EBAY'S Newest rules

[BRAKIE]

One way or another, we'll just have to get used to more restrictive rules that always come about when dishonest people abuse the system.

Tom

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Indeed.

And here's the sad part. Crooks will win by finding new electronic rip off methods ..

[Packer]

Well, there goes the way I usually buy stuff. (use my paycheck and take money from it for money orders).

Sometimes the MO is faster, since it always takes 5 days for Paypal, and lots of people I've boughten from, that MO would only take a few days to get there.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

 

I was looking at the latest message from ebay in my ebay messages and was shocked to see that come october you will not be ableto receive or pay via checks or money ordeer for items you buy/sell. They want you only to use credit cards or debit cards and pay thru paypal or other electronic paying companies.

Am I going to buy from EBay anymore?

NO WAY!

As long as I could pay by money order it was OK, but putting my credit card and/or bank account info online? Nothing doing!

[Geared Steam]

 

I was looking at the latest message from ebay in my ebay messages and was shocked to see that come october you will not be ableto receive or pay via checks or money ordeer for items you buy/sell. They want you only to use credit cards or debit cards and pay thru paypal or other electronic paying companies.

Am I going to buy from EBay anymore?

NO WAY!

As long as I could pay by money order it was OK, but putting my credit card and/or bank account info online? Nothing doing!

 

A little PARANOID Jeff ??? 

 

 

[Milepost 266.2]

I got out of ebay last month after about 4 years because of changes. If someone was to try and log in as me and get the password wrong (And they will) Ebay computers call my home at all hours.

Unacceptable.

That's very strange.  I've typed my password wrong from time to time, and they've never done this.  Of course, I think I may still have a dummy phone number listed (done after a buyer called me for technical support and ended up wanting to shoot the breeze).

 

[corsair7]

I sell all of my weathered cars on eBay.   I accept checks, money orders, and Paypal.  I have some buyers that use checks only.  Now that makes me wonder if I will not get there business anymore.  Makes you wonder if you can get around the Paypal only payment.  Probably say that you paid threw paypal and still send a check.  I guess they wouldn't know. 

Don't count on it. Ebay owns Paypal and the two are linked as well. Paypal is a good way to pay for ourchases made thru Ebay. Many vendors accept payment thru Paypal as well. But one has to carefully watch Paypal just like you watch any other account that contains your money. To do otherwise is just asking for trouble these days.

As for doing business on Ebay, well I've been there since the 1990s. I used to be able to sell lots of stuff there but it hasn't been the same for the last couple of years. Competiton is stiff and there just aren't as many buyers there as there once were. So I've cut back on what I sell and te number of auctions that I have running at any one time. Lot's of vendors have left Ebay and lots of folks who used to buy there have done the same.

As for the liars and cheats, well they come on both sides of the transaction these days. But their presence are highly overexagerated. Besides feedback is important and it has to be looked at before committing to buy or sell anything. YOu shouldn't look only at the number of positive feedbacks a prospective vendor or buyer has but also at the feedback ratios. 100% or very close to that is good anything less could be asking for trouble.

Irv

[jeffrey-wimberly]

A little PARANOID Jeff ??? 

I've had my credit high-jacked online before on a supposedly secure site. It wasn't funny.

[tatans]

How can you cheat on a money order??? it's as good as cash, also it is cashable instantly, not like the U.S. system of cheque clearing before cashing. Most sellers really like M/O's and have had no problem, banks, post offices, governments issue M/O's all the time, I can see cheques being refused but this truly is a scam to force people to use a  pay system that charges a fee for every Transaction, I WONDER IF THEY WOULD ACCEPT CASH ----is that the next step in the business world-----goodbye ebay!!!!!     who owns paypal?????

[Geared Steam]

Apparently, it wasn't "secure" was it?

Dude, you have the worst luck

 

 

[vsmith]

The more I think about this the less I like it.

