I used to rely on Payoneer for receiving international payments. I took a break from it when I found another way, but recently I had to use it again for some payments.
So, I got the notification email, but I didn’t check my account right away. Then I opened it today and saw that they charged me $30 from the payment I received. Turns out, they have this policy where if your account doesn’t hit $2k in a year, they take out $30.
I mean, it’s not a huge amount, but I was totally in the dark about it since I’d never had to deal with that fee before. This feels like one of those "hidden fees," even if they have it buried in the terms of service. I thought the only fees were the standard $1 per transaction and $3 for card payments.
If I was getting paid in Bitcoin, I wouldn’t even have to think about this stuff. With Bitcoin, it’s just between you and your client with no middleman snooping around. It’s too bad that so few folks are actually willing to pay in Bitcoin.
Why getting paid in Bitcoin rocks
19 replies 287 views
Of course, not only Bitcoin, any liquid and large cap cryptocurrency or stablecoin is better than those archaic services that rip you off
on everything. But I assume you're a freelancer? From a legal standpoint the clients usually can't use crypto payments. Not
until they know you well and trust you, then they can do it in "shadow", which brings benefits for them as well, but includes certain risks.
These kinds of hidden charges were the revenue-generating model for such platforms and if you are not making any payments at all and they consider it a dormant account and will keep deducting the balance until it goes to zero and this is also the strategy to take away unclaimed money for some reasons.
But with bitcoin you own it and you are being your own back that has pros as well as cons that you need to be aware of.
QuantumYieldSenior Member
Posts: 117 · Reputation: 813
#4Oct 4, 2025, 01:14 AM
It's only good and safe if you store bitcoin in non custodial wallets that you are fully controlling it. It's very dangerous if you store your bitcoin on centralized exchanges and leave it there a long time like 12 months similarly to the term from Payoneer written in OP. The exchanges can die, scam you or be hacked and can not make compensation to you.
eminder: do not keep your money in online accounts.
Stable coins are not safe to store your money.
PSA: Most Stablecoins Can Be Frozen, Even in Your Own Wallets
Thanks for sharing your experience...probably their service could orange-pill some one
But anyway this is basically the method used by cartels and banks make money, charging insane fees.
There are in general a series of services (based on your location) that allow to get a better rate ...
Adoption could just increase, even if we haven't still seen the "definitive" standard. Actually anyway there are clearly barriers (lesiglative).
If you already know that Bitcoin is more better than this Payoneer, why did you not just abandoned it and then push more on the use of Bitcoin between you and your clients? Since you joined the Bitcoin till now, you already know that Bitcoin transaction is not controlled by any body, meaning that there's no hidden fees or charges but for every other centralized company like Payoneer, you will always encounter things like this. There are so many people ready to pay with Bitcoin but maybe you do not have a lot of clients that are ready to pay you with Bitcoin but that doesn't mean that there are few people willing to pay with Bitcoin.
I aslo did receive a mail like this with the new policy around early last year or late 2024 I've actually forgotten when I received it but I sure did get their email and that marked the end of using their services. I think scrill also did use same policy as well. Bitcoin unlike all these centralized services only requires a transaction fee which those financial institutions and services also use but aside transaction fee they can also come up with crazy policies just to intimidate you because they hold your funds for you or you using their services. With bitcoin you don't need to bend to those filthy policies.
satoshi2020Senior Member
Posts: 183 · Reputation: 970
#8Oct 6, 2025, 05:07 AM
$30 for not receiving up to $2000 in 12 months is extortion, for something you are using to receive payment, you can not say it is small. I dont think it is called hidden charges, charges like this will be illegal to hide, the charges were there in policies and terms & conditions but you did not read through it.
I did some research and found that the restrictions had increased to $6,000, which is bad.
This is a strange policy from Payoneer, but over the last two years we've seen policies like deleting inactive accounts or imposing fees, among other things. Bitcoin is a good alternative, but sometimes you might have to pay hefty fees (especially for small, frequent transactions when fees suddenly increase), so it's not ideal, but it's better than services like Payoneer.
shard_minerSenior Member
Posts: 359 · Reputation: 1322
#10Oct 6, 2025, 11:05 AM
This is why it's good to always read the TOS of any platform before using it for business reasons because it is only when you are absent minded that you get caught off guard as is this case of the $30 extortion.
Am glad this has also opened the eyes of many of us who do remote jobs and accept payments through various online means that isn't Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in o the possibility of extortion or exorbitant fees that we don't see coming.
Maybe $30 is not a big amount to you, but it is a big amount to me, especially that it is like the money was stolen from me with their stupid terms of service.
The one I experienced was Chipper cash or what is it called. They deducted money for card from me because I have not been using the card for 2 months or so. That was even a very small amount of money, but I hate this thing. It is like huge amount of money to me.
