A warning about paypal credit (so called merchant cash advance)

[hitechworldtrading]

First of all to make this crystal clear

ebay and paypal are machines who do not evalute the appropiateness of what they are doing or deciding.

In the end it is a binary descision yes/no fed by their demands (if these are satisfied).

For instance even if a problem actually was fixed, and not seller caused, you can still become punished for it in the future.

Now about the paypal cash advance.

You should consider very carefully all aspects, and also consider on the percentage you pay, you still have to pay ebay fees and shipping as well. When your sales drop somehow, it could be holiday season, youd see a situation where you still have to pay previous months invoices from sales youd expect.

You could find yourself in a situation where you can not pay the ebay invoice on time.

The process is fully automated and leds to account hold, removal of your listings gradually, and finally suspension. Installments dont count. And I guess you could be missing only 20 USD and it would be the same.

If you trade high risk like selling items you dont have, if these transactions fail, your paypal Balance will go negative, and while paypal will still allow you to purchase shipping labels through them, when you dont, its bad for you. Effectively you may be forced to cease trading.

I havent had negative paypal Balance, however my ebay account was on hold.

From what I understand, it was fully unrecoverable, as they also started to remove listings.

I would be on the streets for some 200 USD. 

I did choose a too high repayment percentage, and didnt fully consider, the previous months charges, and this is on the total received including shipping, and ebay fees going off as well.

These are quite high for my accounts 17% and 25% total.

I didnt do the proper financial planning, and these paypal cash advances run down fully automated. There is no such thing as a repayment holiday. 25% dont look much, but its on the total incl shipping and fees, so it is effectively higher. Compared to what you actually sell without fees and shipping it is a much higher percentage, and considering your profits, it is even higher.

I have recovered from the most of this by now, but it was a horrible summertime, Overdue bills, no cash no food. I didnt stop selling, I didnt die from starvation, but at times I worked almost 24/7 to solve this.

Id really like to warn you to consider your outgoings carefully and consider the effective percentages looking at your sales only (not shipping) and your profits only (minus the fees and items you buy for resale), is much higher.

It is a percentage charged on the total you receive, incl shipping and fees and subscriptions (the total due to ebay each month).

It was only some 220 USD however the next month, of course the new invoice added to the overdue total. Suddently it was almost 700 USD, and soon listings started to disappear.

I was lucky I had another account for a while, never put much efforts into it, now I had to...

I am realizing ebay and paypal are machines, working by scripts, and primarily they put their conditions and demands, be it metrics, financial, or whatever. These are evaluted and result in a yes/no descision to do something, usually against you.

What happens in reality, if what results or what is caused is appropiate at all, is not considered.

I consider selling on ebay as high risk, like gamling.

you may sell more, you may sell less, the buyers ding you for 2 USD, and it causes 200 damage or more. It could be a lie, it could be facts. If you work hard and make everything right, of course statistically you receive better ratings.

Your sales can drop suddenly, you have no guarantee or contract, and mind you have the previous months bills to pay. I would not recommend anyone to use ebay without a solid financial backup, being able to cover a couple of completely failed large transactions. Otherwise these will put you out of business and collection agencies will come some day and they will not care.

There is always a risk a transaction would fail and you end up with a claim, and especially so if you sell items you dont have (lets say because you cant act otherwise and badly need the profits from them).

They may not be delivered to you this may fail or become delayed by quite a while. They may be sold out when you try to order them. The buyers may not receive them, even tracked packages may become lost completely. They may wish to return them and so forth.

You should have one or better two months full backup to pay your liabilities and not only rely on future sales.

When you do and you repay a too high percentage and sales drop, then you have a disaster, and nobody will even consider or evalute the facts.

Also mind the paypal repayments are as such they start after 4 days and even if you use them fully to buy merchandize, it may take you months until these things sell. You basically need to rush the ordering, and listing of new items, and its quite demanding. I could do maybe 50 listings a day but its extreme.

As such these repayments start too soon, there is no payment holidays even if taking off some percentage will cause you to become unable to settle other liabilities. The percentage could not be changed either.

