Automatic Payments on Buy it Now/Offers

[rochesterny2014]

I have decided after more than 15 years that I will no longer purchase from ebay. My preferred method of payment on eBay is paypal. My preferred method of payment on PayPal is my PayPal credit. Three times out of the last five purchases, PayPal has ignored my online purchase method of payment and taking money directly out of my checking account. This is due to eBay's new rule for automatic payments when you purchase something in buy it now or you make an offer. Instead of choosing which payment method you would like to use, it just automatically takes it out. This would be no problem if PayPal removed the payment from the correct preferred online purchase. EBay blames it on PayPal and PayPal blames it on ebay. EBay says that they made this rule so that sellers get their money instead of having to wait for it. I have absolutely no issue making an immediate payment however, I would like to choose where that money is coming from and PayPal is not allowing me to do so. They are just taking the money from whatever account they feel like taking it out of. My bank has removed and blocked PayPal from taking money out of any of my bank accounts however, in order to pay my PayPal credit card or my PayPal mastercard, they need to link my bank to it. So this is just a huge mess. The easiest way to fix this is just to not purchase from eBay at all anymore. It's no great loss considering that sellers are charging astronomical amounts for shipping unnecessarily.

[puppytrucks]

you can change that. i took issue with it too, but there is an option to change your preferred method of payment. the change takes effect immediately.

[darksidexxxx]

My issue is, i am apprehensive about giving my information when no deal is in place. My identity has been stolen before, my phone company was recently hacked. It took a near act of (insert your worshipped deity or God here) to get Ebay out of my paypal a year ago. Somehow it got linked without my express permission. You cant trust a large or even small corporation with your credit information. Eventually they will be hacked, and somehow my info is always  in the stolen data.

[aeparts1]

The OP:

"I have decided after more than 15 years that I will no longer purchase from ebay." 10-27-23

I see you have three positive feedback in the last month for purchases.

I guess you changed your mind. Thanks for continuing to shop on eBay.

[bluesuga]

Is there a time limit for sellers or buyers to leave feedback? How many days do you have to leave feedback before the option is no longer available?

[bonjourami]

Sixty days.

[turbosan007]

The same issue here. I was unaware that PayPal kept charging my bank account,  that I provided just because the PayPal requires one, with "automatic payments" instead of charging my default method, credit card.
They depleted my bank account to the point that I did not have sufficient funds on my bank account for a next purchase and the bank charged me NSF $40.00 fee. The PayPal emailed me that they will attempt to pull money again in three business days. 
I found that "automatic payment" on PayPal and changed it to credit card. I also put some money into PayPall balance as well just in case and despite of that, the PayPal charged my bank account again. Luckily, I managed to deposit some money on that bank account via of series transfers from my debit card from another bank account to PayPal balance to the bank account that was charged. If I did not manage to do that on time, PayPal would charge my insufficient bank account again resalting another NSF $40.00 fee.
While I am paying my purchases promptly, the PayPal should not have rights to disregard my default settings and charge my bank account whenever they want.
When you make offer and it is accepted, they charge you immediately anyway so why then not the credit card that is my primary payment method.

[gurlcat]

It's interesting that you make this reply today, because just last night I made a purchase from Walmart and it was a leap of faith that it would draw from my preferred method (Paypal Credit, which does not have an affiliated card, so if I want to use credit online I would much rather use this^ because I can't use it at brick and mortar stores or, heaven forbid, a utility company or whatever -better to leave my Visa credit card with enough balance for an emergency like that).  Sorry, that was complicated, but the gist is I couldn't know if this Walmart purchase would charge to my preferred method until after it was already done.  -It had only a Paypal icon to click, then "Complete purchase" .... NOT that transfer to Paypal screen where you can choose which Wallet account to use.  

Luckily, it DID draw from my PP Credit as I hoped it would. 

But eBay, now you've got me wondering.  I know that when I pay for Buy It Now items that I've put in my shopping cart, as well as auction wins and accepted offers (by sellers who have auto-pay turned 'off') ..... then all my options are visible on the shopping cart checkout screen.  I've made only one or two 'offer' purchases where the seller had auto-pay 'on', but it has been at least a month or more, and I don't remember if it drew from my preferred method or not.  

But yes this would be a very important thing to consider, because buyers are angry enough about the requirement, but having it draw from an unintended account can be disastrous.  And if it works for a Walmart purchase, then why not an eBay auto-pay offer accepted one?  

In the past I have had pretty good experiences with Paypal customer service.  Since you have a recent case of their preferred method option failing, would you please call them and see what their explanation is, and share the answer here? 

[ridingtoy]

This just happened to me today on two purchases. They were inexpensive, fortunately, because when I selected Paypal for payment the money came out of my checking account automatically! What if it was an expensive item and the funds weren't in my account? Would my bank account be overdrawn and the bank then charge me an over draft fee? I've been with eBay for 22 years but I won't buy anything other than inexpensive items that I have bank funds for from here on out unless this is fixed. This business about doing it so that sellers get their money right away is bogus! I've been buying for 22 years and sellers always got their money, and I as a seller always got mine although it takes about 3 days for it to be in my bank account now whereas it used to be available in my Paypal account immediately.

[gurlcat]

---

@ridingtoy wrote:

 This business about doing it so that sellers get their money right away is bogus!