I agree that check payments are iffy at best but to eliminate money orders in lieu of PayPal seams to me to smack of more than a little self-interest. Ebay has been catering more and more to their online stores and there higher prices than to the little guy like me who only sells 3 or 4 times a year and subsequently gets the shaft.

I suspect if I continue buying on Ebay, I will do so with a prepay debit card account in lieu of paying by MO, as for selling - I dunno just yet, I got a ton of bike parts I was going to sell on there, but this rather self-serving policy has me second guessing that, how much ya wanna bet Craigslist and Amazon.Auctions will see a rise in listings after this.

This raises a good question, aside from these two, what ARE the alternatives to Ebay?

[BigRusty]

BIG BROTHER is watching you. The IRS is trying to flush out the underground economy that does not pay taxes.  They estimate it to be in the BILLIONS. They recently reduced the amount of cash deposits that must be reported by banks from $10,000 to $3,000. Eliminating cash and money order transactions means that ALL E-Bay transactions are now traceable to your Social Security Number. Maybe requiring that the seller furnish a 1099-MISC to buyers is next.

[Geared Steam]

This raises a good question, aside from these two, what ARE the alternatives to Ebay?

I miss Yahoo auctions, free listings, small % if you sold the item. Even with free listings they couldn't compete.

 Onlineauction.com and Ubid.com, but of course, you will not see the traffic that EBay gets.

GS

[Jacktal]

I don't have and don't want a Paypal account for a simple reason...I don't want that anybody can serve themselves in my bank account.And I don't need a credit credit card and won't get one for Ebay alone.Personal check,being a canadian,I suspect many U.S. banks would charge  hefty fees to cash them,but then,right from the start,many sellers stipulate they don't want personal checks anyway.So the money order (canadian postal) has always been my only option to pay my Ebay items and yet I've had one returned (transaction cancelled) because the seller's bank didn't want to cash it.And typing my personal ID number on internet to use my debit card...out of the question...too unsafe.So I might as well terminate my Ebay account I guess.

[fwright]

If you read the financial news, you'll find eBay's stock is not where the investors would like it to be.  The number of buyers is declining, which is not a good sign for future profits.  Amazon is supposed to be cleaning eBay's clock with its lineup of sellers at fixed prices.  The business progosticators claim that auction fatigue, and limitations of the auction business model are limiting eBay.  Hence, the emphasis on Buy it Now listings by sellers, and other steps to lower the percentage of "burned" experiences of eBay.  Not that eBay cared to do much about fraud before, no matter how much buyers and sellers complained (there are too many bad apples on both sides).  And because of that attitude, eBay's shady reputation exists.

Unfortunately, I think eBay is missing the bigger picture.  There are numerous hobby and craft communities that have grown up using eBay as THE primary or secondary market for buying/selling their goods.  The auctions would typically set the going price for items.  The new rules are going to force these communities to reduce their presence on eBay.  I already see evidence of this in much higher price volatility (price swings of $45 to $100 or $115 to $195 from week to week for the same item) than I am used to seeing.  To me, this is an indication that the number of buyers competing for a given item is way down. 

The most onerous of the new rules is probably the shipping cost limitations, and the strong "encouragement" to have sellers offer free shipping.  If sellers were limited to realistic shipping costs, that would be one thing.  But often the limitations mean a seller is going to automatically lose money in addition to the higher fees on auctions.  What I expect to see is a lot more Buy it Now for ridiculously high prices, and a lot more unsold merchandise, as sellers over-estimate what their stuff is worth.  eBay obviously anticipates the same because the Buy it Now listings will be good for 30 days under the new rules instead of the current 7.

Hopefully, a new, widely used auction site will arise, which will once again provide us with a realistic market price.

my thoughts

Fred W

[jondrd]

 Bill,

    Somewhere down the line eBayers will get a notice that their account information has been compromised due to a theft of an eBay employee's laptop, or a disk was inadvertently misplaced or their system has been hacked and before they knew it some uncertain number of eBayers accounts are at risk......yadda. yadda. Part of this communication will be a pious commitment on eBay's part to assure you that measures have been taken to insure that such an occurence cannot be repeated in the future...blah, blah....and oh, monitor your credit, debit, Paypal account to make sure no fraudulent activity is taking place.

