Ebay payment policy change

In an effort to reduce the amount of clutter in my house, I've been selling off some stuff through eBay over the last few months. Mostly bicycle parts and they've done well.

However, a few days ago I received a notification of a policy change: Ebay will no longer be using PayPal for payment processing. They now want to do direct payments to your bank account. As such they want you to give them your bank account information.  (FWIW, eBay apparently sold PayPal a few years ago)

My response to this change has been essentially, "No berking way am I giving eBay my bank account info..." But as a result, declining this requirement means I won't be able to list items for auction, which is disappointing. While eBay's 10% cut hurts, the process is easy and you don't have to deal with flakey Facebook or CL buyers.  With eBay, the winner pays, you ship, done. 

Anyway - is anyone else dealing with this? If so - how?  I'd like to continue using eBay to get rid of stuff, but I'm not comfortable with this policy change. I suppose I could set up a second account with my bank for eBay stuff, but in general banks tend to not give out free accounts unless they have direct deposits (at least I am pretty sure my bank doesn't and I really don't feel like changing banks or adding another bank in my life). 

Thoughts?

I linked my bank account.  If it's that big a deal open another checking account that you only use to accept ebay disbursements and then transfer those funds to your normal account

I share your concerns.  I have not yet given them my account info, but I probably will, since I have a fair bit of stuff listed and more to list. 

Simply put, I don't trust them, and this arrangement would presumably allow them to pull funds directly in case of a dispute.

If you qualify for a credit union anywhere, they are often free.

I already have a dedicated account for PayPal, but there's NFW I'll allow eBay direct access to my account. At least PayPal is somewhat(?) tied to FDIC rules(at least the last I knew).

Paypal through a credit card not tied to our actual accounts. If I can't do that I don't need the service.

I'm going back and forth on this myself. I buy more than I sell in eBay but don't like the idea of my bank account linked. The idea of a standalone account at a credit union is probably a good avenue to explore.

I sell daily on Ebay. I did give them my info for a business checking account that won't be used for much else.

One drawback is that rather than leaving a balance in Paypal to spend we'll now have to deposit money to spend into our Paypal accounts or let Paypal pull money out of checking accounts or put it on a credit card.

Another drawback (for me) is that I would routinely go into Paypal and credit people with a shipping discount who purchased multiple items (occurs regularly). Even if Ebay allows such a procedure I can see it becoming an accounting nightmare because they will have (possibly) already transferred payment for items to me. 

My next question is how often will Ebay pay me? Are they holding the money for any length of time and making interest on everyone's money?

1st I've heard of this. I don't like it at all. Then again PayPal required a bank account for some services right?

I like the "open a second account" idea.

I am in the same boat about ebay and facebook. They get hacked way too often, to put in a checking or savings account. I prefer pal even though the fees are a b#tch. Plus all the fee's with ebay is so ridiculous.  They charge a fee now for shipping. They literaly make it worthless to sell things and they hardly protect the sellers. I had a buyer that refused to pay and had to call ebay several times, two weeks later they finally reimbursed me, but charged me a additional listing fee. Goodbye felcia.

It seems like a good way for them to get rid of sellers who occasionally have a widget or two to sell and focus more on business oriented sellers. I probably won't bother with eBay's new seller account requirements. It could be a great opportunity for a start-up or expansion to move into the market for sellers like me.

This would seem to make Paypal irrelevant. 

At its best, you'd sell on ebay.  Buyer would put money in your Paypal account.  You could then either shop with that balance, or transfer it to your bank account.  At some point, I could no longer spend my Paypal balance, so transferring to bank account was only option.  Now, I can't get paid into my Paypal account, and I can't spend the balance.  WTF do I need a Paypal account for?

1988RedT2 said:

This would seem to make Paypal irrelevant. 

At its best, you'd sell on ebay.  Buyer would put money in your Paypal account.  You could then either shop with that balance, or transfer it to your bank account.  At some point, I could no longer spend my Paypal balance, so transferring to bank account was only option.  Now, I can't get paid into my Paypal account, and I can't spend the balance.  WTF do I need a Paypal account for?

Sumting wong, you need to contact Paypal. There's no reason you should have been stopped from spending from a paypal balance.

NOT A TA said:

1988RedT2 said:

This would seem to make Paypal irrelevant. 

At its best, you'd sell on ebay.  Buyer would put money in your Paypal account.  You could then either shop with that balance, or transfer it to your bank account.  At some point, I could no longer spend my Paypal balance, so transferring to bank account was only option.  Now, I can't get paid into my Paypal account, and I can't spend the balance.  WTF do I need a Paypal account for?

