The word is that eBay is banning checks and money orders, and buyers will have to use PayPal or (if the seller has a credit card merchant account or an account with a service called ProPay), credit cards.
Here’s how eBay explains the change:
Starting this fall, we’re moving to an electronic checkout process that’s faster and more reliable for sellers and buyers. As part of this move, checks and money orders will no longer be accepted on eBay, although buyers can still use these payment methods for item pick-up, at the seller’s discretion. In addition, the electronic payment methods will be fully integrated into eBay checkout. For example, if a seller has an internet merchant account, a buyer will be able to directly enter a credit card and never have to leave the site.
Today, items paid with check or money order are 80% more likely to result in an item not received (INR) than those paid with credit card or PayPal. Also, buyers who pay with check or money order are 50% more likely to leave negative feedback than those who pay with electronic methods. So starting in late October, 2008, we are moving to 100% electronic payments – credit cards, ProPay, or PayPal.
This means that sellers will be able to offer credit card payments through their own merchant accounts, and payments through ProPay and/or PayPal, with all payment methods integrated into the checkout process on eBay. Seller will also get paid faster and be able to ship items quicker. And remember, for those buyers and sellers who use PayPal, we’re backing every eligible transaction with our buyer and seller protections.
The New York Times says that this is all part of a shift away from auctions and toward fixed price sales.
“Clearly there’s a strong buyer preference for fixed price,” said Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay Marketplace, which includes the eBay site.
The banning of checks and money orders leaves some wondering about anti-trust issues. An official eBay FAQ says that popular alternate payment options such as Checkout by Amazon and Google Checkout, are being excluded from eBay because they compete with PayPal:
Google’s and Amazon’s products and services compete with eBay on a number of levels, so we are not going to allow them on eBay.
What do you think about this new move? Will it really stop fraud? Or just increase the use of PayPal?
EBay Is Planning to Emphasize Fixed-Price Sales Format Over Its Auction Model [NYT]
***A Message from Lorrie Norrington: New Pricing, More Incentives, and Other Changes to Bring More Buyers*** [eBay]
(Photo: rightonbro )
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If ebay is touting Paypal as a “safer” alternative, they really need a reality check. Just peruse http://www.paypalsucks.com and you can read about the horror stories of dealing with this company
I’ve been a Powerseller on eBay (with 100% feedback) for two years and only accept personal checks and money orders. I used Paypal when I first started selling but had them suddenly freeze my account and withhold over a thousand dollars of my money for nine months. Why? Because a friend who logged into his account on my PC had a small negative balance on his Paypal account and they linked the two deeming it “suspicious activity”. Paypal is not a bank and they are not safe to use. If you don’t believe me try reading their user agreement terms of service. They even reserve the right to put a hold on “your” money until the buyer leaves positive feedback.
Anyone else think that ebay is on it’s last legs? At least to me. I remember back when the ebay experience was painless. Now it’s a hassle. I had to relist the PSP I was selling three times last year because scammers would end up winning the auction. Someone would win the auction, then about a day later ebay would send an email telling me that the account that won the auction was fradulent and to not ship the item. After getting fed up with it, I just sold it on amazon.
But the whole “we’re not offering google or amazon because they compete with us” rubs me the wrong way somehow.
@Dyscord: No, I don’t think eBay is on its last legs. Their focus is shifting because they’re making money hand over fist from merchants who are using them as a storefront. The “little guy” who sells half a dozen items a year is no longer their target market.
I was late getting into the ebay game. Some years back I wanted to find cheap stuff, garage sale type clothing and gifts. My searches kept bringing up all of these ebay retailers offering the item at a high starting price or an even higher fixed price. What seemed worse to me was that they all had the same picture of the same item. Seeing the same picture in all of the listings screamed scam to me.
I’ve sold some things via ebay but have never bought anything. It’s too hard to find the average joe trying to unload a used item at a reasonable price on the site. They need to separate the full time retailers from the casual seller somehow.
Brick & mortar discount stores are a better deal.
@quail: Quail- alot of times those are not scams but somebody drop shipping the clothing from the manufacturer or distributor. Store A and Store B both buy from Distributor Z which ships directly to you. Stores A and B only buy though when you bid and buy yourself. These stores would make money on the spread between what you pay and what Distributor Z sells for- and maybe some of the shipping/handling too.
