general questions Alternative Ways To Receive Commission Payments

[Treeglow Flicker 12,975]

Hello there.

I'm making an inquiry into the receiving of payments through the MLP commission store. I had originally hoped to set up my own store in the past. However, I had an obstacle in regards to PayPal. From what I understood from the guidelines was that Poniverse sent payments to an artist's PayPal account upon completion of the commissioned piece, once everyone confirmed they were happy.

The obstacle that I had was that I didn't have a PayPal account and couldn't create one due to it requiring – as far as I know since March of this year – that you need a mobile/cell phone number for security verification to set up a new PayPal account. I do not own a mobile/cell phone for various reasons, so that presents an obstacle.

I did contact Pathfinder via PM on the forums to inquire whether or not there was any other way for an artist to receive payment outside of PayPal. They got back to me nice and quick on the issue (Thank you for that again) when I made the inquiry in October. I hope they don't mind me quoting what they said. I just want to use it as reference here for clarity.

“As far as I know with how our system works we are not able to use anything other than PayPal as it stands. Granted there are others above me in regards to it, but our system is linked with Paypal and we can't use anything else at this time.”

So I pretty much want to follow up on what I learned and extend the inquiry a bit. Basically to get some answers from those “others above” who have their hooves directly on the financial side of things to either confirm what I know so far thanks to Pathfinder or if there was indeed something more that could potentially done by those up above.

But basically at the heart of it all, my question is this:

Is there any way for an artist to receive payment for completed works that doesn't require them to own a PayPal account? Usually I receive payments directly to my bank account elsewhere and wondered if that would be an option at all. I'm also open to other options that might be at Poniverse's disposal.

I'm also more than willing to pay more than the 15% cut to cover any potential inconveniences with any other methods that you may have available.

I thank you for your time.

[Jeric 46,834]

I pinged these “Top Men” you speak of to see if we can facilitate other payment methods. Might I ask what payment methods would you be able to accept? 

[Treeglow Flicker 12,975]

On 12/14/2020 at 6:45 PM, Jeric said:

I pinged these “Top Men” you speak of to see if we can facilitate other payment methods. Might I ask what payment methods would you be able to accept? 

Unfortunately, the only thing I have at my disposal is my bank account. I tried looking at other options, but they all seem to insist that you absolutely must have a mobile/cell phone for security code verification. Personally, I find it strange that they would put so much emphasis on a cell phone for security verification. A device that notoriously ends up in toilets, flung off rides at amusement parks, snatched by random strangers in the street or dropped on the ground and smashed. But my disdain for the things aside.

As far as I know, PayPal can only transfer money from a PayPal account to a bank account is if the PayPal account is owned by the bank account owner.

If a bank account is no good for receiving payment. Then I'm going to have to just get one of the blasted devices.

It's pretty much a me problem I suppose. But I do appreciate you taking the time to look into it. Even if there isn't a way to make it happen. You have my thanks anyway.

[The Kaeya Simp 13,953]

4 hours ago, Treeglow Flicker said:

Unfortunately, the only thing I have at my disposal is my bank account. I tried looking at other options, but they all seem to insist that you absolutely must have a mobile/cell phone for security code verification. Personally, I find it strange that they would put so much emphasis on a cell phone for security verification. A device that notoriously ends up in toilets, flung off rides at amusement parks, snatched by random strangers in the street or dropped on the ground and smashed. But my disdain for the things aside.

As far as I know, PayPal can only transfer money from a PayPal account to a bank account is if the PayPal account is owned by the bank account owner.

If a bank account is no good for receiving payment. Then I'm going to have to just get one of the blasted devices.

It's pretty much a me problem I suppose. But I do appreciate you taking the time to look into it. Even if there isn't a way to make it happen. You have my thanks anyway.

Bank account will probably be an issue cause of the fact that unless they're also in the EU, they'll need to pay a metric fuckton of fees

I mean you can always buy a basic cheap phone and a cheap EE simcard for it and it'll probably wind up cheaper than a landline,

and you can always just leave it in the house if you prefer that

[Twilight Sparkle ✨ 8,520]

@Treeglow Flicker I'm one of the ponies who does "money things" around here and I sympathize with your disdain for cellphones. I was unaware until your post that PayPal required a mobile number and would love to have a detailed conversation with you to explore alternatives to it.

I'm not the greatest fan of PayPal myself but we use it due to popular demand and because it's "easy" (it issues payments "to" email addresses and tends to cost less than wire transfers). I agree that in principle, a bank account should suffice for handling one's financial affairs and that it's silly to require a phone number (a mobile one at that!) as a precondition for getting paid. I don't want that to be a requirement for doing business on MLP Forums even if we're not the party asking for the number. What a weird world we live in.

To determine our options, I'll need to learn more about your personal banking situation (most importantly, the country your bank is in) so I'll continue this conversation in a PM thread with you and Pathfinder. I can't promise we'll be successful in finding a good PayPal alternative but I want to try.

