MAKE AN OFFER - new payment process - heads up

[sheba-knows-best]

Hi

I just went to make an offer for an item and had to pay for it (using paypal and generating a code) PRIOR to the offer being accepted. If the offer is accepted - from what I could tell - I have already paid and there is nothing else for me to do. 

I don't think this is being rolled out to me as a 'problem account' as I have never not bought an item I have made an offer on (when the offer has been accepted). Possibly they are using me as a guinea pig because I buy a lot.

I applaud ebay trying to make buyers take 'making an offer' seriously. Get rid of the non-payers. On the other hand, I think it will put some people off making an offer for a while. Certainly, I was wary of a scam and shut down and re-opened before deciding to make the offer anyway.

Interesting stuff. New to me. Has anyone else seen this yet? Anyone else had experiences?

[mjlongley]

I have no problem with pre-authorising a PayPal payment AS LONG AS I CAN SPECIFY THE CREDIT CARD TO BE CHARGED BY PAYPAL!   -  I use different cards for GBP purchases (AMEX Cashback) and foreign currency payments (Santander ZERO because NO CONVERSION FEE)!  Is it possible to specify the credit card to be charged when pre-authorising?

[mohair-terrier]

If you're happy with this policy, I presume it will be possible to stipulate which card you want at Paypal as I'm assuming you have to login to pre-authorise the payment (and all future auto-payments). Personally I've not dealt with Paypal for a number of years now.

I emailed a couple of sellers yesterday who had items I would have ordinarily made offers on. One didn't bother to reply and the other insisted that the auto payments are Ebay and that the seller has no control over this. Which we know to be false thanks to bennotbill's post on this thread (an option that Ebay are not publicising by the way - they are treating it as a mandatory feature). The seller I contacted told me he had no restrictions on any of his auctions, and yet this is not true as the auto-payment thing kicks in when you try to make an offer on his items. I just gave up, it is not my job to educate sellers, especially if they are not taking it on-board.

The problems is not so much that you are pre-authorising payment, it is 1) you are agreeing to pre-authorise ALL future offers from that point on (with no opt-out), and 2) you are agreeing by default to Ebay storing all of that information until you say otherwise. What if you make a mistake, or something goes wrong? or someone gets access to your ebay account? They would be able to change your password, change the address and then starting buying like mad with your now 'saved' payment information. If someone hacks you, gains access to your ebay acc and that payment info you now have saved thanks to this policy to AUTO-BUY and goes on a spending spree, you won't have a leg to stand on.

This policy is a disaster, it is yet another example of a huge company encouraging people to buy buy buy without financial responsibility. In other words it makes it too easy to purchase and too easy to lose track of your spending.   Having thought about it overnight I see no real option but to withdraw and avoid making any further offers or counter-offers.

[ett1954]

@mohair-terrier 

If what you are saying is correct when you tried to make an offer to a seller who stated he had no restriction for offers and you were directed to set up autopayment, this is extremely worrying for sellers.

Once I heard that this had been implemented I unticked the box requiring buyers to have auto-payments set up.  I want my buyers to be relaxed whenever they bid (this feature is now being trialled on auctions in the US) or purchase my items and I don't want them to feel pressured in any way, especially by what they may perceive as 'dodgy' payment procedures.  Many of my buyers are repeat buyers and often bid on several items over a few days or even a couple of weeks and rightly expect combined shipping.  They are not in a rush and neither am I, and I encourage this.

Whilst I do not have offers activated on my auctions or Buy it Now listings I do send offers to a selection of listings at the end of their selling cycle.  Worryingly over the last few weeks I have sent 50-60 such offers and have had no sales from these.  Normally I would have expected 4 or 5 from this number.

When purchasing on eBay for my business I have always used PayPal as my other business costs and incomes outside of eBay go through this channel which is linked to my business bank accout; it makes for easier bookkeeping.  My personal purchases would be made by either a debit or credit card.  This keeps my business and private costs separate.  There is no way I will be authorising a prepayment for purchases or auctions; if need be I will shop elsewhere.

eBay have touted this change as a means to stop non-payers; this is b.s.  eBay already know who non-payers are; they should take any necessary action against them individually instead of affecting the 99.9% percent of buyers who always pay.  Likewise sellers can always place a non-payer on their BBL as I do, however in saying that I only ever get 1 or 2 a year; not an issue - block, relist and move on.  It appears this move by eBay has managed to alienate both buyers and sellers together - quite a feat; however this is eBay.

