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PayPal logo on iPhone: Payment fees are legal
Photo:
Lukas Schulze / dpa
Customers may be asked to pay extra for online payments via PayPal or instant transfer.
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled that sellers could charge an additional fee for payment with the help of such service providers.
In the specific case, it was about the Munich long-distance bus company Flixbus.
It wanted to pass the fees for this service on to its customers.
The competition headquarters thereupon initiated a test case in order to have the question clarified in principle.
The BGH judges now dismissed their action in the last instance.
Charges for paying by bank transfer, direct debit or credit card are prohibited by law.
Here, however, money is required for the involvement of a service provider who takes on additional services, for example checking the creditworthiness, according to the judges.
An instant transfer is ultimately a Sepa transfer.
The fee is not due for the transfer, but for the intervening inspection service.
So far, only the money recipients have to pay for this service.
With PayPal, a Sepa direct debit could occur if the customer's PayPal account does not have sufficient funds.
But here, too, the additional fee is not required for direct debit, but for the intermediary service.
With PayPal, the payer and recipient must have a PayPal account.
If there is not enough money on it, PayPal can collect payments by direct debit.
But here, too, the recipient alone bears the costs charged by PayPal.
After the BGH ruling, the dealers are now free to pass on the fee directly to the customers who use the service.
PayPal wanted to prevent that from happening - and changed its terms and conditions accordingly in early 2018.
Flixbus had recently waived to claim the fees for the two services from the customer.
File number: I ZR 203/19
apr / dpa / AFP