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Auto payment now mandatory for AUCTIONS?!?
Tonight I went to bid on an item and I noticed a new message in the "Place you bid" popup. It states:
"By selecting Place bid, you authorize eBay to bid up to your max bid and, if you win, charge your bid amount and related costs to your PayPal account. You also agree to eBay's User Agreement and Privacy Notice."
If I am reading this correctly, eBay will now automatically charge my PayPal account at the end of the auction. That is, I no longer have a choice how and when I will pay. Whose idea was it to make this change and why did I have to find out this way? I have been a member for 25 years and have thousands of transactions, and when eBay crams this kind of sh&t down my throat without so much as a whisper; yeah, yeah ... they send out new Terms & Conditions all the time, but I never actually expected to be the victim of a corporate EULA, a la South Park's "Cent-I-Pad" episode. I'm furious and wonder how many other people feel the same way?
- Brian
brakai66
·2 years agoHow about pay for your items when you win, people waiting until the 4th day is unacceptable. I sell because i obviously want the money, if you were at a public auction you would have to pay then and there when winning an auction why should ebay be any different. I see people place bids at the last second and dont pay for 3 days **bleep** is that about!
campanaelia
·2 years agoHow about sellers shipping items after they are paid? I currently I have 2 INR claims opened and they still have not responded. I can't escalate them until 9/11 so by the time it's posted back to my card will be aprox. 3 weeks from date I paid. 4 days seems like nothing compared to 3 weeks.
I also currently have another seller who committed media mail fraud so it was refused for postage due. They agreed to resend it correctly but it has cost me extra time and delays.
I've been on ebay 20 years and we've never had an unpaid item and am insulted by being punished like a non-payer. I'm also old-school and nobody is getting authorization to make charges to my payment source without me reviewing the invoice first.
If I do take a few days to pay it's because I'm usually planning to bid more items sellers have for combined shipping. But that's over too with auto-pay
Go ahead and force this on buyers and I'll bet you'll be losing more paying buyers than gaining purchases from non-payers.
If it's your way or the highway, I'll choose the highway!
gurlcat
·2 years agoDo neither of those INR's have tracking acceptance scans yet?
campanaelia
·2 years ago@gurlcat
One doesn't and the seller has not responded. I also sent them 2 messages before opening the claim. The other one refunded me yesterday after I made the comment here.
gurlcat
·2 years agoFor the non-responsive one, why not just cancel your purchase? -There's a button for it now.
campanaelia
·2 years agoI entered I still wanted the item when I opened both claims so I was hoping they might still ship it. I already waited the weekend so it's only one more day now before ebay steps in.
If I used the cancel button does the seller still get a defect or is that like saying I asked to cancel?
campanaelia
·2 years ago@gurlcat
So tomorrow I can ask ebay to step in but I'm curious if I did use the cancel button as you recommended, is that the same as buyer asked to cancel and the seller avoids the defect?
I certainly want them to get the defect they deserve and not walk away scot-free. The extra few days are worth it to me.
Edit: Also when using the cancel option is it cancelled immediately or does the seller have to approve it?
gurlcat
·1 year agoSorry I haven't been here for a couple days. So, the new cancel button changes nothing except how the buyer requests a cancellation (button rather than written message). It is still up to the seller whether to cancel or not, which reason they select from menu if they do cancel (and yes, choosing 'buyer asked' would be accurate and spare them a defect), also they would be protected from negative feedback. So I can see why you would rather just wait a couple more days for your INR to conclude, definitely. I wonder what the bleep is up with that seller! I have multiple questions about them but I guess it doesn't really matter.
For the record I do find it surprising and unacceptable that eBay gives the same INR time extension to sellers who haven't even shipped yet as they do to ones who have. -Obviously there's a world of difference in culpability there.
That said, I don't think this is even remotely analogous to the 96 hour payment window for buyers. One is about doing something (shipping an item, and if it's already shipped then the carrier's involvement adds another level), while the other is about paying money. A much better comparison would be between the 96 hours buyers have to pay for an item versus the 48 hours sellers have to pay for a return after the item is delivered back to them.
campanaelia
·2 years ago@brakai66
Like I said earlier, tomorrow will be the 17th day since I paid on 8/25 and I can finally ask ebay to step in. Even if ebay refunds me tomorrow it's usually at least 5 more business days before posting back to my card, so including the weekend it will be a total of 24 days, " **bleep** is that about!"
