Doesn’t seem fishy to me at all. I live in the electronic age and hate paper anything. When I receive a paper check, I deposit it electronically from my phone. I have tax refunds deposited directly into my checking account. I like to use credit cards to accumulate miles for international travel. Those horse bills add up fast and cash payments don’t earn miles. I do, however, hate paying transaction fees. The only checks I write these days are for my shoer and a hay guy. I pay my board and my trainer via Venmo, a Paypal app, which is an electronic payment from my debit card. There are no transaction fees for either party. However, Venmo does not allow credit cards. Paypal is totally legit, but they’ll charge the seller, you, a 3% transaction fee. The buyer will also incur a fee for using a credit card instead of a direct transfer. Adjust your bill to account for the seller fees and let her worry about the credit card fee from her end. I’m guessing her preferred apps charge a lower cc fee.
As to how the younger generation pays rent without checks - through Venmo, or another online app. 
Not only have many of them never written a check, they also can’t mail checks because they don’t have envelopes, stamps and snail-mail addresses to send them to. :winkgrin:
The fees for many of these online / phone-app payment methods are less than many monthly bank fees for many of their accounts and services. Some users are not using bank accounts at all. Their money is in Venmo and Paypal balances.
One of the very best things about Venmo & Paypal is that payment can be made immediately with a few clicks. I’m finding younger people pay much more reliably this way, as most don’t carry checkbooks. And invoices can be sent through Paypal and Venmo to help remind and facilitate payment.
As for back-charging, through Paypal at least, there is more of a dispute resolution process than there is with a bank account. Venmo I don’t know about, haven’t had to find out (yet).
If you use Venmo, do check the privacy settings. The default is a bit more community oriented than I care to be with financials.
Bank accounts and checks are going the way of the landline. (Betting that COTH is demographically tilted toward landlines, though. :winkgrin: :winkgrin: )
My farrier just started taking credit cards. You might be surprised that other clients might prefer this if they had the option.
Dark horse makes a good point that while it’s “free” for the consumer to use a credit card, well “free” except for interest on unpaid balances, it really does cost the provider. I’ve seen specialty stores charge a credit card fee of 3% to make up the difference. It’s not hard at all to build it into the free structure. $x for a service, $x + 3% if you want to pay with a credit card. That all said, the entire situation sounds fishy to me as well.
This is not my experience (the part I have underlined).
I have used my credit card via paypal, not having a paypal account, and never had a transaction fee.
I am sure the seller paid a fee, but me the buyer have not had a fee.
PayPal makes it very easy to set up invoices for customers, all you need is their e-mail!
If you went this route though, I would pass the fee onto the customer… Sellers are the ones that pay the 2.9% + $0.30 fee.
ETA: This last month is the first time I have used PayPal to actually be paid for something! I have only every been a buyer before this. It is surprisingly easy!
As the seller you can set it up on your site to basically tack on a fee when they choose to use paypal, you can also tack on a fee when you use it on your phone for point of sale transactions. The seller is still being charged, but they manually set up a fee up front so it is passed on to the customer. This isnt’ something Paypal does but rather the seller. But that is why it could appear both ways.
My farrier and several trainers I know take credit cards. Farrier says he prefers it despite the fees, over being written bad checks that cost him bank fees and require him to track people down to collect. I wouldn’t say it’s fishy, but it might not be worth the cost if you only have the one lesson client that pays via CC. Maybe poll the rest of your client base to see who would be interested in a CC payment method?
Demanding that you use one of three specified services sounds fishy to me.
Requesting to be able to pay by CC isn’t. It’s way more convenient, but yes there are fees.
I accept credit cards through Paypal, and explicitly state the client must pay any associated fees.
Maybe it’s just for using a credit card for sending money to friends and family.
Thanks to all for taking the time to respond. I agree, that it sounded a bit questionable. The suggestion of using Paypal sounds reasonable, but only if I build their fees in to her price. I did respond to email inquiry, pressing for her phone number. This time I noticed her email addy is her name in front of “financial resources” at outlook.com. You’re all right – probably just a Phishing scam! Thanks again for responding. Had to use my alter for the new site which listed me as greenie, so I wasn’t sure anyone would reply.
