The German Federal Court of Justice dealt with the question of whether or not you can charge a fee for paying an invoice. This is actually inadmissible due to an EU regulation, but this is vaguely worded and leaves a lot of room for interpretation. The BGH has now decided that extra costs may be charged if an external service provider such as PayPal or Klarna (instant transfer) is involved.

The German legal situation cannot be compared with that in Austria. In the Alpine republic, the charging of payment fees is generally not permitted. However, merchants are allowed to give a certain form of payment a discount. In the past, this did not prevent airlines in particular from ignoring the law.

The German Federal Court of Justice had to deal with the question of whether the charging of fees when paying with PayPal or Klarna (instant transfer) is permissible or not due to a lawsuit brought by the competition headquarters against Flixbus. When paying by bank transfer, SEPA direct debit or credit card, no expenses may be charged for legal reasons. Clever retailers simply calculate these completely legally in their pricing.

Even after the change in the legal basis, Flixbus charged a fee for using the PayPal and Klarna payment options (instant transfer). The practice has been discontinued in the meantime, but one of the arguments was that the EU regulation does not cover external service providers and that they cause high costs. In fact, PayPal is one of the most expensive payment methods on the market right now. Dealers are sometimes charged horrific commissions.

PayPal itself does not want any fees for end customers

The Federal Court of Justice dismissed the action of the competition center in the last instance. The highest judges argue, among other things, that with service providers such as PayPal or Klarna, for example, a credit check and in some cases also the assumption of the risk of payment default are taken over. Therefore, according to the BGH, it is permissible that extra fees are charged for this.

But there is a side aspect that is interesting: It is a thorn in PayPal's side that some retailers try to pass the commission costs on to the end customer. Therefore, some time ago it was anchored in the terms and conditions that this is not permitted. Of course, this does not prevent many retailers from levying a surcharge, which is legally covered at least in Germany due to the BGH ruling. Officially, contractual partners who pass on the high PayPal commission are not allowed to terminate, but the payment service provider is extremely lax.