And let me remind you when a seller has to wait 4 calendar days for payment from buyers it's exactly 96 hours, weekends count.
So tell me which would you prefer?
kathiec
·2 years agoAs explained in *great* detail in this thread, for the vast majority of us objecting to this dunderheaded move the issue is not one of when we pay. I've been on eBay coming up on 28 years, and I've never not paid for an auction the instant I knew I won. The issue for us is that IPR does away with combined shipping and certain Paypal payment options. The issue for us is that we totally resent the entire class being kept after school because one person chewed gum. The issue for us is that eBay hasn't come up with an equivalent one-size-fits-all remedy for non-performing sellers. Because I can assure there are as many, if not more, of them.
I have a selling ID. I sympathize with sellers dealing with nonpaying buyers. But IPR is not the solution.
mudville_nine
·1 year agoAmen, kathlec. I could not have said it better ~ except to add that I have seen a lot of changes in my 24 years of buying and selling (diff ID) on this site. The one common denominator to each of these countless changes has been a lopsided benefit for eBay, and a marginal one for its members (if any at all). They operate much like human smugglers, demanding a hefty fee to get you across the river. eBay is perhaps the most self-serving company I have ever dealt with. Look up "Arrogance" on Wikipedia and eBay's logo pops up. Disgusting company, to the max.
mr_lincoln
·2 years ago@brakai66
eBay sets their venue guidelines for payment time frames. I buy on a lot of online auctions and their payment terms vary greatly. Some require immediate payment unless you have some buying history with them, others will accept a paper check sent in the mail or you can pay in cash when you pick up. Some require pickup within 72 hours and others allow a week or longer. They also offer shipping services.
So again, payment requirements can vary and eBay has theirs set up a certain way.
soulvow
·2 years agoSAME THING HAPPENED TO ME TODAY. ALMOST DID NOT EVEN BID, BECAUSE IT WOULD BE CHARGED IMMEDIATELY TO A CARD I DID NOT WANT TO PUT IT ON. NOT ENOUGH TIME TO ADD A DIFFERENT CARD AND CHANGE PAYMENT METHOD. I LIKE AND PREFER TO PAY WITH PAYPAL, AND CHOOSE WHICH WAY TO PAY. BY ONLY HAVING ONE IMMEDIATE CHOICE, YOU CANT GO TO PAYPAL AND CHOOSE TO SPLIT CHARGE BETWEEN TO CARDS OR ACCOUNTS. CANT CHOOSE PAY IN 4 VIA PAYPAL, OR USE PAYPAL CREDIT WITH NO PAYMENTS FOR 6 MOS. OT CHOOSE A CARD WITH HIGHER CASH BACK FOR THAT MONTH? HONESTLY IF THIS IS A NEW REQUIREMENT FOR ALL AUCTIONS I KNOW IT WILL CUT DOWN MY PURCHASES ON EBAY BY 50% TO 90%.
gurlcat
·2 years agoI hope you see this. -NO, it is not all auctions. Those of us sellers who are aware of the change and don't want our buyers to go through this have gone into our settings and switched the option OFF. So for example if you bid on one of my auctions right now, you would not run into this issue. 😉
campanaelia
·2 years agoThe problem is sellers like you who have turned it off are in the minority. Not once have I tried to make an offer and it did not have auto-pay going on a year now since it started on my account. I'm at the point I don't even waste my time attempting it.
Ebay needs to create an icon for sellers so buyers can tell which sellers have opted out or even the sellers who have will suffer. The way it is now, it's like finding a needle in a haystack.
mr_lincoln
·2 years ago@soulvow
No and as @gurlcat mentioned not ALL Sellers have the Auto-pay turned ON for auctions. eBay also runs tests on accounts or recently "Select auctions" as it has been explained and they turn Auto-pay ON.
Now, something you should, eBay does NOT tell sellers when they add Auto-pay to their account OR a "select auction". If you run into that again then message the Seller and let them know you will be happy to bid on their auctions if the turn Auto-pay off. Some will because like I said, they may not even know it is on.
campanaelia
·2 years agoI'm done messaging sellers about auto-pay, many don't even understand what I'm talking about and have been rude in their responses. They've threatened to report me and accused me of trying to violate ebay's policy. One even thought I was trying to do the transaction outside of ebay so I gave up on doing that anymore unless it's a seller I've bought from before.
gurlcat
·2 years agoI can imagine it would be pretty hard to explain to a seller who had no idea it existed at all.
mr_lincoln
·2 years ago@campanaelia
That makes sense since eBay does not tell Sellers when they are adding Auto-pay to their accounts and when they do the default setting is ON. While Sellers can turn those settings off many have no clue where to do that.
