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?

[mohair-terrier]

What I really object to is that this is about FORCE, ebay are forcing buyers to have auto-pay/pre-authorise rammed down our throats and the only way this can be stopped is at the seller's end. Some sellers I've contacted do not understand this process at all and swear blind they do not have anything like this turned on. 

After agreeing an offer through email messaging, I've asked a few sellers if they would take auto-pay off a particular listing to allow me to go ahead, because for my system there's no way to make it secure enough. I was ignored every single time.

Sellers are being short-sighted with this.  Buyers have all been tarred with the same brush with this hideous move, as if they cannot be trusted and if not forced to auto-pay, will back out of the deal, like as if buyers are the enemy who have to be forced to cough up and sellers are whiter than white angels, and in actual fact a lot of sellers are pulling every scam going.

For me, this auto-pay thing has ruined ebay, it's incredibly detrimental.

Sheba states that sellers have been accepting low offers because they know the money is already in the bag, but I have not known sellers to be accepting low offers at any point in time. If anything the CoL crisis has made things far worse, in other words sellers are holding out for vastly inflated prices and won't budge no matter how many times they have to list. 

[ett1954]

@mohair-terrier 

"Some sellers I've contacted do not understand this process at all and swear blind they do not have anything like this turned on. "

This is the problem - they have not switched this on - it has been switched on for them by eBay with no notification.  Most sellers, especially casual sellers, do not know about this and have probably even less idea on where to find the offending box to untick it.  I switched it off immediately I heard about this on these boards - I want my buyers to browse at leisure and pay at leisure (within reason); I also want them to be able to combine multiple purchases into one invoice.

I would explain to potential sellers that you are not willing to submit a payment option before making the offer as that payment option would be used for any future offers and point them in the direction of this thread to get an understanding of what is going on.

If they don't respond, well that is there potential loss.  You have done your best.  Sellers will eventually catch on that this is potentially harming their sales opportunities.

[mohair-terrier]

Thanks, but when I did contact them and politely explain the situation, I did explain, including the fact that it then automatically saves the credi card for all future offers with ALL sellers from then on, and not just that particular offer.

It made no difference. They didn't want to know.

You are right, a lot of sellers are certainly unaware of what's happened, but equally most buyers will just agree to this thing without understanding exactly what it is they are signing up to.

I'll keep saying it - save your credit card to Ebay's servers, and you are vulnerable to getting hacked.

We've all seen the Met Police hacking report in the media recently, right? If the police aren't safe, who is. No company that's for sure.

[mohair-terrier]

Update.  Following a fair amount of chaos and a number of failures...

Just wanted to say that I was in contact with a lovely seller yesterday who turned off auto-pay so that I could make a pre-agreed offer and buy the item I was after.  They did not know that Ebay had automatically turned on this feature and said that it was not something they would ever have activated give the choice.

I was able to take a screen-shot of bennetbill's instructions and send this .jpg to the seller - they then easily and quickly deactivated it.

Grateful for the post, and grateful to this kind understanding & accomodating seller.  I just wish that Ebay had properly informed all sellers that this feature is automatically applied to all offers (as most are not aware) and given proper instructions on how to deactivate it.

[mjlongley]

This is typical of IT 'techies' - they tend to have blinkered vision and not see the wider picture. I used to metaphorically 'kick my techies up the ass' and tell them to consider the 'man in the street'! Ebay should have informed ALL USERS of their intentions and made the default position "OFF" leaving those sellers who wished to turn it "ON", if they had done that then buyers would have also known what was happening and then people like I with 20+ years Ebay experience would not have been left not knowing 'what the hell was happening'! I may have another word with Ebay - they have previously reversed one of their changes after I pointed its flaws!

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[mohair-terrier]

You're right.

Agree 100%!

But I think this is more than programmers being divorced from the end-user.

This change seems too huge to get Ebay to take notice, they just keep hammering home the stock 'party line', and by all accounts they're even looking to extend it further (big mistake).  They've railroaded it through in a crazy unbelievable, ill-considered way.

If sellers had been informed & decided this thing was something they agreed with and wanted to activate, well then that's their choice and they take the consequences. But the way it's actually been done is unforgivable.

[dartstamps1966]

I did the same today , I thought it was scammers , it creates more work for the buyer and yes putting you off from making an offers , and having to keep going into the bank to approve my offers every time I make an offer on something, and yes from making offers. 
      Rick 

[helepannel_5]

The same has happened to me and I have challenged Ebay. 

I don't want ebay to store my debit card details so have to remove them after each offer made.

Now it is confusing sellers. I wanted to make an offer on two items from the same seller. The seller messaged "don't pay until you receive my reduced invoice for combined postage".  At the point of offer I had to enter my card details which triggered instant payment. The seller then "scrabbled around" (her words) to work out how to give me reduced postage. 

Ebay says this new system is beneficial to me and I will get used to it. It isn't and I won't! 

[ett1954]

@helepannel_5 

As I mentioned in post # 23, eBay have, in this change, managed a rare feat - they have managed to pi** off both buyers and sellers with the same feature introduction.

Since this introduction I have not had a single offer accepted by watchers (one of the rare true 'improvements' recently made on the platform).  I was previously seeing around a 10% acceptance for these offers.  They appear to have now killed this feature.  Sure, they have stopped non-payers - now nobody pays!

I would much rather have a non-paying buyer in preference to the alternative - a remorse return masked as a 'not as described'.  Non-payers are easy to deal with; report (strike for the buyer) and move on.

[mohair-terrier]

Oh dear, when I read your post helepanel_5 I had a sharp intake of breath. 