Be it, I have warned you, I went through two of these cash advances, and this morning, I entered another third one. Simply because my selling situation is complex, there is many small problems, some debts, items out of stock, and  cash advance would solve all of it for the time being. I am particulary not able to reorder some items, as well keep money for the shipping invoice.

I changed the shipping provider, and have no good idea how much it will be and when it will be charged.

Ive paid the ebay invoice already on time...

This is pretty horrible and now its solved. I have chosen a lower percentage this time, and it wont be a big problem. But I realized the effective percentage, if you compare it to net sales without shipping, and to profits, is much higher.

This is something I did not realize, and Ive learned it the hard way.

Toast bread with noodles sauce is delicious actually and very low cost and stuff like that, there were days when I considered myself as lucky when 3 pounds just to spend were available.

Its still sick, sometimes buyers come with a fake claim they just lie and say the product damaged from shipping which I know is not possible. They take more money than I spend on a day for shopping, be it tape envelopes or some cheap foods. Consider that they just come open a fake return never return anything and rob more money than you spend or have for yourself on a day.

You can track all day but you have zero protection against bad feedback, or fake claims. They dont need any proof. You can do well on a large order, taking you two hours, you get the same feedback score as for 2 dollar, and where you spend maybe 2 minutes.

Then all this international shipping hell and false estimates. This year regularily I worried hours every day about international shipping only. I got headaches and I cant sleep and this went for months.

Even if I have changed the shipping provider, it is much faster now, and was one months work and many phone calls, nobody evalutes the business, what is happening or what has changed.

The worst is over, but it will be many months to come until all is back to normal. Or the buyers will be so bad ultimatively all my efforts would fail and as a seller I will be doomed and the inevitable only a question of time. I can not know, there is no accountant, all is automated. If I make a mistake, like choosing a too high repayment, I will only be able to recognize the situation. At best Id survive, and learn from it, and consider it as a form of gambling. That I may make more with the cash advance than I have to repay and fast. Or not.

I think they should make it more clear

That the effetive percentage compared to your net sales, or actual profit, will be much higher, and that sellers should carefully consider their liabilities and should consider some form of financial backup (OK some may not have it).

Banks dont help quickly. Im in talks with a bank but after one month, we are at the stage of proof of address. It is extremly difficult here to give a proof of address. Because, you could be money laundering, or something.

There is no such thing as a fast bailout by a bank if you make some ebay paypal related mistake or have some situation. They wont even evalute it. At best, after a month or two, youll have some opportunity to discuss your online selling with them. Chances are, if you tell them the truth that your exposed to unverified votes and claims without any proof, that you can not ship low value items tracked and basically have zero protection, they will consider it as high risk, and will tell you to have a good day.

If a bank would fully understand what your doing, they would certainly say "high risk" means no account, no credit, nothing. So you have paypal then, if you sell enough, they give you a cash advance.

It is not a loan. Technically they purchase some of your future receiveables.

I am concerned really some people may not consider carefully and choose to repay too high percentage. You should definitely seek professional financial advice, talk to an accountant or your bank, if you can afford it, and carefully work on your reports (they are on paypal).

If you dont and you make some mistakes, it may become unrecoverable within a month or two, youll end up with debts, will not be able to ship in worst case and will get plenty of requests and not be able to do a thing.

At some stage, when you have overdue ebay, think what happens if a large high risk transaction fails (selling items you dont have). you are at the mercy of the particular buyer. They press some buttons, it takes two minutes, and youll have a negative paypal Balance of lets say 250 USD. How can you ship in such a case, when you dont pay the retail postage rate? You couldnt. And this would accelerate the situation.

ebay or paypal would not negotiate and not consider if you have no food or cant ship or would end up on the street. It would not be evaluted even.

As for my case, the building manager showed some understanding and I didnt have to pay immediately. But also, for long time, ultimatively it would become a problem.

then you have buyers who are extremly greedy, and think maybe shipping costs you 15 cent, for international tracked parcel (its always the parcel). You have the items or also you got plenty of them for one dollar (for the whole lot). Fees are something you may choose to pay or not, and its some 10%. They think youre rich. They see all your items for sale, they see your sales (ebay shows item + transaction amount).