@devon@ebay , @kyle@ebay
Devon and Kyle,
This member's highlighted post in red above pretty much sums up what happens when eBay either runs a test on a selected auctions or adds a feature like Auto-pay to accounts WITHOUT informing Sellers about it and giving them a way to turn it off. Actually, the default should be OFF and let Sellers turn it ON if they want. This happened to me too, I would never have known when eBay added it to my account until an unhappy customer messaged me telling me they would not bid on my auctions if they had to select a payment method before bidding. I would ask that you pass this post on to the Payments team or which ever team is handling Auto-pay so they can realize how poorly they rolled out this feature and the negative impact it is having on Selling. While it certainly has good intentions the implementation has been extremely poor.
ittybitnot
·2 years ago@mr_lincoln
It would not surprise me if your tags to the "blues" go unanswered. For some reason, they have not replied to any tags related to this issue since the beginning. Do tag me if they do.
Do you ever SEND offers on your bin listings?
mr_lincoln
·2 years ago@ittybitnot
I stopped using the Send offers eligible feature in April of this year. As mentioned, I abandoned PLS late last year. Again, at the end of June I got the "We've missed you - try Promoted Listings Standard again." (pic below) splash page message ... highly targeted message, BIN sales are still way, way, way behind what they used to be prior to early 2022.
At the halfway point in 2024 sales are over 8.4K behind last year, 8.6K behind 2022 and over 10K behind 2021. That my friend is not chump change.
ittybitnot
·2 years agoI stopped using the Send offers eligible feature in April of this year.
@mr_lincoln
I was only asking since now ALL offers you send are IPR. The buyer cannot "accept" an offer you send anymore. If you happen to SEND more than one to the same buyer, they have to pay separately at full shipping cost and combining/invoicing is not allowed. I know you don't require the buyer provide a payment source upfront to BID or make offers, but wanted you to know this in case you sent them.
You personally, don't have to worry about eBay's enrolling Buyer IDs into forced compliance in order to BID, but as the number increases have you ever considered putting a line in your listing to advertise something along the lines of BUYER FRIENDLY, NO PRE PAYMENT REQUIRED, REAL COMBINED SHIPPING HERE!!!
There was a seller yesterday that has the "Buyer Rules" turned off and has been experiencing drama with offers anyway. It made me think of you and wondered if you sent offers, or counter offers.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Getting-paid-for-items-through-best-offer/m-p/34566223#M2427946
Take care, don't forget the giraffe car. I am moving at the first of the month and will be offline for a while.
kyle@ebay
Hey @mr_lincoln I'll be very glad to pass this feedback along to our Payments folks!
mr_lincoln
·2 years agoThank you @kyle@ebay
dke211
·2 years agoFrom me, Auto pay is completely unacceptable.
I absolutely will NOT under any circumstances permit this.
As a result, Ebay has lost its privileges to store payment options.
As a result I have been purchasing a lot less on ebay.
You can do what I do, send a note to the seller stating that auto pay is unacceptable.
If they wish me to bid or make offers, auto pay must be turned off.
I got the delight of letting a seller know that he would have made $20 more on this item because i would have bid on it had auto pay been turned off.
if the sellers loose money they could have otherwise had, they may rethink this.
tori39
·2 years agoYes, I just ran into this for the first time. I think it’s ridiculous…..I refuse to link my PayPal or anything else to eBay. So no more making offers for me….and no more bidding on things requiring links to payment first. Now I can only do buy it now purchases. eBay is getting more and more unappealing to me and I’ve had my eBay account for 25 years.
ed8108
·2 years agoAuto payment will likely have the effect of cutting back sales and lowering prices realized.
jerseyboymusic
·2 years agoDirectly commenting on the thread title...
YES PLEASE!!!
steve_stuff
·2 years agoMy only real problem with this is the paypal only option part. Our paypal is empty and I don't think Washington Mutual is gonna add any money.