I found it very troubling, allowing Ebay to temporarily store your debit card details at all is really scary!

It's even worse than credit card details, at least with credit card you can phone up and freeze the card, challenge transactions, do chargebacks if it comes to it, and you have some legal protection.

If someone gets your debit card they have easy access to you bank account! Fills me with horror.

Please be careful with this strategy to beat auto-pay, if something goes wrong, say your internet access goes down for two weeks just as you were going to remove the debit card again, you could be scr*wed and in real trouble.

Scary stuff.

I've considered doing it the way you are, keep removing each time afterwards to get round it, but it's a proper pain in the a*se and something can easily go wrong. I conclude it's not really worth the risk.

What Ebay have done with this thing is just foul. I am really struggling now & am hardly making any purchases, I would normally buy quite a lot on making offers or counter-offers, but now - almost nothing.  They've ruined it.  No-one really wants it, apart from a few dodgy sellers who like getting the money 'instantly'.

[mohair-terrier]

Sorry to hear that. Clearly honest buyers and genuine sellers are both having a hard time with this stupid exasperating and infuriating change.

I feel for you.  

And I don't know what the answer is...

[technthread]

I ordered a few things last week off my personal account and finally got to see how it looks on the app. 

I have been able to buy on auction and get the cashback site to recognise the purchase so that seems all good when the sale goes through on the same day. 

Click and collect and the use of PayPal credit is impossible so I am glad that I don't need to use those for now.

Any sellers who want to have this pre-payment option turned on who use auction and best offer may as well offer free postage to simplify it for buyers as much as possible. 

[trollknight]

yea i hate it,sadly it means that offers are now lost to me as of now ,i will pay when the offer is accepted by the seller and when i want to pay it.

[tech-tonix]

I hate this "Ebay knows best how to help sellers" stuff, like Ebay bots crawling around re-enabling GSP in listings when I always turn it off at the outset

[niallrmcg]

Yet another own goal from ebay; they appear determined to screw around things that are working just fine. I have never not paid, and object to being forced to pay upfront and to use PayPal rather than by another means. This just means any seller that ticks the box "require buyers to provide a payment method…”  won’t be selling anything to me.

Incidentally, if you do make an offer like this and change your mind and want to stop payment should the offer be accepted (something ebay make clear you can do - not that they need to as you clearly have the right to cancel anyway), just log on to the Paypal site and remove the automatic payment option in settings. If the buyer accepts the offer, the system can’t take your money, leaving ebay and the seller to sort out the mess of their own creation.

[mohair-terrier]

So, I know I posted quite a bit on this topic, and thought I'd do a quick update.

For me, pre-authorise is still a disaster, it has largely ruined Ebay for me. I've said it before & I'll say it again - this move is abusive and a total kick in the teeth for long-standing honest buyers.

There has been the odd item I've really had to get and I've managed through an exhausting message exchange to persuade the seller to untick the box, but in the main, buy-it-now items are still out of bounds. Every time I go to make an offer and see 'the box' pop up my heart sinks. Mainly I just axe the whole thing immediately. I can't be bothered to argue.

What I can say for absolute certain is that most sellers are still not even AWARE of this vile sweeping change that fundamentally changes the nature of this marketplace.  Ebay didn't publicise it and are still not alerting sellers to the fact that they even have a choice in this. (which is a disgrace, and no doubt deliberate). I'm sure lots of sellers must be missing out on big numbers of sales by having this flaming thing enabled.

And from what people have said to me, it is still catching lots of buyers who make an offer for the first time since the change, and feel pressured to go ahead, not even realising the enormity of what they are signing up to. Dreadful.

I don't care what Ebay say or do to try to wear us down and force it down our throats, or how great anyone says it is, I will NEVER accept this feature, and I will never capitulate, it is utter folly to allow yourself to be Ebay's b*tch like this and put yourself at enormous risk in so many different ways.  Until such time as they drop this monumentally stupid policy, making buy-it-now offers will be off the table.  And if they extend pre-pay to auctions, that will get flushed by me as well.

[treetopsminicottages]

I can not understand why, if they do now insist on payment details being provided for offers, there is no tick box to agree to save the payment method for later. I regularly meet this system on other sites without a problem & never tick the box. Okay it still doesn't solve the issue of combined purchases but it would at least take away some of the concerns posted on the forum. Since the introduction of this requirement I have avoided making/accepting any offers & I guess others have too.

[joseywales13]

Exactly, so if I am buying for example 4 cd's finishing over 4 days, I would pay for 4 lots of postage.... nah, forget it the seller loses the sale and I go elsewhere and give someone else my business. I am in control of paying, no-one else... Bad idea.  

[cuddlybeast]

I had to do this recently on a pair of Levi's I was interested in.  Like you, I made an offer and got routed through the same PayPal process.  I was suspicious but did my best to circumvent this "new route", but found I couldn't if I wanted to make an offer.  The whole "accept, reject or make a counter offer" process was simply removed from my control.  I won't be doing this again as it felt distinctly disempowering.  (I did get my Levi jeans but hated the fact I had no contact with the seller).  It's an eBay "fail" in my view.

On a similar note, PayPal now takes me straight to payment (when I'm buying), without asking for my login or password.  I have never consented to this and I'm still  in the process of finding how I can disable this "feature".  I don't need payment being made a nano second faster, at the expense of my privacy or control. 

[gothicrosegallery]

Yes, had this a few times. I skipped the card verification part, so payment was not taken and the offers still went through.

I do not like this feature at all, and find it really off putting, so I won't be making offers unless I really have no other choice and it was the only listing available.