Then they may decide to do something to you, like a fake return, make up some damage, or they say not received.

To me when I look at the demographics, it is pretty clear they are scammers most of them. It is mostly particular nationalities, residency/citizenship status, as well particular kinds of items.

But when you had more than 10000 customers, youll get some idea what motivates them, of course, the idea youd be rich, looking at all your items, and having some romantic ideas about costs for international shipping.

I do not know if over long time, I can make ends meet, buyer expectations, and the machine of international shipping, as well to consider ebay paypal are high risk, any transaction could fail and result in a refund even tracked packages can become fully lost. And also there will be no evalution of the situation, no evalution if an action taken by them is appropiate or if it will be a solution. Further, any changes you made will not be considered, only what they measure is considered, and the buyer vote is unverified, as well not weighted. So you sell a car on ebay even for 80,000 and it counts the same as a sale for $1.

I can only tell you you should consider the possibility you completely loose these 80,000 from the sale and need to have options to keep doing what youre doing without them. The higher value transactions you make the higher the risk and especially so if you dont have the items and have no backup. Each time, you risk all. If you have a negative paypal Balance you cant ship cant send proceeds from sales to your bank, until it recovers above zero.

Same with other small orders. You may not be able to purchase the goods, and even tracked packages can become lost, as well they may open a return or claim anyway.

The total effective costs of sales are not shown anywhere and they are, as to speak ebays language "very high". They are. It is fees subscriptions paypal base charge + fee + exchange, as well refunds.

If you only consider the ebay nominal fee some 10% youre foolish and wrong and it will not add up. 

And when you choose too high repayments, you will realize this and at best, youll somehow survive.

I am concerned this is all fully automatic and it could be a relatively small amount and youd be doomed and end up with debts, ultimatively not being able to ship the final orders and paypal refunding all and your account becoming negative. Like a star at the end of its life this could be the final stage of an ebay seller and I dont know to how many this has happened. Then after that, collection agencies would come, trying to get cash and valueables. It doesnt take much actually.

Maybe there are too many sellers and they cant act otherwise, but effectively youre dealing with a machine. And the total they charge is quite high, nonetheless any claims are to be paid by you. Their help and customer service is to withdraw the funds from you. OK, Ive won a few cases actually. But mostly you have no considerable chance, they will not evalute the truth, be it buyer having item, or the item not broken and buyer using it.

Or maybe it is just I have been trading for some years, without large backup, car or house I could sell or you name it, gold to take to a pawnshop.

There is some detail and to me it looks almost like to cause doom. The new invoice (once overdue) also will immediately become overdue. It is quite a race even if you still have sales, and it is almost impossible in reality. So once you become overdue, youre almost doomed. When contacted they said to make arrangements perhaps they mean to draw from reserves or borrow. Also they send nagging messages approx every 2 days.

Well if thats what they have to do then thats what they have to do, and effectively I did not consider the repayment percentage carefully enough. Also after the first advance had finished, "payment windows" had shifted, from intime or before intime, to a little after intime. I took another, but with different start conditions. I did not consider my liabilities carefully enough. And I did not realize the effetive repayment percentage is much higher when you consider it is on the total, incl shipping and all fees.

That was my mistake, sure. Normally a bank would consider if there is prospects of completing repayment, and you need a break, or something has priority. Or maybe also, there are cases where homes are repossessed. Sure, plenty of them.

Before you take a paypal cash advance, consider it very carefully. Dont do drinking or buy things you dont need or dont use for selling. I didnt. I bought a bottle of wine perhaps for 6 GBP but thats months ago and I dont drink (I could though).

Also you should be aware of this. You may get another advance immediately, or not. Dont count on it as a means of a financial bailout. They will not consider how badly you need it, simply this is not evaluted. How you spend it, how well you plan and manage, is entirely upto you.