But if it's being run like before, there is a three day window for sellers to send an invoice, and/or pay manually with a different source.
Maybe with the 'can't combine BIN' problem the three day deal could be shorten and incorporated. If a BIN was auto paid six hours later, that would work.
Why we like - when this was first tested we had four 'auto paid in three days' auctions over a two month [jan/feb] span. Three paid 'early/manually' - Same time span, had two without auto that never paid. Since last auto pay, four non payers.
I always have said that all 'members' should be in managed payments - Sellers agree to have ebay send money, and if need be, take money from your bank. Buyers should be set up so payment is taken.
Again, other then the PP only part we have no problem with this.
gurlcat
·2 years agoIn this case "Paypal only" doesn't just mean your regular Paypal account, but whatever you have set as your preferred payment method on Paypal. So for instance if you have your WaMu debit card in your Paypal Wallet and set it to be your preferred payment method, then when you pay "with Paypal" the funds will be drawn from WaMu via Paypal.
I believe the same would work if you had a credit card in your Wallet and set that as your preferred method.
Unfortunately, what DOESN'T work is if you have Paypal Credit and have that set as your preferred method. I do, and that works just fine for some online merchants but not others, and it's a frustrating learning curve because there's no way to know until you "test it" by trying to pay for something. This is because Paypal Credit does not have an affiliated card or 16-digit number. I really don't understand why that is the case.
EDIT: Another thing you can't use .... and this one really blows my mind .... is eBay Available Funds. You know, if you're also a seller and have money from a recent sale that is available to buy things on eBay. That works just fine with Buy It Now items, and SOME 'offer' items, if the seller doesn't have their preference set to require pre-pay for offers. But if they do, and/or if they run auctions and are rolled into this prepay thing for auctions, then no dice paying via Available Funds. -WHY? Like what could be more secure than money that is already IN eBay's system?
wastingtime101
·2 years agoNot at all surprising to me @gurlcat because technically you can withdraw those funds at any time, including seconds after placing your bid. In order for eBay to allow the use of available funds for auto-pay auctions, they would have to program the system to put those funds in a separate bucket so they couldn't be touched. That gets a bit complicated and expensive, though it can be done. I assume, if tons of shoppers use available funds for auctions currently, then eBay would see the expense as worth it and build out that feature down the line. If use is low then eBay probably won't change that aspect and you'll have to use a different funding source for auto-pay auctions.
gurlcat
·2 years agoThat makes sense, but isn't it true of potentially any payment method? Like if I place a bid on an auction with my bank card but then spend on other things with the bank card, leaving less than my bid so there won't be enough there if I win?
rileysan
OP2 years agoI just went about my normal daily search for collectibles, with one exception - I chose "auction only". What I found validates my fears - that eBay is moving fast and furious towards all auctions requiring auto pay. I'm lazy, so I stopped clicking "place bid" after opening 20 listings.
The count was:
9 auctions requiring auto pay
11 auctions did no require auto pay.
All auctions were from unique sellers.
Here are a few screen shots for your viewing pleasure ...
gurlcat
·2 years agoThank you so much for finding and sharing these data. Very useful, albeit disturbing.
I just checked a bunch of auctions to see if I would get the funding authorization notice in the popup, but I did not (it wasn't 20 but at least a dozen, just to make sure). I did this on both of my accounts, and neither appear to be rolled into this change (yet).
If you have time, would you please do this again, but do it a little bit differently. Find a couple auctions without the prepay, and check a few of those same sellers' other auctions to see if they're also non-prepay. Then, find a couple auctions that do have it, and check a few of those sellers' other auctions. This way we can get a sense of whether it's both buyers and sellers that are being gradually rolled-in. I've never heard of that before so it would be interesting.
rileysan
OP2 years agoThank you all for responding!
There are a LOT of great replies, and I think most of the reasons against auto pay were stated. To be clear, I went back to check and not all auctions I tried bidding on (after starting this thread) required auto pay. But there were enough of them to make clear I will have to pay close attention to what I'm bidding on because I adamantly refuse to allow eBay to control my financials. And while PayPal has been a boon for online auction sites, and I use it for most eBay auctions, it irks me being told what to do by a faceless corporation; I do business on eBay mostly because I'm dealing with small business owners and hobbyists who are NOT faceless.
Thank you all for listening to my diatribe!
