I'm not a lawyer , but as Marv mentioned, credit card surcharges are not allowed on e-bay, and in many states are illegal too. Almost all credit card company contracts with merchants forbid them from charging extra for using a credit card. They often also prohibit them from requiring a minimum purchase amount (remember a long time ago a lot of stores would you require a certain minimum in order to accept a credit card? And have you noticed that this is not required anymore? This is why).

But here is a fine point: this is not strictly a credit card transaction. The seller is not a credit card merchant, Paypal is. The seller is just sort of using Payapl as a banking service.

Does anyone with more knowledge think there might be validity to this idea?

(PS: I am NOT suggesting it is OK for the seller to surcharge in this case. From what people have said, he wrote that he took PayPal for free, so he should honor this).

- Bob