I do not recall this being in there before, this fee to add funds, and I have added funds several times, but maybe it was. As a rule of thumb, it is a bad idea to charge people an up front fee for doing business with one’s company. Everyone understands fees and taxes when a purchase is made or a withdrawal, but to be charged for adding funds…it’s just not a good idea, imho.
It is much better to derive income from actual sales. Either the seller can pay all fees, and incorporate their fees into the prices, or it can be all on the buyer, or a mixture of both. If it’s all on the seller, that could make it hard for sellers to compete with other sites, since buyers’ first impression is made by comparing item sale prices.
Many buyers will go ahead and buy items even after they see in the checkout phase that the fees will make the purchase just a little bit more than other sites. They’ve already gone to the trouble of picking everything out, and many will say, “an extra dime or two is no big deal”. But an up front funds fee is a blatant penalty for doing business with the company, and the buyer can easily say, " you know, the other sites don’t have these funds fees before you’ve even bought anything", and then back out.
In my case, I was in the process of adding $25, but when I saw the $1.05 fee, I changed my mind. I intended to buy keys, and when I factored in the funds fee, it became cheaper to get the keys elsewhere.
If GF insists on keeping the ‘add funds fee’, then I would highly recommend that you remove it or reimburse it for select items where the competition is razer thin, such as with keys. Simply, put, at this point in time, the funds fee makes buying TF2 keys here more expensive (at current market prices), and yes, a few pennies each does make a difference when you’re doing, or planning on doing, lots of trading.
If things go as I plan, over time, I will be buying and selling thousands of keys across many games, so those pennies will add up.