Brian
woodland_gnome
·2 years ago@rileysan
If you run into the pre-authorization screen for an auction bid again, see if you can get screenshots of what you are seeing. Those buyers in the test group are supposed to get a set of screens with instructions on how it all works. Look for an i in a circle to see if that brings anything up.
rileysan
OP2 years agoHere is the one that I originally ran into, which caused me to start this thread. There was a pop-up that preceded this, but it never came back. The paragraph at the bottom of the page is the only notification that the auction requires auto pay.
Brian
ittybitnot
·2 years ago@rileysan
Have you seen this particular format AGAIN when placing a bid on something else, i.e. no pop-up, but this same type of screen?
rileysan
OP2 years agoYes - I have seen it 3 more times since I started looking for it. It's also possible that I haven't noticed it when using the phone app, because reading the fine print is more difficult. If I had more patience, I would experiment by increasing my sample size to a minimum of 100 auctions, then chart the results, but I'm not a patient man. As it stands, taking time to participate in online forums pushes the limits of my attention span, lol!
blueduece58
·2 years agoIf I decide to bid on auctions, which is rarely anymore, and the automatic payment screen comes up, I just back out and move on unless it is a seller that I have dealt with before. In that case I will contact them and see if they will add me to their exclusion list.
The same goes for Best Offers.
Most of the sellers I ask will either do that or confirm that they will discount shipping if I should win more than 1 auction within a certain time frame. I don't do it with new sellers I haven't bought from as most have no clue what you are talking about.
eBay is shooting itself in the foot with the immediate payment required for auctions and best offers.
It is all about the bottom line. It looks better on the balance sheet that 5 items were sold with 5 payments, rather than 1 listing with 5 combined items and 1 payment. eBay need to goose those sold listing numbers.
Anytime eBay implements something it is to eBays benefit, follow the money.
Buyers come second
Sellers come in a distant third.
campanaelia
·2 years agoThe exclusion list does not apply to auto-pay
chevymontecarlo88
·2 years agoMy point is that when i purchase something, i do not wait until the last day to pay. (regardless of how the seller is set up) If i am looking to purchase multiple items from the same seller, i will reach out to them before hand to negotiate the terms. Sometimes i am able to have a new listing created that we agree on. If i do make purchases that need combined shipping, i may have to pay a larger amount of shipping until the seller can calculate the shipping costs. Not a big deal to me.
From what i am gathering from some of the responses, some buyers rely on sniping auctions and want an easy way for them to pay while taking the advantages of the under bid auctions. I do not blame them for trying to do that nor think it is a bad practice. Just not how i source. I source most of my items i buy and sell online and always negotiate with buyers ahead of buying anything they are selling. (lots or multiple items at a time) I don't look at my purchases as transactions. I look at them (long term) as future relationships/buyers/sellers. That is why i don't see this as a big deal for me.
Its not personal @ittybitnot , just different opinions from yours.
ed8108
·2 years agoAs a buyer ebay would like you to believe, it's for buyer payment convenience
Ebay apparently doesn't mind lost sales from paying buyers, along with turning away some paying users to shop elsewhere
ittybitnot
·2 years agoIf I am reading this correctly, eBay will now automatically charge my PayPal account at the end of the auction. That is, I no longer have a choice how and when I will pay.
@rileysan
Most people are under the impression that eBay got rid of this requirement for AUCTIONS. Since yours is a recent post, it is certainly possible that eBay is once again trying to force this on users. When you try to bid again, could you perhaps take a screen shot of the pop-up notice that you see?
eBay has not replaced the buyer requirement (controlled by a seller) to require auto-billing for auctions. So if it is happening again, it is totally an eBay action.
chevymontecarlo88
·2 years agoFYI.. @ittybitnot
I have recently made a few purchases (auctions) where immediate payment was implemented and a few were not.(immediate payment pop up)
mr_lincoln
·2 years agoHi @rileysan
When eBay first rolled out the Auto-pay feature the default was that it was turned ON for both Offers and Auctions (first pic below) and then sometime later they removed it for Auctions from Seller's Buyer management page per the second pic below and the screen shot that @campanaelia posted up thread.
Like most features it has its pro and cons. In your case it may be a con but for some Buyers who tend not to pay when they win an auction it would be a pro. At least that warning message you shared is from eBay and does not point to Sellers. See if there is a Tell us what you think link on that page, if so share your displeasure with eBay about it.
