ebay forces sellers NOT to accept checks or money orders

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FYI if you want to sell on ebay they will NOT allow you to accept money orders, or any checks . If you put in your ad that you will actually accept these despite their efforts...your ad will get tossed. If you want to BUY on ebay...plan on Paypal, credit cards or cash in person.  BS if you ask me.

[Brian Daum]

Hi Bill,

Thats because they want to promote Paypal as much as possible. Paypal is OK, but I like to have other options as well.

[Walter Youshock]

Count me out.  I had my account broken into about 5 years ago and refuse to deal with PayPal anymore.  I'd have to really, REALLY want the item before I'd deal with them again.

Sounds to me like they are trying to monopolize--buy the bank and order everyone to have an account in it.

[Otto Skorzeny]

Ebay owns Paypal.  I often use it to pay for items but I prefer US Post Office money orders for payment. I will accept checks from someone I know or someone on this forum.

Why pay the transaction fee to Paypal if you don't have to? Now I guess you do.

I think I would place an add that said to contact the seller for methods of payment. Then you could tell buyer to send a money order.

[Walter Youshock]

It won't be long before there is some sort of lawsuit filed.

It will be interesting to see if sales increase or decrease over the next few months.

[Joe]

It's pure greed on Ebay's part. Sellers have to pay a cut to paypal. So now Ebay even makes a cut on the shipping price on all transactions, if they go through paypal. It's pure greed!!!! As a seller, I prefer to get checks or money orders, but they won't let me even put it in the listing anymore.

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Count me out too...I HAD paypal and it was great until I was the victim of a credit card/shipping insurance fraud scam, lost the item AND the $800, while the scammer got my Paypal $800 AND the item AND the insurance, I believe he also gained a credit on his credit card too...Paypal plays  the 3 monkeys  (hear, see, & speak no evil) when it comes to sellers complaints.

[Hollywood]

Well, count one more out....I've probably purchased a couple of dozen things through Ebay....I've paid all of my transactions via a moneyorder....I have always opposed paypal....Even sellers who didn't specify taking moneyorders would when reviewing my feedback....So, they don't have any say now, huh?! H'wood

[Walter Youshock]

I got hit for a $1,200 laptop, then a $50 case and something else.  They actually took the money from my checking account.  When I got my statement, I damn near had a stroke!

The bank was able to get me all the money back from PayPal.  Then, PayPal took the money from the seller, who then threatened to come after me.  Best part was the seller was in the Navy and was sending really nasty emails from the ship...

The cost of convenience!!!!!

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

They tried to do that in Australia, but the Government body, the ACCC, took them to court and stopped it.

I find that using PayPal is the best way for me, as the cost of getting Money Orders is horrendously expensive.

But, the way around it is to accept any form of payment you desire either before or after the sale is completed.   Just email the buyer, or seller, and arrange the transfer privately.

One can always place in the actual description of the item that other forms of payment is acceptable.

Bruce.

[David King (kz78hy)]

I have found that the paypal system work pretty good.  The few things I have sold worked well with paypal and it was very easy.  Almost every item I've purchased was done with paypal and I prefer it.   You have to set your starting price to include the cost of the fees associated with the sale.

My 2 cents

David

[Ted in Olympia WA]

I have been using PayPal for 11 years now with no problems.  It is the fastest and easiest payment method out there.  I sell something, they pay, and I ship the next day; DONE!

I also take money-orders with no problems but it does slow down the process and to me earring an extra 3% is not worth it.

When I first starting using PayPal it was free to use and not owned by eBay.  I wrote to the guy and ask how can he do this for free and what a good service it was.  He responded (yes right away not like they do now) and said that at any time he had several million dollars floating around in the bank and the interest alone was good enough for him.  He was sure smart and I'm sure he is soaking up the sun somewhere.

When eBay first took it over they paid me pretty good interest for my balance, about 5% or more.  Now they pay about .25%, terrible.

Anyway I think it's still a great thing and more and more people are accepting it on the Internet, like Summit Racing.

The best protection for people paying is to use your credit card.  This costs the seller about 4% but it give you the protection that credit cards have built into them.

I could never sell so many parts to the nice people in Austria and Europe without it.

TED

[Otto Skorzeny]

I pretty much agree with you, Ted. However, I think the primary objection is not with the service per se, but rather with the enforced lack of choice in payment methods.

Most people just don't like the "my way or the highway" attitude being thrust upon them.

Any color as long as it's black?