I recommend you start with a small amount and a low percentage, and dont make the mistake to choose as much percents repayment as you think you could. Read what I wrote carefully, I went through two advances, and it caused me considerable problems, and one my ebay accounts was close to suspension for non payment. as well listings were removed, so, preventing further sales. Also it caused me some returned item fees on my bank account.

When your internet breaks down, you could use your mobile phone but the cost will be quite high. Also initially, to be able to connect, you need to use standard tarrif, and its per megabyte. So the topup will not be fully available to purchase a data plan or bundle. If you have only little money on that day, and only get 500 megabytes, well bad for you. As for my case, I did 10 GBP topup, but only got 8 showing up. Then I connected to the website for the moile provider, and couldnt even use the 8 GBP. I was only able to purchase 500 megabytes. A day later this solved, but I experienced it.

when you have some problems, some financial situation there will be additional costs just from that, accelerating the problem, when you have no cash at all, pretty bad (think like a negative paypal Balance).

Effectively, if you dont have a backup, you should consider not to do large or high risk transactions, or you may experience situations related to them.

Ironically, I solved it by doing such transactions, moving relatively large amounts, but I did not need to purchase goods same day. the actual profit not that much. But it gave me headaches for each day until the goods were shipped. Nightmares. Waking up in the middle of the night.

I hope this post can prevent others to experience what I experienced

[gopetersen]

I like to read, but even that was too much for me.

The message I get out of the part I read (about half of it) is you took the risk, you borrowed, you didn't get the sales you expected, and you got bitten.

Yes, eBay and PayPal are machines, surely you knew that before you took the risk.

[hitechworldtrading]

one good thing is, I still have many of the items / parts I purchased, so I get some sales from them.

I realized many of my photos werent good, most of the stale listings had especially bad pictures.

Prices were too high for some.

When I took new pictures, some items that never sold in one year sold for the first time!

It does count, the buyer first sees the picture and if thats unappaling they dont buy and some nice item

can sit for a year or two, no sales.

New picture, listed on different account, most of the item sold within 2 weeks.

Ive removed almost 400 listings not performing (on this account).

This is some problem, the repayments start immediately, but it took 3 months until items started to sell.

I was plagued by bad internet, and this went week after week, and i only listed some.

It took an hour or two at times, to complete one listing!

All these factors each contribute a little but all add up, and pretty much everything happened at once, and in the end, it didnt add up with the too high repayments, and going trough a second advance immediately after the first one.

Maybe without these advances, it would be worse, many items stopped selling or became erratic, so I made new listings, some are performing. Its pretty dynamic, having to come up with new products all the time, or it turns stale.

There should really be good information about total cost of sales, incl. currency conversions, and refunds.

There is a chart but it doesnt include those, as well there is no long time graphs over a year or two, they seem to want to hide long time data. The fees are so extremly high but we could not see good reports, not able to see a graph over lets say one year.

For instance also number of listings, and total cost of sales. For the money paid, the reporting is very basic and short term.

In a month or so I made like 1500 pictures, about 2 gigabytes, all using a broken android tablet having to use a bluetooth mouse and it took me months to get used to it when taking pictures, its flipped 90 degree so your movements of the mouse, also are flipped 90 degree.

I now use a LED floodlight, and I found the tablet is good at macro photos,so I processed many of my items the same way, macro views, and same background.

That produced fresh domestic sales, together with lower prices and very low domestic postage, I made some sales, and were able to rescue my US account and keep all going.

I still have some debts to my previous logistics provider, but they can not access my accounts or make changes to them, its just an ordinary liability, as well they are human, not machines.

Why they lumped shipping costs into the sales I dont understand? I realize that when sending tracked packages even for large orders, I make lower profits, since its so expensive and I only charge a very low intl rate.

Well as I said, these factors all contribute, and of course when it doesnt add up anymore all will collapse, and this happened mainly due to two things, summer holidays, and too high repayments. it caused damage on its own, since some listings were removed for some time, and I missed sales on them.

Without an independent second selling account, it is pretty clear I would not have survived. As well an extreme amount of work within a short time. Well I had to, I saw some chance I could survive when I get enough additional sales and I didnt see the potential of domestic sales before.