I know that through last weekend it was NOT turned on for my account as I had a customer win multiple auctions and then request an updated invoice so I could Combine and reduce their shipping cost.
woodland_gnome
·2 years agoThat does not justify a conclusion that your auctions are still opted out. Since it is still (? again?) experimental it would not cover all buyers, only those assigned to the test group.
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years agoI never got included in the auction group, only the offer group. If it is again experimental or if it becomes ubiquitous or mandatory, I will raise all sorts of hell and scream from the roof tops. It may be completely futile, but I will do it. I bid on literally 100s of auctions per week (only win a dozen or so) and I always, always, always, always, ALWAYS pay. There is never a reason or justification that every buyer needs the pre-authorization system. Thats a joke.
ed8108
·2 years agoThere is never a reason or justification that every buyer needs the pre-authorization system. Thats a joke.
You are correct
Ebay doesn't care if you never received a non payment strike & always pay.
This autopay policy impacts more than a issue of non payment
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years agoIt causes more problems than it seeks to solve
ittybitnot
·2 years agoIt causes more problems than it seeks to solve
@ajs_coins_and_alchemy
Yes, it looks like auto-pay for auctions is back. Don't know if it is a test to see if buyers refuse to comply, or a new streamlined enhancement. At least now we know why that preference "require a buyer to provide a payment source in order to bid" is gone........So the seller can't turn it off, continue to allow invoicing/combined shipping for multiple items. This should be interesting.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Can-t-use-Managed-Payments-money-to-pay-for-bid/m-p/34490907#M2407393
cardsforauction
·2 years agoIf they decide to make it mandatory, there will be less sales and lower sale prices. Potential buyers will think twice or three times before bidding. Buyers who bid on many items at the same time, and the one time they win most of items the same day or couple few days, they may face a financial, catastrophic, disaster for their bank account (if the items are high priced) because all the funds will be automatically withdrawn. Many overdraft fees too. The buyer should be able to have a few days to pay, and the choice, how they are going to pay for their purchases.
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years agoI vehemently disagree here, sorry. Don't set up auto-pay on any payment method that can't handle the totality of your bids. Not sure how it works on the bank accnts but I believe the CCs have a payment hold so you can't over max your card.
This would just be the fault of the buyer. Plain and simple. I place tons and tons of bids but I can manage a major influx of expense. Any bids I'm worried about managing expense of I place as snipes so I'm not leaving them hanging for long periods of time, they are executed quickly and I know whether I'm on the hook for it or not within seconds
cardsforauction
·2 years agoThe scenario I describe, for example: Someone wins 12 items on a Wed and Thursday totaling an amount $1800. The person only has $400 left in their bank account. The person will get a paycheck on Friday for about $2000. If the auctions end on Wed and Thursday the auto pay will kick in and they are short. No backup payment method or their CC is close to the credit limit. What happens when Wed and Thursday come? Will eBay kick off the member because they did not pay for the items? The buyer intends to pay Friday or Saturday for the items since the money will be available. A normal auction ending allows 4 days to pay. I think auto pay will have buyers think twice about bidding.
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·2 years agoDon't worry, I fully understood your example. I am a STRONG OPPONENT to the auto-pay system. I hate it. I have choice words for eBay regarding the system. I also agree that it will drive buyers away and will make them think twice about bidding.
HOWEVER ... I take issue with your example. The buyer in your scenario SHOULD NEVER over extend themselves and commit to too many auctions if they can't cover the funds. Your original example expressed that the buyer is "used to" only winning a fraction of the auctions they bid on. The buyer should be prepared to cover the totality of all the max bids placed, or not place the bids at all. If they don't have the funds on hand within the requisite time frame to cover all max bids currently on the line, then they are in the wrong. I understand the "typical" 4 days to pay, but this premise is that the buyer is bidding under the auto pay system and that means the buyer should have READ the terms when they agreed to auto-pay.
Your example, if it should ever occur, is 100% the buyer's fault. I am vehemently against the auto pay policy as it will harm buyers in their ability to bid on items and harm sellers by decreasing sales/prices ... and thus buyers will be reluctant to bid because of auto pay, but your scenario proposes a buyer would knowingly bid on too many items using auto pay when they don't have the cash to cover it. That means they screwed up big time and it's their fault.
