How to send PayPal Friends and Family? PayPal is a famous payment processor for businesses and individuals—but things get messy when you mix the two. Here’s everything you need to learn about PayPal friends and family transfers (and a few friendly warnings as well).
Note: The following applies to Personal PayPal accounts. If you have a PayPal Business account, friends and family payments may not be available to you.
What are PayPal friends and family?
When you send or ask for money through your personal PayPal account, you can choose whether it’s a “Friends and Family” payment or a “Goods and Services” payment.
Friends and Family payments are often used to pay back a friend, transfer money to family members abroad or send digital gift cards.
How do I use PayPal with friends and family?
In order to send money utilizing PayPal to friends and family, both you and the recipient need to have a PayPal account (you can set one up for free).
Sending money with PayPal to friends and family only carries a few steps:
- Log in to your PayPal account.
- Click Send & Request.
- Under Send money, Enter your phone number, email, or contact name.
- When prompted, select sending to a friend.
- Enter the payment amount, add a note (optional) and click Submit.
Note: PayPal friends and family may not be available in some nations.
You can even send friends and family payments using the PayPal app or PayPal.Me. The procedure is pretty similar on the app—you just enter the payment amount before selecting whether or not it’s a friend and family payment.
How much does it cost to use?
Friends and Family payments can be caused to anyone in the U.S. for complimentary (from your bank account or PayPal).
If you are sending money internationally, you may be charged a transaction cost equal to 5% of the send amount (up to $4.99 USD).
When you pay with a debit or credit card, you’ll be charged a little processing fee—for both domestic and international transactions. Now, the rate is 2.9% + a fixed fee (varies by currency; $0.30 in the U.S.).
Can you get scammed on PayPal friends & family?
Unfortunately, yes. Here’s a good rule: If they’re not your friends and family in actual life, they shouldn’t be your friends and family on PayPal.
Sometimes, sellers will request that you make a purchase using PayPal friends and family rather than the traditional Goods and services payment. This can be a convincing argument as there is no fee needed, meaning they may offer you a discounted rate.
Don’t take the bait. In fact, using PayPal friends and family for business buys is explicitly against their User Agreement:
“You must not use the “send money to a friend or family member” feature in your PayPal account when you are making payment for goods or services.”
Business owners know this and should never ask you to pay in this way. Accept it as a red flag and just pay the goods and services fee. As one user commented “3% is a little price to pay for peace of mind”
Does PayPal reimburse fraudulent payment requests?
While PayPal does protect against “Goods and Services” scams, Paypal does not reimburse “payments sent using PayPal’s friends and family functionality.”
Thus, the following information is only used for goods and services payments made from personal PayPal accounts.
Items and services payments are covered by PayPal Purchase Protection. Here’s what that means:
- Your complete financial information is not shared with sellers
- Transactions are encrypted and monitored 24/7
- All global transactions are covered
For Buyers
According to PayPal’s policy, you’re protected if:
- You’re charged for something you didn’t buy
- Your order never arrives
- Your order comes, but it’s different than described
If any of these things occur to you, PayPal guarantees to reimburse the full cost of the purchase plus any shipping costs (just make sure you report the problem within 60 days of the transaction date).
PayPal asks that you perform with the seller first, but if they refuse to hit the “Issue a Refund” button, you can open a dispute in the Resolution Center.
For sellers,
For sellers, the protection guarantees are pretty similar. PayPal specifically covers two types of buyer complaints:
- “Unauthorized Transaction”
- “Item not received”
However, in order for Sellers to be protected by PayPal, they need to have proof of delivery or shipment and be upfront with all the details.