It was a success some items sitting around for two years never sold, with new pictures, they sold within a short time. So poor marketing.

I changed the shipping provider at the same time, so its much faster shipping now.

That also did damage I reprogrammed the shipping options and buyers dont appreciate 30 day handling and economy shipping, I tried but sales dropped. I switched to the new store design and they dont show shop categories, store views were down to almost zero.

And many more such tiny things, all adding up.

Its quite demanding to take 50 good pictures, get the items, put them in position for a picture, use the broken tablet, transfer them with USB, write the listings. Its about the maximum I can do on a day, and I dont like to do it every day. Usually I put them into new folders, and step through them do the easy ones first.

I am still working at this, and the process of building a new shop is still ongoing

Domestic buyers are never worried about long shipping and that was the solution, that I could have these domestic sales, and survive.

[southern*sweet*tea]

So you didn't think this through, borrowed money at too high a rate and when sales slow down you're surprised you still have to repay that same high rate?

Or am not understanding something?

The way sales fluctuate on sites like these I would never, EVER count on any sort of consistency. The only way I would even consider taking out any sort of business loan would be if I had my own website where I, and ONLY I, had control.  (and even then I wouldn't do it because I don't borrow money)

I'd rather be small and solvent than big and bankrupt.  JMHO

[studio_haedes]

tl;dr

[emerald40]

Paypal credit is no difference than any other charge card.

They pay upfront and you pay them later with interest.  And yes it is very high, over 25% if I remember correctly.

That is why you need to be very careful before using it that you will have the money later to pay them off, no matter what happens.

You have to read the fine print first so no surprises later

[hitechworldtrading]

Well this doesnt describe it exactly.

It didnt add up in terms being able to look after all liabilities.

They say 25% but its on the total, considering your actual money received for items, its a higher percentage.

Many things played in, such as international shipping blunders over the whole of 2018.

It was so bad I changed the shipping provider, and it was considerable effort. But still my US account is pretty down compared to what it used to be only some months ago.

Since a few days I have most items listed in the UK and start getting combined orders.

Its easygoing the shipping is fast, I dont receive these after sales contacts about shipping.

And I get GBP which I obviously need.

I have taken a new paypal cash advance, otherwise Id be running out of stock for some fast selling items, but I didnt choose a too high percentage this time. I didnt spent it completely, so the liabilities payment windows will not shift this time.

It is of course an advantage, such as if it is possible to make more with selling new items than the cost of the Advance. 

Normally Im pretty good at making approximate calculations and predictions about future sales, but I didnt consider the percentage is off the total, before the ebay fees, and on the shipping as well. So it actually did not add up anymore, and it would have been unrecoverable, without any chance.

As such when youre overdue and receive the next invoice, it also will become overdue immediately, and it will be so high you wont have any chance to pay it off. It is a detail but pretty deadly.

I had to put all of the inventory anew almost, and I did, and what happened was, some things that didnt sell in a year suddenly sold.

Ive learned it the hard way, bad pictures, and the item just doesnt sell.

Also things I purchased from the bad Paypal advance have started selling, I still have lots of these items, so Im getting the money back gradually, as intended. Though it did take far too long.

Now I also have a new internet connection it is very fast I have never experienced 3500kbps before, and so far, no serious interruptions or "Resolving host" the whole day, or disconnecting hundreds of times a day.

It went for months, and I did not even list all of the things...

I have been successful in recent days just, to make UK sales, I went shopping for food items for the first time in a long while.

I am concerned it is all automated, and some detail you dont consider could within a short time totally ruin your selling and your life, there is even no possibility of intervention, like a payment break or interest only.

It is not appropiate you loose all your things, end up on the streets, and with debts, for some $200 or $300?

Would a bank decide to ruin your life because you dont have some $200 or $300 immediately, but theres prospects youd have them in 2 weeks or something?

Its like a bridge with no railings, and down there it has barbed wire, to protect others from the instance you may fall down. Thats how it feels like. If youre good at walking bridges with no railings then good for you, but otherwise youll become a victim of circumstances, and theres no possibility of intervention, no consideration of appropiateness.

ebay would gradually shut down your listings before total suspension, as it doesnt see its needs satisfied, and because of this, instances of punishment are activated. These will also aggrevate the problem.

