PayPal have made some changes to their American user agreement.

Most contraversially, from August 10th they will no longer refund the 30c fixed transaction fee to the seller when a full refund is made. Instead, sellers will see both the refund amount sent to the buyer AND an additional 30c deducted from their account by PayPal.

The other major change is a 100% increase in the chargeback fee, from $10 to $20 for payments in US dollars (and the foreign currency equivalent if the payment was in another currency).

At the moment, these changes appear to be US-only: the UK policy updates section – as of time of writing – makes no mention of any similar policies. Only a matter of time? Your guess is as good as mine right now, though if we can find out if this might be coming to Europe, you’ll be the first to know.

This is going to make PayPal a very much more expensive option for US sellers, who are used to being able to refund payments where buyers have made a mistake, and re-invoice them with no penalty. In cases where buyers request a different shipping address after payment, sellers will be forced to choose between paying a double transaction fee, or losing their seller protection.

Where buyers pay for multiple small transactions and sellers have – until now – refunded those payments and combined into one large payment, there will no longer be any advantage to doing this: sellers of low-cost items, where buyers typically buy multiple items in one purchase, might as well put up all their prices by 30c + FVFs. And when buyers send their orders back or claim they’re lost in the post, there’s another fee for the seller too.

Every quarter, PayPal revenue is the star of eBay earnings, so it’s really not surprising they’re seeking to maximise that: as a PayPal spokesperson told AuctionBytes, “It has been more than a decade since PayPal has made a broad increase.” When you have a near-monopoly as they do on eBay, why wouldn’t you take advantage of it. Other merchant account providers have similar charges, so even off-eBay, PayPal aren’t putting themselves at any disadvantage. Why do you charge more? Because you can.