    I've purchased and sold on eBay and used personal checks and money orders on both kinds of transactions and have not as yet had a bad experience via these "antiquated" transaction methods.

    As one of the responders to your posting noted it's a business and they will use every technique to maximize their profit and in so doing will assure you with what amounts to a corporate straight face that it's in your best interest(businesses have but one interest, their own).

 Jon

 

[Last Chance]

Alternatives?

Easy, someone can set up a server and get a train swap/trade/buy site thing going. All we need to do is get "For sale train choo choo" information to... B "The train buyer" And the rest can be hammered out like checks, money orders etc.

If all or most of the ebay train stores get together and develop a "Coop" server for train stuff away from ebay and do thier business there... that should get things going rather well.

[Railphotog]

I'm trying to figure out how small sellers ( as opposed to dealers) could offer free shipping.  Say I have an item that normally sells for $25.00.   I start the auction at $10.00, and it doesn't attract many bidders, selling for $15.00.   So I would be offering free shipping of say $7-10 on this item?  Selling it for $15.00?  This does not compute!

Maybe I'm missing something here, maybe they intend for the power sellers to offer free shipping on most of their stuff with "Buy it Now" pricing, which would be high enough to include their shipping costs?

 

[Last Chance]

If I sold you a Athearn RTR Boxcar with three day Priority you will pay shipping plus whatever the last bid is. If you are a GOOD ebayer, you will stop the bidding at MSRP - shipping = cost of the boxcar in your hobbyshop. Most of the time you will be seeing a boxcar with SHIPPING, at MSRP and so on. Basically a Virtual hobbyshop with no real cost savings.

If you waited long enough like a vulture circling above, you might snag this same BOXCAR at 5.00 plus a few dollars parcel shipping but might have to fight 10 others for it.

If I say sorry, no checks, no money orders, paypal only etc etc in response to the new rule. That RTR boxcar will have about 10% of page views it once did and less than 5% of bidding activity it once did under the more open payment rules previously.

And yes it might take 30 days instead of 4 to consumate the sale of the boxcar. Might as well ditch ebay and go to the hobby shop or catalog house and have it shipped to you.

Ive seen many a rtr train thing go out the door at 6.00 total with shipping, ebay fees etc eating into the seller. Nothing makes me as angry as it does a sale that cost ME money to complete. Might as well pour some deisel onto it and burn it in the burnpit.

[rtraincollector]

Personally I'm thinking of looking into selling on www.choochoo.com auctions ( www.traincity.com ) charles sigel he just moved from PA. to FL and mainly has O but he offers spots for all gauges and I mainly deal in O so its good for me. From what I understand its free to list and then and only when you acually sell do you pay anything.  I can still offer paypal if I wish or I can require money orders ( postal) if I wish.

I've done a lot of searching today scince I was off and came up with this by a freinds recomemdation

[tatans]

Can you run a business in the U.S. and stipulate to customers that you can only pay for items with a certain fee that the seller dictates: can he actually demand you only pay in pennies and can he ask that he will not accept a $5.00 bill, or can he ask to be paid in corn or chickens or gold????   Does the U.S. not have law that says what the currency of the realm is???  Or can you just go about business and make up your jolly old mind what type of payment you demand, surely there must be guidelines that prevent sellers from demanding payment that they  make up themselves. I believe a cheque, money order, cash, etc. are viable means of doing business. Banks in Canada and I believe businesses cannot give you American cash in a transaction, it must be in Canadian funds, yes, you can BUY American money for a fee. So there are stipulations as to what transpires as payment( even in the U.S.) it's back to cash.

[Last Chance]

When in England, we bought Pounds at exchange. 1.20 to the dollar. Now it's twice that. When in Canada we bought CDN at .74 plus or minus a few cents. I completed a recent Ebay buy from Canada just about 1 for one dollar even exchange more or less. It was transparent to me buying in CDN online.