[Eric S. Maypother #15104]

Paypal Has it's pluses and minuses, even before PayPal stopped allowing sellers to receive checks and money orders about 98 percent of the payments I received was through paypal anyways, so not allowing checks or money orders didn't affect me a whole lot, their are still some hold outs who will only buy if I'll take a money order, eBay said it will start tracking payments and they will do something? If you have too many sold items and no record of payment. I sell a lot of $24.99 items, plus about $15 shipping so my average paypal fee is $1.50 for every item I sell. I also believe eBay/PayPal is more interested in the fees they make than protecting buyers and sellers from bad checks and money orders. But like Ted says, they buy an item  use paypal, I send item, done deal, no more of this check in the mail business I use to get when I'd be waiting forever for a payment.

Then when I use my PayPal Visa debit card I get a percentage back so I use it as often as I can, make sure to use it as a credit card not a debit card though to get the percentage. When I pay my eBay fees they give you the option to use your paypal account or your credit card, I use my paypal card as a credit card so I get a percentage back, if I used my paypal funds directly I wouldn't get anything back, this also ad's up, I imagine theirs hundreds of users who don't realize this.

One of the things I don't like about paypal is if someone for any reason doesn't like/want/receive on time an item and they report it to paypal they automatically put a hold on the money in my account for the price of item & shipping, then if buyers send item back and submit tracking number their credited back the complete funds, shipping included, some big items I could be eating $40 in shipping just because the person decided they didn't want the item, I sold same headlights for $300 plus about $40 shipping, the girl said she couldn't use them, paypal held the $340, she waited so long to send them back I couldn't even apply to get a return on the eBay commission fee, yet she got the full amount back once it was shown I received the lights back, some clips were missing and the glass on 1 light was chipped yet I as a seller had no recourse. What store can you go to, decide you don't want an item and the store has to pay for the gas it cost you when you drove out to buy the item?

As a buyer I always preferred PayPal over having to go to the PO, wait in line, buy a money order, then put a 42 cent stamp on envelope, some sellers wouldn't take a check or hold item till it cleared even though I have good feedback, sometimes it would be a $5 item. When I use to get a lot of checks it wasn't even worth my time to track each 1 and hold item till check cleared, in 10 years on eBay I only got burned twice on checks and they were about $15 each, I would have spent countless hours checking my bank statement on-line trying to figure out each day which checks cleared before I mailed stuff.

I guess I'll end it here, I got to list more stuff on eBay to make them richer.

[Ted in Olympia WA]

FYI if you want to sell on ebay they will NOT allow you to accept money orders, or any checks . If you put in your ad that you will actually accept these despite their efforts...your ad will get tossed. If you want to BUY on ebay...plan on Paypal, credit cards or cash in person.  BS if you ask me.

I have not sold a lot on eBay for the last couple of months due to the poor sales lately but this months I listed two cars.  Both of them has in the ad at the bottom (only one is current and not sold)
Payment methods accepted
Cashier's Check (certified from US or Canadian bank) or money order

But it does say that PayPal is preferred.  So maybe this only applies if you "only" accept money orders and not PayPal?  I know I purchased a couple of items in the past only to find out later that I cannot read and they do not accept PayPal.  It's my fault for not reading the ad completely but it still upsets me because now I have to go to the bank, address an envelope, put on a stamp and mail and wait.  What a pain when I could have paid one second after the end of the auction.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140312177264&sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&viewitem=

I also have not had any of the problems with freezing the accounts.  Maybe it's because I don't let it go that far.  If someone is the high bidder and does not want the item I will let them return it to me or re-notiate the price if they are not happy and give a partial refund.  Life is too short to argue with these guys.

The one thing that really got me mad about eBay is that I can no longer give a buyer negative feedback.  I had several buyers over the years that just would not pay or even communicate with me and some of these deserve a negative feedback.

TED

[Ted in Olympia WA]

Okay I found out why I did not know about this.  eBay motors allows money orders and checks and this is all I sell.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/accepted-payments-policy.html

[Eric S. Maypother #15104]

Okay I found out why I did not know about this.  eBay motors allows money orders and checks and this is all I sell.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/accepted-payments-policy.html

That's interesting, I didn't know you could still take checks & MO in some of those categories, but I sell mostly headlights, tail lights & mirrors which isn't in those categories on eBay motors for exemption, when I was making a listing it would show boxes to check off for paypal, money orders, checks, now in these categories theirs no box for checks & money orders as accepted payment methods. I have over 2,000 things listed in my eBay store, I'm not going to edit the descriptions 1 by 1 to delete I accept checks & money orders, some even still say cash, on my new listings I just have paypal listed. Before when someone bought something it would give them my address in checkout so the buyer could send payment, now eBay doesn't give them my mailing address at checkout, even from listings I made before the new rule.

[Ted in Olympia WA]

2,000 items; you are one busy boy!

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my ad WAS in  "ebay motors" !!! , they threw it out because I made mention of my accepting Money orders in the text

Okay I found out why I did not know about this.  eBay motors allows money orders and checks and this is all I sell

[Jeff Maltby 4194]

What about the 3-4 business days to transfer $ from paypal to you bank acct ?

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