---

What's so depressing about this is the fact that it gives the illusion of eBay favoring sellers over buyers, when that's not the case at all.  -When was the last time eBay actually did something purely to make sellers happy, with no benefit to them (eBay)?  

I wish this was more widely known, and now I can't even remember the details perfectly, but I read it on a post (I think by @valueaddedresource ) ..... what actually happened was the eBay shareholders demanded that eBay change how they report their sales figures.  They WERE reporting sales including accepted offers and auction win amounts, whether the buyers paid or not.  Now they must report ONLY PAID sales totals, so obviously they have a huge incentive to increase that.  That is the real reason for this mess, which is actually harming sellers just as much as buyers, if not more because it's our income.  

EDIT: @campanaelia  Were you aware of ^ this? ^ -I ask because I've noticed these discussions have seemed to put you in a sellers vs. buyers mindset here and there.  I just wish you could see how we're really all in the same boat, and that boat is a corporation, a mindless, heartless, money-computer/monster, whose sole purpose is to grow profits for shareholders.  

[ridingtoy]

Thank you for that reply. In fairness, I can understand eBay trying to make sure buyers are legitimately going to make the purchase they've committed to, as I've had a few non-payers over the years myself. I guess the main thing that got me (and I realize it's not all eBay's fault - Paypal automatically made the payment method decision) is that the purchase price for the items I bought were taken out of my checking account without my authorizing it, like control of how I'm going to pay for something was taken away from me.  As I mentioned in my post, what if it had been a more expensive item I wanted to put on Paypal Credit or use cash funds in my Paypal account, and to my shock they automatically pulled it from money in my checking that I had already written checks for to pay bills? I could have had checks bouncing and overdraft fees! When these auto payments are done you have no idea where the money was taken from unless you logon to Paypal and check the activity page. If you view your purchase on eBay it just says Paypal for payment method, not the source Paypal used in your wallet. In the future, if there's something I want that's only on eBay, I'll just have to make sure I have the funds set aside in my checking account just to be safe. 

[campanaelia]

@gurlcat 

Of course I realize it's all about the shareholders, AMOF I made this comment in the link below stating exactly that point...

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Default-Payment-Method-quot-can-quot-or-quot-must-quot-set-Why/...

@valueaddedresource  and @ittybitnot have also discussed that point in many threads here.

The reason it ends up pinning buyers against sellers is because many sellers post things like you must be a deadbeat or you must be not planning to pay if a buyer doesn't agree with using auto-pay, and it has nothing to do with that.

Sellers already have the 2 strike rule in their buyer requirements to block non-payers and they have the option to use BIN format w/IPR. Sellers also have the BBL which blocks a buyer permanently. Sellers already had the tools and options available but they continue to whine giving ebay fodder to blame auto-pay on them, so here we are.

On the other hand buyers have to deal with just as many non-performing sellers. Yes they get a defect if they actually choose the OOS/Damaged reason, but how many sellers lie about the reason, such as Buyer asked to cancel, or problem with address? Then the buyer has to waste more time to report the seller and I"d bet the majority of times it's never reported.

When a buyer doesn't pay the strike is given automatically when the item gets cancelled after 96 hours. My point is buyers get the UPI strike more easily than a seller gets a defect because sellers can lie about the reason, the honor system here doesn't seem to be working fairly.

Buyers also have no seller blocklist to block a seller permanently. Ebay makes many changes over the years a seller block list for buyers seems like a pretty simple thing to create, but no.

[gurlcat]

  
If the sellers saying "You must be a deadbeat" were the SAME ones cancelling orders, you would have a better point, but you don't know that.  You're cherrypicking and packing together 'bad's just to claim that sellers "continue to whine."   Also when we whine about non-payers, if you're not a non-payer, then why ARE you calling it whining?  It's not about you.   It seems like you just want to sow arbitrary division.  I wish you would stop doing that. 

[campanaelia]

I've paid for every item in 20 years and I bet if I averaged it out I would have at least 2 or 3 **bleep** cancellations from sellers a month. If I was a whiner I would be creating a thread each time, heck I haven't even left negative feedback in years for any seller. But yes in conversations on the boards I will discuss my experiences on ebay the same way you do. And don't try to tell me what and what not to do, thank you.

[gurlcat]

I didn't try to tell you what to do; I said I wished you would stop.  But I know it's probably a pointless wish. 

[campanaelia]

Last I checked this is the buyers forum, the problem is sellers spend more time here than buyers do, so when an actual buyer only, like myself, comments here you all get defensive and pick apart their comments and take them out of context, trust me I'm use to it.

Like the other day when that lady was saying she had so many non-payers and it turned out she only had one in the past 12 months. And if you looked at her feedback left for others, she had about 20% negs for sellers too. That sounds like a whiner to me whether I'm a non-payer or not. Then when I confronted her you tell me I jumped on her and then question me if I'm ok. Why would you even defend that record, because she's a seller?

And to boot, she also created a thread in the sellers forum about her one unpaid item and posted about it 5 times in different threads, talk about a drama queen. But go ahead and jump on me instead because you can't handle the truth.

Here is a link to that thread to refresh your memory...

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Auto-payment-now-mandatory-for-AUCTIONS/m-p/34492441#M488929