Ebay by requiring people to, only do paypal or creditcard is going to find themselves out of income to a certain extent. There is just too many people who WILL use a check or money order and NEVER use the electronic money. I understand that Ebay is trying to tighten the good ship revenue from all these little leaks and grey-water sloshing about the bilge to appease the stock holder who thinks that the Ebay can do better.

One of my family members has a sign "Beatings continue until Morale Improves" in his workshop and I think Ebay will suffer from these rules. Sure they can burn off alot of the sellers and buyers who refuse to abide by the new rules. But can enough leave ebay to make them reconsider the folly of thier change?

[dinwitty]

 

I was looking at the latest message from ebay in my ebay messages and was shocked to see that come october you will not be ableto receive or pay via checks or money ordeer for items you buy/sell. They want you only to use credit cards or debit cards and pay thru paypal or other electronic paying companies.

We're taking steps to give sellers the most dynamic marketplace on the Internet: reduced upfront cost, optimized exposure, and a more consistent buyer experience to drive more sales. Your Auction-style listings with a low start price are still the best deal on eBay -- no change in Auction-style fees! Plus, we're introducing a new 35¢ Insertion Fee for Fixed Price listings-regardless of the asking price or number of items in the listing-with a 30-day duration and automatic renewal option at no extra cost. For some of your items, this new Fixed Price option may be a great solution. Driving more sales with a more consistent buyer experience We're taking other steps to ensure buyers keep coming back to eBay: Limits on shipping and handling charges Big seller rewards for free shipping, including free subtitle, a boost in search results, and double PowerSeller fee discounts No more checks and money orders New seller standards: Minimum 4.3 on all DSRs More relevant search results to drive more sales. We're optimizing Best Match to surface the inventory most relevant to each buyer and show the best of Auction-style and Fixed Price. Get more information about these important changes. You're also invited to participate in one of several webinars scheduled for August 20-26.

 

I found this

 

"Payment on pick-up"

 

I will just message the buyer I will use a money order, and carry on as usual.

If they don't accept that, pfft on EBAY anymore.

 

 

[loathar]

 

 

loathar used the term, "foul stench of progress".  I would respectfully counter, loathar, that foul stenches come from putrefaction and stagnation, not from Life, from viability, and vitality.

 

Tell that to my friends from Deluxe and all the other check printers that lost their jobs, careers and pensions. You've gotta remember, a lot of those new high tech computer banking jobs went over seas to third world call centers.

I won't use PayPal because it's just another guy sticking his hand out to take a cut. I've seen quite a few posts here where people said PayPal did nothing to fix a problem they had. I don't recall a single post where anyone praised them for righting a wrong. (MY )

[knewsom]

I will offer up my attempt to build a site to trade trains to anyone that wants to use it.

http://trains.sagepointe.com

[Scarpia]

I already shopped in a store that had a notice on the door and it read:

As of August 1st we will no longer accept personal or payroll checks.

Thank You.

Or words closely to that..I was shocked..

What's next? Sorry we no longer accept cash?

With all due respect, cheques are not cash. Cash is legal tender. Cheques are nothing more than a promisary note.

There is a huge difference, and no vender should be, or is required to accept cheques of any type.

If you think differently, let me write you an I.O.U. for that lovely brass loco..... 

@ loathar, I don't like seeing folks loose jobs, but really, the writing (pun) intended has been on the wall about the cheque printing business. That's like complaining about how folks in the outhouse diggin' business are now out of work.  Moving jobs overseas is another issue that we should discuss elsewhere, and while I disgree with it, if you feel that strongly about it, never shop at Walmart or any other large retailer.

Back on topic.

I havent' seen this before, but I'll have to consider this.

