eBay & Paypal Fees

[Acollector]

Originally Posted by glchen

You can accept cash, money orders, or checks on ebay, and in fact, I've received payment via all of these methods from ebay sales. (Yep, I've had people send me cash in envelopes before.) You just need to setup your listings to not require paypal accounts from the buyers, and you're good to go. There is less protection for buyers this way however, because there's no way for ebay to confirm that the buyer really did send the funds. I still prefer paypal payment and the 3% fees because I prefer to receive the payments much faster rather than have to wait to see if I get the payment through the mail. One time a money order payment got lost in the mail, so it was a pain to try to keep checking to see if I got it, but it never came.

How many buyers are willing to pay by cash, check, or money orders? Also if you post in your description you accept those forms, ebay will cancel the listings, so yes it is possible to accept them, but ebay doesn't allow it. The non Paypal requirement is if you have a merchant credit card account, so yes you can accept those payments, but ebay makes it online payments only. Ebay has brained washed their sheep to think the cash, checks, and money orders contain cooties and they will get robbed for sure if they send them. I prefer the other 3 classics for a couple of reasons. I think it as a major conflict of interest that ebay has paypal. If they are going to require Paypal, then it should be no Paypal fees for an ebay sale since there are seller fees. If Paypal payments are made elsewhere, I can understand the fees.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Acollector

How many buyers are willing to pay by cash, check, or money orders? Also if you post in your description you accept those forms, ebay will cancel the listings, so yes it is possible to accept them, but ebay doesn't allow it. The non Paypal requirement is if you have a merchant credit card account, so yes you can accept those payments, but ebay makes it online payments only. Ebay has brained washed their sheep to think the cash, checks, and money orders contain cooties and they will get robbed for sure if they send them. I prefer the other 3 classics for a couple of reasons. I think it as a major conflict of interest that ebay has paypal. If they are going to require Paypal, then it should be no Paypal fees for an ebay sale since there are seller fees. If Paypal payments are made elsewhere, I can understand the fees.

Ebay DOES allow you to accept checks and money orders, they just don't allow you to SOLICIT payment by those forms. Any text in your description that looks like you're soliciting those forms of payment will get your listing cancelled (or denied upload in the first place). If the buyer requests to pay with one of those forms though, it's okay, and eBay even has an option in the drop-down menu when you go to mark an item as "paid" where you can specify that payment was with a check or money order.

There are still a few old-school buyers who pay for everything with money orders, and even fewer who will pay with a check and don't mind waiting for it to clear. My experience has their number at around 1-2% of buyers paying with something other than Paypal though, and for some reason those also tend to be the cheaper items (perhaps even old-school buyers want that "Buyer Protection" on the more expensive items?)

As for the legality of requiring a method of payment (Paypal) that their company also controls, they get around that by allowing sellers to also specify other similar payment methods (ProPay, Skrill). Of course, nobody actually uses those options, but they are still options so from a legal standpoint, it's not a monopoly. You can also specify in-person payment/pickup, which will also kill your sale potential, but again that's beside the point legally speaking. That's all from a lay perspective, and there may be some argument for a de facto monopoly that could be made, but I would imagine eBay's legal team have things sewn up so that they are protected from any unfair business practice lawsuits, whether their practices seem fair to the average user or not.

[tschock]

Removed after reviewing ebay's accepted payment policy.

[tschock]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Ebay DOES allow you to accept checks and money orders, they just don't allow you to SOLICIT payment by those forms. Any text in your description that looks like you're soliciting those forms of payment will get your listing cancelled (or denied upload in the first place). If the buyer requests to pay with one of those forms though, it's okay, and eBay even has an option in the drop-down menu when you go to mark an item as "paid" where you can specify that payment was with a check or money order.

Lance,

I thought the same thing too until I went back and re-read the policy.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/methods.html - Other payment methods

Checks, money orders, and bank wire transfers aren't allowed for most eBay purchases.

But sellers can offer these payment methods for certain items in some categories, including Motors, Capital and Business Equipment, Real Estate, and Adult Only.

There full list of what categories is allowed is would not cover cards. I was going to point out selling a car for cash (on pickup) in my previous post, but cash on pickup/deliver is explicitly allowed.

[Acollector]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Ebay DOES allow you to accept checks and money orders, they just don't allow you to SOLICIT payment by those forms. Any text in your description that looks like you're soliciting those forms of payment will get your listing cancelled (or denied upload in the first place). If the buyer requests to pay with one of those forms though, it's okay, and eBay even has an option in the drop-down menu when you go to mark an item as "paid" where you can specify that payment was with a check or money order.

