I think they charge the fee based on what type of PayPal account you have. If it is a Personnal account there are no fees to receive funds, but you cannot accept payments funded by credit card. When someone tries to pay you by credit card they send you an email telling you what the fees would be for this transaction.. trying to get you to "upgrade" to a business or premier account. Once you upgrade you will pay 30 cents plus 2.9% on every transaction paid through PayPal regardless of the source of your buyer's funds. This could be a disaster for a seller that sells a lot of low priced chips and only charges $1 shipping. You should always reject the credit card payment through PayPal and maintain your Personal account.. Just send the buyer an email deliniating other payment options. Sellers that use this method generally have something in the description stating that they will take "non-credit card PayPal" for the buyer's convenience.