I do not do Venmo because I have no financial services on the phone, so PayPal only, and I tell them in the email that I prefer if they pay as friends – to avoid charges on my side (but it is up to them, I do not chase them if they pay as a business, but it is costing me a lot of money if they do this – plus they can just ask PayPal for all the money back for 3 months with no explanation if they pay me for a service, which I am not happy about. I do refund some part of the fee if the session was so-so, and I referred them to a psychic – if they were really hard to hypnotize – this is very rare, maybe 1 client out of 30, and most agree to another session for free. But I had a client before who demanded all the money back on PayPal. it was after an in-person session, a very long, great session, she just had no cash on her – 2 months later she filed for a refund with no explanation, but I told her to pay me as a friend, so she could not pull this trick off. Remember that if they pay you as a business – they have 3 months to ask for a refund, and not much you can do about it. I might start taking Square after New Year, but it will be more expensive if they want to use it. Right now the only way to avoid charges on your side is ‘friends and family” on PayPal, plus it protects you from clients filing for refunds, you can do a refund also as a friend, without ‘red flags” for PayPal, they start watching your account when you get refund claims. But you can only do it if they really know you well from social media, exchanging emails, etc – otherwise, they can get scared of scams. I had a couple of clients before whom were scared of scams – I just tell them ‘Let’s have a session and you pay me later” – they all end up paying with a tip. But if I start getting more online clients – I will just raise prices and start taking credit cards, make it more business-like…