Bitcoin is better, simpler and faster. No scam from centralized entities.
satoshi2020Senior Member
Posts: 183 · Reputation: 970
#12Oct 6, 2025, 08:20 PM
The op has only opened his eyes to knowing that there are many reasons why accepting payment in bitcoin is better but from the post the OP believes that the charges are hidden why this will may be bad is that even exchanges or any bitcoin services there could be policies and terms & conditions that still need to be read to not be having unexpected charges and fees.
It will be a good thing if many eyes can be Opened to this
Typical of the traditional banking system, they charge you even for having zero income; they claim it's an account maintenance fee. The time will come when making payments with Bitcoin will be easy for everyone. I think that's what makes Bitcoin difficult to adopt; people tend to want what's easy. Apparently, they don't mind paying extra fees and risking their privacy. I suppose most are willing to pay that price.
eric.wizardFull Member
Posts: 63 · Reputation: 487
#14Oct 7, 2025, 04:44 AM
This is how these payments systems make extra money from their users using any name that they may call it. Just imagine charging you for not using the platform for a while this is just crazy to me. These are some of the reasons what Bitcoin should always be free because it's transparent without any hidden fee . Bitcoin is safe and free of deductions that are not necessary or exploitary in nature because from what I can see is the platform is only exploiting their customers.
Because you are not the one to determine how a client or company decides to pay. Not many people pay with Bitcoin; a lot of them don't even hold Bitcoin, and in a formal setting, you can't start telling people about Bitcoin. You can only suggest it. If it were up to me, I will receive every payment in Bitcoin.
When I created the account and started using the service, this policy wasn't there. They said they sent emails to notify people, but I guess I missed it or didn't receive it. Either way, I didn't know about it, and since I was using it regularly back then, I didn't notice.
Wow!
I didn't even know about this. Crazy.
This way, they will get an extra $30 from a lot of people. Not fair at all. The more transactions you make, the more money they make, and they will still make money when you don't make transactions.
miner_bullFull Member
Posts: 92 · Reputation: 642
#16Oct 7, 2025, 11:53 AM
Charging a $30 USD fee to an account with less than $2,000 in transactions within a year is an unreasonable fee, in my opinion. It's like they're squeezing money from small accounts and forcing people to increase their activity if they want to avoid it.
But that's why these payment and banking companies can make more money from their users because they charge unreasonable fees that force users to pay them to continue using their services.
If it were Bitcoin, people wouldn't be charged anything like this. No matter how much Bitcoin they hold in their wallet, there would be no fees charged to holders. That's what makes Bitcoin so much better compared to them.
Additional charges for not using your account for a while? Well, I am not surprised. In traditional banks, once your account stays inactive for some time, withdrawals may be restricted on your account. Centralized platforms will always seize any opportunity given to them to either make money from you or exert control unnecessarily. If clients prefer to make payments in Bitcoin, it should be used instead to rule out the issue of hidden charges from centralized payment platforms and banks. At least with Bitcoin, there are no added fees for being inactive or restrictions for abandoning your wallet. Rather, you may even gain if you had some bitcoins in your wallet before leaving it for so long.
However, using Bitcoin is not an excuse to neglect checking the ToS of any platform you are using. A client may be interested in Bitcoin payments, but in the business ToS, there might be a clause worth knowing about.
kevinorbitFull Member
Posts: 92 · Reputation: 508
#18Oct 8, 2025, 05:41 PM
No one said accepting payment in bitcoin is not better of course there are people who are using bitcoin as thier method of payment, but the truth is that not everyone that will like to accept payment in bitcoin due its volatile nature because you can transact with a certain amount this minute before the next five or ten minutes you will be seeing a different value, for this reason I think accepting payment in bitcoin more especially as a business man or woman is not advisable unless you have enough reserve funds that you can use whenever you need money to get stuffs and then leave your bitcoin on hold in your portfolio.
This is the same service that makes me appreciate the use of bitcoin as payment method everyday. I still use chipper cash uptil today because there is no other options other than it, but just like similar. Chipper cash charges monthly either you use the card or not and then if you want to deactivate it, its still extra charges. Same thing with other commercial bank ATM card for international transactions.
For cross border transactions I dont think there is any method of services that actually is better than bitcoin. Take this chipper cash for example there rate to fiat currency rate is erroneous than the normal rate and also there is minimum amount that it can hold, all this hassle are free with bitcoin
The payment processors have that tricky conditions and aside from the exchange rate that's how they earn money from their clients.
The $30 deduction fee is quite a lot to be honest even it won't be that much but for these transaction fees, it's considered a lot.
As long as there's an option for you to accept Bitcoin payments and your clients are willing to pay you that, better and solid.
?Reply
Sign in to reply to this topic