No they do not allow cash checks or money orders on MOST items sold on ebay. They want most items to be Paypal or online payments because they are trying to be like Amazon. If they want to be like Aazon, I'm surprised they have not eliminated auctions.

I never said Paypal was a monopoly, I said Paypal is a conflict of interests since ebay owns them and you are already paying a final value fee to them. If you pay to list and get paid via paypal, you end up paying 3 fees to ebay. Ebay has made it close to impossible for a seller to accept any type of payment he or she wants if it is not electronic (with the obvious exception of having a merchant credit card account to accept credit and debit cards), but no one has taken ebay to court here over it. How many buyers really pay with any other form besides Paypal? Ebay bullied sellers into accepting Paypal and it's really at the point of no return. You can't force a business to accept cash, but if I sell something to you, you and I are doing business through ebay, but you are not doing business with ebay, I am, so it should be up to the seller what form of payments he or she will accept. You aren't paying anything to ebay to buy anything from me. I am paying ebay to sell to you.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Acollector

I'm surprised they have not eliminated auctions.

Just give them a little more time. They're working on it.

[Acollector]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Just give them a little more time. They're working on it.

I think you're 100% right. It's ironic, isn't it? Eliminate the thing that made you successful and famous. Like divorcing your wife after she played a large role in making you successful. "Hey thanks for the help and the memories. Now, Getta here dame, ya botha me!"

[thecatspajamas]

Also, based on Taylor's actually reading of the TOS, it looks like my own observations (based on personal experience over 16 years of buying/selling on eBay) is technically incorrect. The options from the drop-down on the "Mark Item As Paid" menu are likely intended for those categories where requiring cash/check/MO payment is allowed.

I would suggest though that eBay does not go out of its way to police the payment method used on the back end. I frequently get messages to the effect of "do you accept checks/money orders?" which could have been blocked by eBay in the same way that they block messages containing e-mail addresses or block listings mentioning those as payment options. There also isn't any problem with marking an item as paid with one of those methods that was listed in a category that shouldn't have qualified for them.

I guess at that point, they would be hampering the buyer rather than the seller if the buyer insists on using those payment methods, and eBay has never been one to turn away any sell made within their system as long as the buyer is happy and eBay is collecting their fees.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Also, based on Taylor's actually reading of the TOS, it looks like my own observations (based on personal experience over 16 years of buying/selling on eBay) is technically incorrect. The options from the drop-down on the "Mark Item As Paid" menu are likely intended for those categories where requiring cash/check/MO payment is allowed.

I would suggest though that eBay does not go out of its way to police the payment method used on the back end. I frequently get messages to the effect of "do you accept checks/money orders?" which could have been blocked by eBay in the same way that they block messages containing e-mail addresses or block listings mentioning those as payment options. There also isn't any problem with marking an item as paid with one of those methods that was listed in a category that shouldn't have qualified for them.

I guess at that point, they would be hampering the buyer rather than the seller if the buyer insists on using those payment methods, and eBay has never been one to turn away any sell made within their system as long as the buyer is happy and eBay is collecting their fees.

Ebay doesn't make it easy though, with that drop down menu. I've clicked on check or M.O. several times and then have gone on to try a print a mailing label through Ebay, only to get a message "Can't print mailing label until customer had paid for the item".

Dammit, I just told you they paid for the item........you don't believe me Ebay?

I think at this point this is mostly for International customers though. Believe it or not I still have some European customers who like to send cash through the mail. Makes label making, and payment confirmation a pain.

[tschock]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

I would suggest though that eBay does not go out of its way to police the payment method used on the back end. I frequently get messages to the effect of "do you accept checks/money orders?" which could have been blocked by eBay in the same way that they block messages containing e-mail addresses or block listings mentioning those as payment options. There also isn't any problem with marking an item as paid with one of those methods that was listed in a category that shouldn't have qualified for them.

Totally agree with this. Like you indicated, ebay could catch more of this easily, if they wanted to. They already have checks in place on messages to try and catch email addresses. They could do it for other keywords too.

I just received this yesterday: "i do not have pay pal but i have 628 pos, feedbacks and 0 neg feedbacks i pay with post office money orders can i bid thanks". So if this guy is telling the truth, ya think ebay would have found something suspicious about someone with this many feedbacks (ie buys) that doesn't use paypal, regardless of monitoring message content?

I think ebay's intent is to minimize this as much as possible. And I don't think that 1-2% of the people who still use cash/check/MO are taking a big chunk out of the ebay/paypal pie. So they let it slide. Even for my "nickel-and-dime" sales, ebay still makes a bigger chunk on keeping me rather than shutting me down for a rare, "minor" infraction. If someone was doing this on a regular basis though, might be a different story.