I use paypal and ebay a lot. To date -

1. I haven't been overly happy with the fees accrued by either for selling.

2. I haven't been overly happy with resolutions on paypal, but the mistake was mine for not getting tracking info.

3. I have been able to turn a LOT of former hobby material into instant purchasing power for model railroading purposes thanks to both ebay and paypal. Did I loose money? Who knows, do you really track all of your purchases and weigh it against your sales cost minus expenses and storage costs?  I don't. I was just *** happy to mail stuff off and have some $$ to buy things I wanted - now. And thanks again to non-ebay vendors who acccept paypal.

4. I've never had a problem with an account or credit card from online purchases or transactions. Been doing it for over 10 years. In fact, I've had more credit card problems from in person experiences than online (those *** carbons).

5. Would i jump ship from ebay? in 2 seconds, unless, of  couse, they have what I want... 

So mileage varies. Cheers!

[LD357]

 This was inevitable. Take a look at all the ''I got ripped off on EBAY'' posts here and you'll see most were regarding payment/non-payment. With PayPal you, as a buyer,  have protection against being stiffed. As a seller, you have protection against bad checks, bogus money orders and non-payers. It's a good move to help us that use Ebay both as a shopping and a selling place, keep from being ripped off.

[GTX765]

What people fail to see by using PayPal is you are protected by seller protection policy and buyers are protected by buyer protection by using PayPal. When you use money order or check the risk is yours no protection. The point is the seller and buyer will feel confident in their transaction when buying on eBay.

 I still buy trains on eBay and still find deals as a buyer. I find it as a good resource as a MRR marketplace and will continue to use eBay.

I bought my PCM Yb-6 off eBay for $338, and yes it had sound and I paid with PayPal. Best purchase I have made.

[Kurt_Laughlin]

Tell that to my friends from Deluxe and all the other check printers that lost their jobs, careers and pensions.

Not to mention all those folks who lost their jobs making steam locomotives, propeller-engined fighter planes, three-masted wooden battleships, buggy-whips, typewriters, flintlock army rifles, home coal furnaces, flatirons, washing machine wringers, dial telephones, phonograph needles, carbon arc lamps, illuminating gas mantels, carbon paper, mimeograph machines, etc., etc., etc.  SOMEBODY should've done something to make sure that those technologies were never superseded so that the employees - and their descendents - would always have the same jobs in the same places they always had.

I won't use PayPal because it's just another guy sticking his hand out to take a cut.

The last time I bought checks I had to lay almost $20.00 into the outstretched hand of the guy printing them . . .

 

KL

[Don Z]

I won't use PayPal because it's just another guy sticking his hand out to take a cut. I've seen quite a few posts here where people said PayPal did nothing to fix a problem they had. I don't recall a single post where anyone praised them for righting a wrong. (MY )

I'll give you a "PayPal did me right" story:

I won a Proto 2000 locomotive auction on eBay and even though the seller 'insisted' that I pay with a Money Order, his auction stated he also took PayPal. I chose to pay with PayPal. The seller stated he would ship via USPS Priority Mail. 5 days later, no item received. I asked repeatedly for a tracking number and never got a reply. I didn't wait any longer; I opened a dispute through eBay and PayPal. 9 days later, the seller said he mailed the package but still wouldn't provide a tracking number. I escalated the dispute and asked for a refund from PayPal. 21 days after the auction ended, the seller told PayPal he had shipped the item through UPS instead of the USPS. PayPal advised me to refuse delivery of the package. I'm glad I did, because there was no way a Proto 2000 locomotive was inside the small box the seller had shipped. I'm sure his plan was to have proof of delivery by UPS and then it was going to be my word against his that he shipped the loco. Once I refused the shipment, PayPal monitored the tracking number and when PayPal was notified that it was delivered back to the seller, they refunded my PayPal account in full, including shipping charges. The seller was then booted from eBay and theft charges were filed by PayPal. Am I happy I used PayPal? You bet!

Don Z.

[BRAKIE]

The last time I bought checks I had to lay almost $20.00 into the outstretched hand of the guy printing them . . .

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I still writing checks from the first book since I write one check a month..At that rate my checks will last years so,I may never have to buy another box for $18.00.