What each send type is for
Goods & Services (G&S) is meant for buying something — seller fees, purchase protection for the buyer. Friends & Family (F&F) is meant for personal transfers between people who trust each other — usually lower/no seller fee, little protection.
Legitimate earn platforms paying you are not your “friend sending lunch money.” Treat platform → you as a business payout. You rarely choose the rail: the company initiates G&S-style or mass-pay flows. Scammers ask you to refund via F&F.
Fees, holds, and EU habits
If “support” needs an F&F payment to release your balance, it is not support.
- Platform fee schedules ≠ your F&F dinner split — read paypal-payout-fees-earn-apps-europe-2026
- New accounts and cross-border sends trigger holds — paypal-hold-timelines-earn-apps-europe-2026
- Business vs Personal account fit — paypal-business-vs-personal-earn-payouts-2026
- Wise/SEPA may beat PayPal for bank landing — wise-vs-sepa-payouts-earn-apps-europe-2026
- Gift cards avoid PayPal rails but have sell-through risk — gift-cards-vs-paypal-earn-apps-2026
- Finish KYC before blaming F&F vs G&S — earn-app-kyc-payout-europe-2026
When someone asks you to choose F&F
Peer marketplace buyers of gift-card codes sometimes demand F&F so they can reverse G&S later — secondhand-gift-card-code-scams-europe-2026. Selling codes? Prefer rails with clear dispute rules and never ship codes before cleared funds you understand.
Roommates splitting an earn invite bonus should use transparent notes — not fake G&S invoices for coffee money.
Tonight
Open your last earn PayPal receipt: note sender name, amount, and whether any fee line appeared. Bookmark official brand support. Hub: /guides/coupon-education/. Start: /en/start/.