you pay fees based on the size of your transaction in bytes. your transction must be HUGE that you are asked to pay that much fee. something around 2200 bytes which is 10 times bigger than a normal bitcoin transaction size, as a result you are paying 10 times more than a normal bitcoin transaction fee.
next time try accepting less micro payments and ask for a bulk payment of all of them at once.
Yes. Quiet ridiculous. Another possibility is that the transaction fee that he chose is very expensive and he is not aware that he selected it which is quiet funny. To OP, please try to look at it again. The wallet that you are using might have an adjustable fee. I usually use small fee as long as it is not needed immediately.
If you think of any other organization or service provider. They have two or three categories of providing service based on time and service fees same is the case here in bitcoin blockchain fees, here is high fees for those who need services (which I definitely mean amount delivery) then bitcoin will charge you high and for normal process bitcoin will charge normal fees. For quick delivery bitcoin uses extra resources to make delivery possible on time that is why high fees.
