Hack 17 Request Money the PayPal Way 
Use PayPal's Request Money
feature to ask someone for a payment, whether you need to invoice a
customer or collect money from a friend.
Anyone who goes to lunch with friends
regularly knows the uncomfortable feeling of not having enough cash
to cover your portion of the meal. One solution is to offer to pay
for everyone with a credit card and then ask the others for cash to
cover their portions. This works out well, because the card holder
doesn't have to borrow money and it saves a trip to
the bank.
But what if there are two or even three of you with the same cash
flow problem? Then it becomes tricky. That's when
you can say, "I'll pay with my
credit card and the rest of you can PayPal me." This
way, no one has to worry about having the right amount of cash. The
only problem is having to remember to send the money requests, but
PayPal makes this easy.
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When requesting money from friends, use your Personal PayPal account
to avoid paying the associated fees. If the payment is optional, send
the request via email [Hack #18]
so that the request doesn't show up in your PayPal
history.
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Use these steps to request money from anyone with an email address:
Log into your PayPal account, and click the Request Money tab. Enter a subject and a note (both are optional). |
The subject is more important than the note, because it is used as
the subject for the email your recipient gets. The note, however, is
less likely to be seen, because it appears buried within the email.
If you need to include important details, it is best to send them in
a separate email.
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For the Payment Type, select Goods (other), Service, or Quasi-Cash.
You can also select eBay Items or Auction Goods (non-eBay) if you
want to bill someone for an auction. Click Continue to view the confirmation page. Double-check the email
address to make sure you have the correct email address. Click Request Money.
PayPal generates a payment transaction record in its database and
sends a custom email (shown in Figure 3-2) with a
link that will enable the recipient to pay the amount requested.
3.5.1 Requesting Money from Multiple People
Sending single money requests to several people can be repetitive and
time-consuming; not only do you have to enter the email address,
amount, currency, and payment type for each person, you might also
need to personalize each request.
To make this process easier, PayPal provides a feature called
Request Money—Group, which lets
you request money from multiple people all at once. This is most
useful when you are requesting money from people for a specific
occasion, such as a group lunch or group movie tickets, wherein the
email subject and note are the same. The Request Money—Group
feature also lets you specify additional details, such as an event
name, event date, and a different amount, if necessary, for each
person on your list.
To use Request Money—Group, follow these steps:
Begin the standard Request Money procedure, as explained earlier in
this hack. After entering the first email address, enter a comma, followed by a
second email address. Continue this process until you have entered
the email address for each of the individuals from whom you want to
request money. |
If you've requested money from any of these people
previously, their email addresses might already be listed in the
drop-down listbox. If so, you can save time by selecting the
applicable recipients from the list (one by one) and inserting them
into the email address field instead of having to type them all in.
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After you have entered all the email addresses, enter the amount that
each person should pay and select the currency. If each recipient is
to pay a different amount, don't worry about that
here; just type any amount. You'll have a chance to
specify individual amounts on the next page. Enter the optional email subject and note, and click Continue when
you're done. The next page, Request Money—Group, differs from the standard
Request Money confirmation page. Here, you can type an Event Name and
Event Date, along with the standard Email Subject and Note fields. |
Keep in mind that everyone gets the same message, so make the details
(event name, event date, subject, and note) appropriate for everyone.
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In the bottom half of the page, you'll see the total
number of recipients of the email, followed by a total amount you
will receive from the group (provided that everybody pays!). The
total amount is initially calculated by multiplying the amount from
the last page by the number of recipient emails, but you can change
it freely and click Calculate to update the individual amounts.
Alternatively, you can enter the individual amounts of the money
requests and then click Calculate Total Cost to update the Total
Amount field. Either way, make sure that everything adds up before
you continue. Click Continue to view the Request Money—Confirm page.
Be sure to confirm that each email address and corresponding request
amount is correct. If you're sure that the
information on the page is correct, press Request Money.
Each recipient in your group will receive an email requesting
payment, complete with all the information you've
entered here. You can confirm that each individual email has been
sent by clicking the Overview tab.
3.5.2 Sending Custom Requests to Multiple Recipients
While the Request Money—Group feature can make multiple
requests easier, it allows for only a single note and email subject
for all recipients. To send a custom note to each person from whom
you are requesting money, you'll need to send
separate requests. Here's a way to make this process
easier:
Use the Request Money feature as described in the beginning of this
hack. After sending the first Money Request, you'll
find yourself on the Money Request Sent page. Click your web browser's Back button to return to
the Request Money—Confirm page, as shown in Figure 3-3.
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If you're using Microsoft's
Internet Explorer, you will see a "Warning: Page has
Expired" message. Click Refresh, and
you'll see a Retry/Cancel dialog box that reads,
"This page cannot be refreshed without resending the
information...". Click Retry to continue.
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If you're using Netscape/Mozilla,
you'll see an OK/Cancel dialog box that reads,
"The page you are trying to view contains POSTDATA
that has expired from cache...". Click OK to
continue.
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Click the Edit button to modify the details of the previous money
request. Simply replace the email address, make any other changes,
and click the Continue button to send another request.
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For security reasons, PayPal has a five-minute timeout, which means
that if you wait more than five minutes before viewing another page
at PayPal, you'll be required to log in again. If
this happens while you are sending multiple money requests,
you'll lose the data from the last money request.
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