I encountered this type of thing with buying a replacement motorcycle seat cover one time. Various “storefronts” listed the same item with the same picture- I purchased one and it came from some company not related to the storefront auction I had used.
I echo the other folks here that Ebay is dying off for the yardsale type people. That is where craigslist kicked it in- local only and cash money- and why ebay would want to buy craigslist or put them out of business.
I got screwed by a seller insisting on money order. I knew better but the price was so low I went against my better instincts and got hit for over $100.00.
This is a good thing.
I’m a seller at ebay and I always require PayPal payments with no alternatives. I always buy using PayPal, and ignor the rest. My safe choice.
So long Ebay, I’ll stick to selling locally.
And wouldn’t you know it? I’ve made a fair bit of money that way.
I started selling on Ebay back in 1997, when everyone was selling Beanie Babies and computer accessories. It was great back then, I sold all my old computer junk^M^M^M^M accessories – got them off my desktop, got a little money, went and bought more accessories. I even bought a few Beanie Babies for my wife.
Boy have things changed.
The last time I tried to sell something on Ebay, some memory, it didn’t sell with even a zero starting bid and I ended up just paying Ebay an outrageous fee and getting nothing. I really don’t see the value anymore, they don’t seem to be attracting the buyers for stuff I want to sell.
I’ve actually gone back to newspapers, word of mouth, and now I use Craigslist for stuff.
eBay seems to be be nailing it’s own coffin this year. Two years ago, anything I needed I checked eBay first, 99% of the time I found exactly what I wanted, no matter how weird or obscure. Now, I rarely find what I want (probably because there are less sellers), AND there are fewer auction listings (I rarely use the BIN). I imagine they will lose even more sellers now with the elimination of checks and MOs, which means even less choice for me. These days I do most of my online shopping through Amazon. Sorry, eBay, you ruined a good thing.
Number of times I’ve been scammed when accepting PayPal: FIVE.
Number of times I’ve been scammed when accepting a check or money order: ZERO.
Yeah. Out of a few thousand transactions on eBay, I’ve been scammed or attempted to be scammed five times when accepting paypal payments and *zero* for accepting money orders and checks.
Yep, that’s ebay looking out for me all right.
I used to spend big bux on eBay bidding on all sorts of stuff and I had an outstanding rating as a buyer, I stopped 8 years ago because they tripped my scam/fraud alarms way back them.
I wouldn’t care if Ebay required that you pay for every auction you won with Unicorn farts, their crappy/scammy policies don’t affect me at all, to me, eBay simply no longer exists.
Everyone that I know personally that has used eBay has been scammed. Ditto for PayPal. Three years ago my oldest daughter wanted to buy a guitar for her sister and against her better judgment, she bought one off of eBay. She used her AMEX card and it was a very good thing that she did. The item that she received was not what was pictured. She contacted the seller and asked for a refund and he told her to go f*** herself. She contacted eBay and got the same response. Well, AMEX felt differently and did a charge back. They considered it to be fraud and dealt with.
Ebays management has been infiltrated by people with the single goal of destroying it. You don’t mess with success, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, etc.. These are common sense sayings. A coup has occurred–right at a time when the economy is tanking and real folks who need to sell off belongings to survive are the ones who will suffer most. Its remarkable for me to see them make sweeping, experimental changes in a mini-economy larger than some small nations. These changes are wrecking peoples lives and thier open ended user agreement keeps them held harmless. Boo.
Of course Ebay is doing it to boost Paypal income, but also sending a money order or check is a bad idea for so many reasons it’s not funny. It’s slower, requires trips to the bank for seller and then they have to watch when it clears, and your lack of recourse if they send you the wrong item or nothing at all. All the big Ebay fraud cases involved this method, cashing tons of checks and then not sending the items.
I don’t think they will go to entirely fixed prices, but they may go to listing auctions with a buy it now price before others that don’t. That would be a good way to nudge people into offering a fixed price. They are probably tired of auctions not closing because people bidding $4.35 on that new Toyota, thinking they will get it if nobody else bids.
Sure it’s a good idea for their bottom line, but at the same time it’s good for everyone else. Paypal is the only service where if you run a refund, you get that 3 percent back. Merchant accounts tend you not refund then charge the fee again on refunds, whenever money changes hands. For a merchant on low margins that’s a disaster. Also with a merchant account it’s can be nearly impossible for a merchant to win, even if you can document you’re right. With Paypal I’ve found you do have a fighting chance.