 

Feel free to skip the rest of this post; I wrote up my initial thoughts on "huh, how else other than PayPal could we pay artists?" in case you (or anyone else who encounters this thread) are curious but it's merely idle musings.

BTW: If you're not Treeglow Flicker but you're reading this as an artist, and don't want to or can't use PayPal to get paid, please reply to this thread, too! It's helpful to know how much interest exists in having alternatives.

-------

Here are some thoughts we can dig into - and for anyone else who may come across this thread and wonder what's possible:

Poniverse maintains bank accounts in Canada and the USA. USD is our "primary" currency but we're capable of handling CAD as well.

Wire transfers are the usual way of transferring money internationally between different banking systems but tend to be too expensive for smallish payments. PayPal works by performing "local" bank transfers through their own bank accounts in every jurisdiction they operate in. They make this convenient for registered users but are not the only service that does such things, and won't let you receive money to a bank account without registering.

The cheapest way for Poniverse to issue a bank payment to someone is via mailed cheque in US Dollars to a US address. This is because our American bank has an online feature that lets us dispatch a number of cheques to US addresses every month free of charge. If you're comfortable accepting a USD-denominated cheque and have a US address to receive it at, this is likely the easiest non-PayPal method.

Some other other pay-to-bank-account options off the top of my head:

1. CAD payment to Canadian bank account via Interac
   • Estimated cost: $2-5 CAD in fees per payment
2. USD wire transfer to any bank account
   • Estimated cost: ~$30 USD in fees per payment - probably a ripoff for our purposes.
3. CAD wire transfer to any bank account
   • Estimated cost: Looks like $15-135 CAD - probably an even bigger ripoff than USD wire transfer.
4. Hoofwritten USD or CAD check, mailed internationally.
   • Estimated cost: $1-5 USD (cost of preparing a physical check + postage)
5. USD or CAD money order, mailed internationally
   • Estimated cost: $1-5 USD (cost of preparing a money order + postage)

Some other potential options in this space:

• Payoneer
  • looks like a PayPal competitor
  • also appears to offer ability to send payments directly to bank accounts
  • unsure of what fees would look like but I heard that it can be cheaper than PayPal
• Stripe Connect
  • a service designed for companies to pay users (like Lyft paying its drivers). sends money to the user's bank account.
  • unsure of what fees would look like
• Payment to non-US/non-Canadian bank account through a foreign exchange service like TransferWise, OFX, CurrencyFair, etc.
  • Poniverse uses one internally but I haven't looked into what paying a different party with one of these would look like.
• ACH payment to US or Canadian bank account
  • unsure if this is possible at all for us; this is the mechanism by which PayPal, Stripe, and other services interact with US and CA bank accounts
• Cryptocurrencies
  • low fees!
  • potentially high "fun factor" (YMMV)
  • may have taxation rules requiring special attention depending on your jurisdiction
• Western Union
  • best known as a method by which low-income workers working abroad send money to their home countries
  • has extensive international footprint

[CypherHoof 26,479]

My paypal just has my email address; I don't trust them with my mobile number.

[Twilight Sparkle ✨ 8,520]

On 12/15/2020 at 5:28 PM, CypherHoof 🐎 said:

My paypal just has my email address; I don't trust them with my mobile number.

This is an interesting datapoint! It contradicts various posts I found on PayPal's own forums that state you can't use PayPal without providing a phone number.

I'd appreciate if you could answer some or all of the following questions in the hope of generating communal wisdom:

• When did you sign up for PayPal?
• Which country is your PayPal account based in?
• Do you recall PayPal ever asking you for a phone number (or demanding it) during signup, verification, login, payments, or at any other point? If yes, how did you bypass the request?

[CypherHoof 26,479]

15 hours ago, Twilight Sparkle ✨ said:

This is an interesting datapoint! It contradicts various posts I found on PayPal's own forums that state you can't use PayPal without providing a phone number.

I'd appreciate if you could answer some or all of the following questions in the hope of generating communal wisdom:

• When did you sign up for PayPal?

so long ago I can't recall.

 

Quote

• Which country is your PayPal account based in?

UK
 

Quote

• Do you recall PayPal ever asking you for a phone number (or demanding it) during signup, verification, login, payments, or at any other point? If yes, how did you bypass the request?

No phone number requested, but then, I signed up using a computer (at the time I didn't even own a smartphone). there was a verification step for my bank account though, before I could transfer any funds from paypal to the account (which basically just meant a $1 bill item to my account, with a code I had to enter on the paypall site)

 

 

Also noting that receiving payments to my account from outside the UK is *very* expensive here - been times I received a transfer less than $20 that the charges came to more than the balance (so I literally received nothing; that's why I go with Paypal, despite the fact they have a history of making arbitary decisions on accounts.)