This will be a game-changer for me if a seller cannot deny the requirement for autopayment from buyers and will only prioritise my search for alternative selling opportunities outside of eBay after the dearth of sales in the last couple of months.

I mentioned that I don't run offers on my listings however I have just revised one listing to accept offers; my requirement for autopayment to be set up is unticked.  I would appreciate if someone active on this thread could click on the make offer link on the listing (item number 394483692216).  There is no need to progress beyond seeing whether it does take you to autopayment registration or not.

[mohair-terrier]

Hi ett1954,

Firstly I have great respect for honest sellers like yourself, and admire your committment to providing your customers with a quality service. It was good to read your post and know that there are still some reasonable folks out there who are doing the right thing.  I agree, sellers have always been able to add any bad apples to their blocked list the whole time, and yes this is nothing to do with non-payers. This new move by Ebay is nefarious, certainly nothing there to benefit buyers, that is for sure.

I find this constant messing about and interefence with the ebay system depressing, if it aint broke.....you know what I'm saying, they tell us it is 'progress', when it is anything but.  I think this latest policy is the last straw.  Yes, it is worrying that your sales are down.

Having tried a few listings here and there I can tell you that it seems the majority of sellers are now unaware that they are actually demanding auto-pay from their buyers without even realising it and putting buyers in a sticky position. Definitely bad news. It is yet again giving ebay too much power.

I've clicked on your best offer listing and can tell you that as far as I can see it was successful, there was no demand for auto-payment! Kudos 🙏 If I had gone any further it looked like I would have made an offer!

Good luck with everything,

Best, Mo

[ett1954]

@mohair-terrier 

Many thanks for confirming that the unsubscribe from this feature appears to be working.

Just a shame that this feature was never given the advance publicity that would be expected with the options clearly highlighted.  And as ever with eBay the default position is always an opt in.

[treetopsminicottages]

Yesterday,  during the WeekIy Chat, I asked if sellers had been automatically opted in to requiring pre-authorising payment for making/accepting offers:

Is it the case that sellers in UK have automatically been opted in to this requirement.

The reply was:

sellers will have the option to opt in by themselves. Also, they can opt out if they wish any time they want.

Another member asked:

If a buyer provides a payment method before making an offer is it a one time thing?

Or does it get applied automatically to any subsequent offers the buyer makes without them needing to provide it again. If so can buyers opt out?

The reply was: You will have to set it up once only, so this is not something you will have to do again after setting it up the first time. 

As a buyer I certainly do not want to pay for each item including post with no option request a combined invoice but instead hope the seller will take time to refund the excess post each time. So, for now I will just stick to BINs.

[ett1954]

@treetopsminicottages 

With regards to the answers you received to your two questions I am afraid the responder was being very economical with the truth to put it mildly.

With regards to opting in I was automatically opted in and the first I knew about this was from @sheba-knows-best 's opening post.  I checked my settings and found the 'new' box for the feature was automatically ticked - it is now unticked  ..... by me.

The scond response received was not even the answer to your question but to what would have been a different question.  Your responder read out the answer to a different question, or maybe the question they wanted you to ask and that they had the answer for!  C.S. in training or untrained, or just poor responses from a script?

[belindashandbags]

I don't have accept offers on  my listings, but what I do have is for me to send offers to watchers. But something has changed where there are watchers, it only picks out a few listings to send offers to 

[mohair-terrier]

If I'm understanding you correctly, you were previously able to make offers to ALL watchers on all items? and now it is only a few listings? 

It sounds like something you would need to take up with customer services to get to the bottom of what has changed and why, as obviously it cuts down your chance of making sales.

It is potentially a double-whammy for sellers when combined with the horrible bullying auto-pay thing they've imposed on buyers.

Whatever the change is - you can guarantee it is there to profit Ebay. They never leave anything alone for very long.

[belindashandbags]

Yes thats right. Every new watcher I could send an offer to, I click the button where it says send offer and it brings a list up, but only about half actually highlight to send an offer to

[sheba-knows-best]

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@bennotbill wrote:

This has been around for a while now.

If you look on your selling account, selling preferences , managing who can buy from you............

You should see....................