The changes that eBay has been making in the past year are going to eclipse “New Coke” in the annals of bad business decision-making.
The biggest problem I have with the “Paypal only” restriction is that, as a buyer, Paypal has a “sending limit” (between $1,000-$10,000, depending on how much they like you), and once you reach this limit, they require you to provide them with your banking information, and, by extension, access to your bank account. (I think you may also have the option to get some kind of Paypal-brand credit card for which I’m sure you need to provide your social security number and other personal information.)
Before you hit this “sending limit,” all the info you need to supply them is your credit card number. I’m OK with that, because that’s in fact where your protection lies — with your CC provider, not Paypal.
It boggles my mind that these days, with the economy tanking, any business would think it’s a good idea to restrict the ways a customer would want to give money to a seller.
Yeah, I’ve been an eBay junkie for the past 10 years (strictly as a buyer), and this change will pretty much nip that habit in the bud. Frankly, I’m finding the thought to be a little bit liberating.
I have seen this happening already. I was going to try to sell some old computer components a few weeks ago. I hadn’t used Ebay for over a year, but I decided to sell these things on there anyway. I tried to uncheck Paypal as a payment option, and I got a message that you can’t sell things in that category (I’m not sure which category they were referring to) without having Paypal as a payment option.
I think it’s a little ridiculous for Ebay to charge you for the auction and then charge you for the payment transfer as well. They shouldn’t force me to pay for additional services that I don’t want to use. I suppose they can do whatever they want, (unless it violates the law) but they have lost my business.
+1 for Craigslist = None of this shit
Pshaw, this has othign to do with fraud and everything to do with “ebay and paypal want to make the most money”. Since ebay (here on out called “feebay”)and paypal are owned by the same company/person/whatever, they’ve figured out that they can make so much more money off of you bvuy charging the feebay listing/total value prices, and then double whammy you with the paypal fees taken out.
If it was really about security issues and whatnot, they wouldn’t have made it so hard for sellers with all this new BS and the lack of being able to leave negative feedback, etc. Paypal is absolutely no protection anymore with the people asking for money back and not giving the item bqack and paypal giving them their money back without a second thought. If anything, MO and checks are safer than paypal if you send it through certified mail as the buyer, and that the seller doesn’t ship until the check/MO clears. I will still say right in my auctions “money orders accepted” even when they make the switch, and feebay can go shove it and remove the listing if they don’t like it. There’s always craigslsit and yahoo.
My name is Brandon Crotts, I am the product manager at ProPay. There have been a lot of questions about us since eBay announced they were banning checks and money orders and that we were being added to their list of acceptable payments. Right now we only offer a merchant account, but will be announcing a new special account for our eBay customers at the end of September. We also offer several features and will help our customers fight against fraud. You can check more out about ProPay’s features, and we also encourage you to watch for our announcement regarding the package we will offer for ebay sellers.
Quite a recurring theme here. I’ve been selling on ebay for 9 years and recently got screwed out of $155 from a bogus buyer with Paypal’s support, and the responses from Ebay and Paypal are beyond ridiculous. They have no loyalty nor do they care for sellers. Like many on here I’m done with Ebay. How sad.
Here is a questionnaire for eBay victims collecting data about the effects of the 2008 changes
[spreadsheets.google.com]
Using paypal to reduce fraud? Isn’t that like leaving John Gotti to look after corruption? Ive read nothing but horror stories of their questionable use / theft of peoples money and numerous banking ‘irregularities’ (criminal acts they bought their way out of). These people should be in jail, not preaching security while defrauding consumers by manipulating the market to coercse the use of their service.
I’ve been buying and selling on ebay since 1998. This new payment method of paypal only will allow me to finally cut all ties with ebay. I will not continue to be raped by ebay fees and paypal fees. This is not the only reason though. The main reason I will be closing all of my accounts is that paypal is in full control of your money. A buyer can hold their money claiming they didn’t authorize the transaction even after several months have gone by, they have their item, have left you positive feedback and you have long forgotten about them. Then you have to defend yourself looking for ways to prove they bid and approved the transaction? NOPE I’M DONE!