It was a tremendous amount of work, about 1500 pictures and two gigabytes, I was able to solve the situation, but others may not be. Also I was well stocked at the time, means lots of items available for sale.

The effective cost of sales are some 25% actually. Including refunds, currency exchange, subscriptions and all. It can nowhere be seen or observed, it is not shown. It is quite high. One in four items, goes to ebay/paypal incl shipping.

There shouldnt be any other fees than for items, the payment processing included.

But there is little hope since frequently, ebay informs about increases for listing add on's, now they also charge VAT (a sales tax) for the total bill. Its like, before they didnt pay any VAT, but were forced to do so, and pass it to the sellers.

The shipping labels purchaseable on ebay at retail price are kind of a joke, as for international shipping, the retail pricing is not competitive against the chinese at all.

Also the GSP, at their costs, we could track items and packages quite well.

It is quite uneconomic for small low cost items.

Normally it should be like ebay offering some pickup and discount shipping services, at much lower cost than retail.

I pay about one GBP only for lightweight international shipments (not packages).

Retail is GBP 3.25 no matter if it is only 20 grams. This is GBP not USD, and fees on top of it.

Even when charging 6 USD Id get out nearly nothing from the shipping, and the cutoff is about at USD 4.

Anything above that, sharp drop in sales. When it is lower than 4 USD, increase.

Shipping label purchased on ebay are about same as retail price.

It is so hostile, they loose good sellers all the time, or they dont ship internationally. And too expensive, others dont charge as much, not even near these 25%.

For 25%, still all reimbursements are to be covered by the seller. Every chinese I see has feedbacks about "not received" and calculate how many items "not receive" every day, how many shipping containers every year. Where are these items ending up effectively? They dont fall through postal cracks. In many cases, the buyer did receive the item. It is a direct and fundamental problem but ebay does nothing about it.

Price to track international is about GBP 8 starting point, think how that goes if you roll that into all items (advice received). It is quite feeble advice as youd be charging that on each item, even if you sell $2 items and often they buy 5 or ten items per order.

$20 for the items, their cost maybe $10

GBP 80, about $110, rolled into the item price.

It is about the worst and foolish advice if you want to track international, as this is once per order not item.

I hardly guess there wouldnt be any buyers at all.

But thats how it goes they do not look at your items or shop, they have no understanding about your avenue and its specific problems, but give advice like that. They do however reply, and give advice, and explain policy.

But if there is some food burner there is no possiblity of intervention.

The nagging messages are pretty much geared towards some instance where you would not want to pay your invoice, or you arent able to understand why you should pay, and repeat every time.

Oh your buyer has 100% positive feedback (received when they make offer). Negative buyer feedback has been removed as option many years ago. It is unneccessary information, digital pollution. It is just a detail but concerning for how many years it seems to be stuck.

Your buyer lies and says item damaged from shipping or its defective or a fake, opens the return. Nothing is ever returned. Oh. You have a very high rate of returns in some category, so, all your selling will be charged at 4% more. Makes totally sense.

Im at about 19000 sales record, and gradually, I have learned about frauds of all kinds.

Like a chargeback from east europe expat in the US, admitted to have received, left feedback, 4 months later, "not authorized". $20 on top of refund. Paypal wants the retail receipt for posting. Or it could not win the case with their bank. Again this is automated, no one bothers the facts they have the item. Just the ebay protection is not enough, they can also switch to paypal, and even that is not enough, they can liase with their bank, or they could use a stolen card. What effectively is what is happening when there is a chargeback in 85% of all cases, VISA considers them to be fraudulent.

For a full quarter of all sales proceeds, where is the protection from such things? There is none especially internationally. When you track, it is defective, not as described, damaged or something is missing. There will never be a protection and they can do the same kind of claim with their banks. For small value they can say its not working or fake. The only reason why it is not as widespread as ebay fraud, the bank will reject them if they come all too often with the same story. It will affect their credit score as well.

