eBay & Paypal Fees

[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.

[GoldenAge50s]

You can make labels in PayPal no matter how you get paid, even from Net54 BST---Just use the multi-order shipping option & create any label to anybody for any kind of pymt. No explaination needed.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by GoldenAge50s

You can make labels in PayPal no matter how you get paid, even from Net54 BST---Just use the multi-order shipping option & create any label to anybody for any kind of pymt. No explaination needed.

Yes, but it creates a lot of extra steps you wouldn't need if Ebay just recognized the payment to begin with. It also negates any commercial shipping discount you receive through the Ebay system, which can sometimes be a decent chunk on International shipments.

I used to use the Multi-Order shipping tool all the time but have moved over to a combination of Ebay shipping and Stamps.com. The Paypal system was glitching up all the time and never kept up the USPS rate changes in a timely manner.

[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.