Sumting wong, you need to contact Paypal. There's no reason you should have been stopped from spending from a paypal balance.

 

 

No, they stopped access to it unless I gave up my SSN.  I eventually did, but must need to turn something back on. 

Didn't previously have to give them SSN.  I've had a Paypal account since about 2003.

It clearly is the splitting of ebay and paypal and ebay is trying to squeeze paypal out of its business, which is fine. 

Think of it this way. a few years ago, paypal WAS ebay, and, back then, paypal had your bank account info so it could transfer money to your account or use your bank account to pay someone. 

Ebay probably ALREADY has your bank account info, they just want you to update it and tell them its ok to use it again. I'm really not seeing the difference between paypal's service and ebay's service. am I missing something?

Yesterday was when I gave Ebay my info because I got a notice I wouldn't be allowed to post new listings unless....... So the orders I shipped this morning should begin using the new process without Paypal being used by Ebay to give me my loot. Will monitor and see how it goes. If my costs go up or it creates things that annoy me I'll switch to Amazon & Etsy.

Since my website accepts Paypal along with credit cards The Ebay change is going to make more accounting work for me.

I will note that Ebay has been collecting sales tax for certain states now and automatically adding it on to sales. So I'm sure they've figured a way to make profit on interest while they hold that money before sending it to each state, yet we didn't see a reduction in sellers fees did we? Now we're told sellers fees "probably" won't increase with the new change.......

1988RedT2 said:

NOT A TA said:

1988RedT2 said:

This would seem to make Paypal irrelevant. 

At its best, you'd sell on ebay.  Buyer would put money in your Paypal account.  You could then either shop with that balance, or transfer it to your bank account.  At some point, I could no longer spend my Paypal balance, so transferring to bank account was only option.  Now, I can't get paid into my Paypal account, and I can't spend the balance.  WTF do I need a Paypal account for?

Sumting wong, you need to contact Paypal. There's no reason you should have been stopped from spending from a paypal balance.

 

 

No, they stopped access to it unless I gave up my SSN.  I eventually did, but must need to turn something back on. 

Didn't previously have to give them SSN.  I've had a Paypal account since about 2003.

The SS# is so they can report to the IRS people who sell over a certain gross amount.

I just sold something on eBay yesterday. It was a fixed price OBO listing. Got paid through PayPal but eBay put a hold on it until Feb 9th. I've had the same eBay and PayPal accounts since 2008ish. Rarely buy and even more rarely sell. No reason for them to hold my money just because I don't sell often. Good thing I don't need the money for groceries or rent etc, as I'm sure some people selling stuff on eBay do.

In reply to 90BuickCentury :

Oddly, of the parts I sold on eBay back in December, only one of the sales had the payment placed on hold.  And it wasn't the highest sale either of the parts I was selling.  It was released without issue.

I had a lengthy chat discussion with eBay support yesterday and because my current listing was placed before the change, that sale will go through Paypal.  While it may get held, that is not really a concern right now.  

I haven't sold anything on eBay, but long ago for buying things I linked my Paypal account to a separate bank account that I set up specifically for that purpose (I still make purchases with a credit card, they just wanted an account number to link to).  You could do the same thing for selling.  You don't need to maintain any specific balance in that account, and as money comes in you can just transfer it to your main bank account.

With my bank I was able to set up the separate account online, it only took a few minutes.  Yours may be different but it's worth taking a look.

eBay causing me an overdraft charge plus taking the original amount because they sided with a lying, scamming buyer?

Not a chance in hell.

Glad I'm all done with eBay.

I've had the same eBay account since before I was 18 (yikes, that's 20+ years) but if they stop accepting Paypal I am going to have a hard time using it. Might actually save me some money, since it's too easy to click that "Buy Now" button. I too have a dedicated account solely for PayPal / online purchases, but I don't know that I'd want to give that information to eBay.

I went and looked at my account history and:

"Member since: Apr-22-01" jeez

Sold something last week and as soon as i printed the shipping label the $ was in my bank account.  
 

whining about fees is silly too, it's the cost of doing business and exposing your stuff to the biggest market.  I can't count how many times something was listed locally forever with no bites that i then took to ebay and got 5x more or greater, for a 10% fee.  That works for me

In reply to TheRX7Project :

From what I understand the change won't affect purchasing on eBay, only selling.

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

How is that going to work? You will be able to buy and use paypal, but when you get paid it will be directly through ebay? So I'm guessing ebay will act like a vendor then?