[missjen831]

I think he’s actually talking about PayPal Working Capitol which is not the same as PayPal credit. The repayment plan is based on your eBay sales, loan amount and the reypayment plan you choose. I couldn’t get through the entire post so I don’t understand what the actual problem is unless his business went under? When you use PWC you should know that you have to pay it back

[divwido]

I understand a certain amount of this and I do have one of those accounts.

What I've missed is the reason for the post.    Is the next one going to be about Payday loans?

[itsjustasprain]

I think that is probably the longest written post i have ever seen on these boards. Seriously.

From what i understand of all that -- the biggest problem at the bottom of it all is that from what Im seeing in your listings - youre selling basically chump change electronic parts for just a buck to 3 bucks apiece plus shipping. That can keep you plenty busy and you have the feedback to show for it - but i dont see any chance of it building any kind of a profit cushion for you. On top of that youre borrowing to pay off previous borrowing. I dont see a way for that to succeed either. 

If you want to dig yourself out then you have got to start selling stuff that will give you useful money to work with. I dont see that happening with your present lineup - sorry. 

You might also want to find an outside real world job if you are fit & able. Reason I say that is becuase if you think about how long it takes you to pack & ship the electronic bits then thats what you are basically paying yourself per hour - whatever you profit was on the items you packed in that hour. See what I mean? If an outside job would pay better then thats where you should be. Once you are able to pay down your debts then you can go back in at least at a hobby level. Good luck. I think youll need it but at the same time you sound like someone who can do it. I just think you need to steer yourself in another direction for a while. Keep us posted.

[kateinthe26th]

My advice would be don't withdraw all of your cash advance straight away....leave a thousand in there so you can take a few days off if you need to or to cover yourself in case you get the flu and can't work or to cover for a slack week of sales

You don't have to rush out and spend it all at once

[luckythewinner]

---

@missjen831 wrote:

I couldn’t get through the entire post

---

I'll sum it up: 

1) He took two merchant cash advances from eBay and it almost ruined him

2) eBay should protect sellers from making bad decisions about merchant cash advances 

3) he took out yet another mechant cash advance this morning

[kateinthe26th]

Sorry, i meant to say Paypal Working Capital not cash advance.....my understanding is they make the payment directly to your Paypal account so if you leave a thousand or $500 or whatever sum in there you have it for back up when times are a bit lean and you can't meet your minimum repayments and when things pick up use it for more stock

[femmefan1946]

@hitechworldtrading

Oh your buyer has 100% positive feedback (

Look at Feedback Left For Others. This can indicate problems.

Also check that the buyer has been buying and selling consistently in the past few months. Long gaps can indicate hacked accounts.

It was a tremendous amount of work, about 1500 pictures and two gigabytes,

Like many Canadian sellers I had that problem in 2016 when eBay Canada decided it would no longer support US dollar listing on their site.

I changed over 3000 listings in the course of a month, including making new scans, by doing about 100 a day.

Fortunately, I have kept all my Descriptions in a desktop file since I started selling in 1998.

But most of your problem seems to have been poor equipment, which eBay and Paypal are not responsible for.

as for international shipping, the retail pricing is not competitive against the chinese at all.

Again, this is not the responsibility of eBay or Paypal but of your national postal system and the Universal Postal Union.

While tracking is expected of US sellers, it is not required of non-US sellers, although we still must be responsible to our customers if a purchase is not delivered. We can become Global Top Rated Sellers and get fee discounts without tracking.

I pay about one GBP only for lightweight international shipments (not packages).

No you don't.

Your customer pays for shipping.

Even with "free" shipping, the cost of postage and packaging is rolled into the asking price and paid by the buyer.

Which is cheaper?

A $5 item with $5 shipping?

Or a $10 item with Free Shipping?

Have you been selling that item for $5 and paying $5 for shipping from your asking price?

[femmefan1946]

@hitechworldtrading

You can't make money on one pound sales.

If the shipping cost is higher than the asking price, buyers will pass you by.

If you can take those low value items and lot them together to make parcels worth at least ten pounds each, most of your problems will disappear.