It's drawn some complaints as the money is reserved/pending for a while until the offer passes or is accepted. This means those that make several high priced offers could find themselves with not enough funds to pay bills.

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Just for info. I was rereading this thread. I didn't implement this deliberately on my selling ID. But I just thought I'd toodle along now and check it. It has recently been ticked for me. I unticked. Maybe check your own if you don't want it on? Thanks @bennotbill 

[ojewellery]

I've just been buying some back to school bits and used make an offer.  I've selected the card I wanted to use and then did bank verification for a payment of £0.00.  No actual payment or reserve is showing on my account so that worry mentioned in the thread may not be the issue initially thought.

What I'm not happy about is that I have just received an email to say I've authorised that payment method for all future auction and best offer payments. 

I didn't conciously do that.

I would not have done that. 

This is my business account, my higher value purchases are for business.  If I had known I was  selecting the method for all future payments I wouldn't have purchased/ offered on this lower value item on eBay.  Now I won't be using make offer or auctions for any business purchases unless I go to the faff of creating another account to do it (unlikely)

[ett1954]

I mentioned this consequence of what would be the effect of the implementation of this 'feature' in post No. 23.  This together with not allowing sellers to generate combined invoices unless the seller is aware of this feature and opts out of requiring a buyer having to register a pre-payment.

eBay have managed to shoot themselves in both feet and pi**ed of both sellers and buyers.  I just cannot understand the logic of eBay these days - driving business away from the site ....... nonsensical.

[treetopsminicottages]

This new 'feature' was confirmed during the Weekly Chat last wednesday. (see my earlier post).

There have been quite a few discussions on these boards since pre-authorisation for offers was introduced in the UK with issues like not able to ask for a combined invoice or select click and collect delivery.

I understand there is a means of removing the card details but am not sure if anyone has managed to do so as yet!

[sheba-knows-best]

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@ojewellery wrote:

I've just been buying some back to school bits and used make an offer.  I've selected the card I wanted to use and then did bank verification for a payment of £0.00.  No actual payment or reserve is showing on my account so that worry mentioned in the thread may not be the issue initially thought.

What I'm not happy about is that I have just received an email to say I've authorised that payment method for all future auction and best offer payments. 

I didn't conciously do that.

I would not have done that. 

This is my business account, my higher value purchases are for business.  If I had known I was  selecting the method for all future payments I wouldn't have purchased/ offered on this lower value item on eBay.  Now I won't be using make offer or auctions for any business purchases unless I go to the faff of creating another account to do it (unlikely)

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I'm not disputing that this would be very annoying - and I agree ill thought out.

However, everytime the seller has selected that you 'pre-pay' I think you will see a screen saying - "this is your prefered payment method, do you still want to proceed?" and I think at this stage you can change the card etc. Certainly for me - I have bought quite a few items now using this method and each time it shows my paypal address and I choose to go ahead.

Actually, I hate to say it, but it seems to be working a treat for me as a bargain hunter. Could just be the current climate, but people seem to be taking my 'low-ish' offers seriously. I think because they know the money is 'in the bag' and are more tempted - they don't want to risk a counter when I have pre-agreed to pay. 

[ojewellery]

Are you saying you get to choose still?  I was frustrated with the email as I read it that I don't wording below

Hi xxxxx,

You’ve selected Visa ending in xxxx as your payment method for the offers and bids you make on eBay.

For your records, we’ve included a copy of the payment authorisation:

“You authorise eBay to save these payment details and use them to collect payment from you for items you offer to buy or win at auction on eBay. The amount collected from you will consist of your offer or bid (up to the total entered by you) and any applicable costs.”

[sheba-knows-best]

As I say I agreed to pay with paypal.

EVer since, it just keeps asking me on lots of 'offers' - do you still agree tio pay with this email address - and i just 'proceed'. I never got a separate email like yours.

[get_luck_7777-0]

hi you can clear the card thing by un clicking the instand payment box in youe sellers setting

[mjlongley]

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

I am only a buyer NEVER a seller!

Sent from my phone

[sheba-knows-best]

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@mjlongley wrote:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

I am only a buyer NEVER a seller!

Sent from my phone

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I admit it. I'm nosey. Why would someone who is a buyer - NEVER a seller - wander onto the ebay seller business boards??? Do you just have too much time on your hands or was there some secret you were hooing to discover?