Last I checked it has me as a Greenie too and I have been around forever and have tons of replies… so if you ask a good question people are likely to answer, newbie or not. (No guarantee you will like the answer, laugh, but they will answer.)
You can look up the return path if you know how to get your e-mail account to “show headers.” I recently did that for an e-mail I got about the millions I could win . . . . Turns out it was from the armenian church in the UK! I replied that it seemed like an odd thing for a church to do!
My farrier sends email invoices from quickbooks, which I can click and pay with the credit/debit card of my choice. Works like a charm! His accounting is easier, and I don’t have to worry about having a check etc etc. If you manage your barn finances with similar software, perhaps there is an invoicing option you could add on for electronic payments? Who knows, maybe other clients might like it as well.
*This doesn’t address the slightly concerning “I can only pay via this method” statements…
I love venmo - it’s immediate and you can write whatever you want in the comments and add emojis! :encouragement:
You don’t even have to be unbanked to be using online payment methods–most banks have online billpay, and most large service providers, like cable and insurance, offer autopay options. Mortgage, car payments, etc, everything is easy to do online. Horses are literally the only thing I ever write checks for. I cannot remember the last thing I wrote a physical check for that wasn’t horse-related. Asking for an electronic payment option isn’t all that odd to me.
Asking for that before even seeing the facility, watching a lesson, etc would set off warning bells.
Loved paying board via CC… I get cashback, which is probably about the same as the fees so a ‘wash’… but no one can say they were not paid, and it offers me an accounting of what I paid when, conveniently where other merchants I frequent also share that info, on my bill.
I just went through a customer service nightmare with PayPal that has given me a lot of pause about whether I want to keep patronizing it, even as a longtime customer who often wished my trainer, farrier, etc would accept it (I’m the youngest person at my office and also the one who writes the most checks, thanks to my horses!). I will try to summarize it as a cautionary tale for anyone considering accepting PayPal:
I listed a large, heavy item for sale on eBay, with local pickup as the only delivery option. That was clearly printed in the shipping methods section but I also put it in the last sentence of the item description, to be safe. One night, I got an email that someone had purchased the item and paid for it. Yay! Except, the email was immediately followed by an eBay message from the buyer saying that she hadn’t realized it was local pickup only and asking if I could send it to Florida. I looked into it a little and replied that the cost would be prohibitive, which is why I had listed it for local pickup. I cancelled the transaction at her request (eBay has an option for that) and tried to refund her money. PayPal gave me an error message saying there was an issue with her credit card.
Long story short, it took almost a full week to resolve, including hours of extremely frustrating phone calls with PayPal and eBay, many messages to the buyer (who I think started to worry I was trying to scam her), and many messages to PayPal. The whole time I was thinking, “This can’t be the first time someone has cancelled a transaction on eBay!”
When PayPal finally refunded her money, they sent the full value of the item out of my account, including the fees that PayPal charges, so they actually sent her more than she had ever sent me. I was livid, and that took yet more calls and messages to rectify. I never got so much as an apology from PayPal or even an acknowledgment of the ridiculous amount of my time they had wasted.
While this exact scenario isn’t likely to arise in the context of a student paying for lessons, it is apparent to me that their customer service cannot be relied on. I am struggling with whether I want to entrust them with my money at all anymore.
FWIW.
OK I was reading fast on the first post and missed that this was just an email inquiry and you have never met this client in person. Asking to pay by CC isn’t necessarily phishing as you don’t have to give them any info at all, they give it to you. But the first email inquiry is too early for that inquiry, it seems to me. Had this email exchange continued, I agree with those who think that that the request was probably going to morph into something that you shouldn’t do.
The ways people can manipulate other people into giving up their money have become as electronically creative as all the new ways to sell and pay for goods & services. It would be interesting to lead this emailer on, just to see where it goes next. If you do, be sure and let us know what happens. :winkgrin:
I just got the same email. Very vague and written improperly. I wouldn’t even reply.
