not provide the service paid for.
The argument the OP has brought up has been discussed at length over the years on many forums and the official Pay Pal position has stayed the same as far as I know and that is : Send money however you want using the service but if you send as a gift do not argue that you want your money back.
As to the amount of fees paid to use GBO classifieds... Well a while back I figured up that if every transaction conducted on GBO had a $1.00 fee attached to it that the GBO coffers would see roughly $78k a year. We could remove ALL banners and there would be no need for donations. Why haven't we done this some ask, well quite simply because it would kill the GBO classifieds. 85% or more of those who use the classifieds would not if they had to pay because there are just to many free places to sell. So until the tables turn and we have more willing to pay a buck to sell on the classifieds we will need banners and donations to keep GBO running.
Matt
EDIT: For those who say there is no fee for gift you are right, for those who say I paid a fee and sent something as a gift you too are right,
If you fund your account or transaction with a debit or credit card there is a fee to whom ever is funding the account. If you pay with you pay pal balance there is no fee ( pay pal to pay pal is ALWAYS FREE ). So the only way to avoid the fees is to fund with a checking account by a) transfer money to your pay pal account then b) pay for the item with pay pal balance using any payment reason ( ebay, purchase, gift, other). If you use a CC or DC there IS ALWAYS A FEE! IF you pay for your item directly with a card then the seller is charged standard merchant fee's if payment is not sent as a gift, if it is a gift then you pay the standard merchant fees because after all it is a gift.
If you send a payment funded by your pay pal balance then no one is charged a fee but if you put the money in your pay pal account via a card you will pay a fee so bottom line NO MATTER HOW YOU SEND THE MONEY, IF IT IS ON A CC OR DC THERE IS A FEE AND SOME ONE WILL PAY IT.