The only reasoning in your example is that the buyer was UNAWARE that they were committing to auto-pay, and were expecting a typical 4 day pay window ... Buyer is at fault for not reading. I'm not condoning eBay's auto pay but I'm blaming buyer in this instance.
ittybitnot
·2 years agoit was NOT turned on for my account as I had a customer win multiple auctions and then request an updated invoice so I could Combine and reduce their shipping cost.
@mr_lincoln
If eBay is rolling it out again, it appears that the seller is not going to have any control in the situation. That is based on the fact that they removed the Buyer Requirement that allowed the seller to un-enroll, and set the preference to NO.
Likely, it will be an auto-enrollment of BUYER IDs, who also have no control of the situation other than refuse to participate just like the last go-round.
I just tried two of my seller IDs this morning to bid on AUCTIONS, and did not receive the pop-up described by the OP @rileysan . That does not mean I won't be faced with it as a buyer tomorrow or the next day. It took a while for my IDs to be forcibly enrolled in the last go round for AUCTIONS, but it did happen. Hopefully, the OP can grab us a screenshot.
woodland_gnome
·2 years agoThe OP is definitely referring to an auction bid. The exact quote of the text from the confirmation screen specifically refers to "Place bid" "bid up to your max bid" and "if you win" which are not applicable to Best Offers.
I've seen a few posts in the past couple of weeks that seem to be referring to auction bids rather than Best Offer but this is the first one to be unambiguous that it is for a bid rather than an offer.
Maybe they are testing it again. Maybe there is some code left over from the test that we all thought ended early this year (due to the disappearance of the seller option to opt out for bids--I wonder if those opt-outs still apply). I'll try to find out.
@rileysan would you please update us if you win as to whether the auto-payment actually occurred?
mudshark61369
·2 years ago@rileysan,
@campanaelia, could be right if you are confusing making an offer with bidding. If this is an Auction, that has Best offer on it and you sent an offer, you might receive the message, if the seller is requiring auto pay if an offer is accepted. Straight Auctions, that do not have the Best Offer option, can no longer require auto payment on winning an auction.
transamcc
·2 years agoNo, the autopay GARBAGE is back on auctions too. I have not intentionally done auction buys for years nor make offers since early 2023, but it is there on both now. BIN only or seller initiated offers now for me; saves a bunch of money on stuff I DO NOT buy.
mr_lincoln
·2 years ago@transamcc
Are you saying that no matter what Seller's auction you try to bid on they require your payment method before placing a bid? I would be interested to know if that is the case with my listings ...
transamcc
·2 years agoIt is NOT on all auctions yet, just what appears to be many of them. Seller's settings, perhaps?? I quit auctions a long time ago due to the many days' wait times for them to end. If I am buying, I want it now and find frustration in just waiting for sellers to ship. The autopay option, regardless of the application, is an insult to honest buyers and needlessly messes up combined shipping, as well as extended hold times by EBAY on my paypal funding source when I do not win. It still can take up to a week after an offer is declined for ebay to release a hold. I use ONLY PayPal 4 online shopping
mr_lincoln
·2 years ago@transamcc
My sincere thanks for the reply and thanks for confirming you do not see it on all auctions. eBay had added the Auto-pay feature to my account when it first rolled out, I only learned that because a customer told me they refused to bid on one of my auctions because of it ... keep in mind eBay did NOT advise Sellers when that function was added to their account AND the default was that it was turned ON. I immediately turned if off. Then they turned it back ON shortly after that ... I turned it OFF again. Then they dropped it for Auctions. So your post made me wonder if they turned it ON for all Sellers regardless of their preference.
So today, and as the result of this thread and your specific post, I just checked my account and sure enough, eBay has ADDED it back to my account but it is turned OFF thankfully because I sell a lot auction style.
It is just as frustrating for honest Sellers as it is for honest Buyers.
gurlcat
·2 years agoI just checked my preferences, and indeed the "option" is there again, just like you said. Also like you, mine was not defaulted to 'on'.
But I am not consoled by that one bit, and I don't believe for one second that every buyer who wanted to bid on my auction that ended last night was able to do so with no prepay requirement.
I know my main category very well, and I know how much to expect from auctions of it when I put together a collection lot. -No, I don't know the exact dollar amount each will fetch; if I did I would make it BIN. But I know from much experience including experiments that these lots are one of those rare things that actually do tend to fetch more at auction than I could get as BIN's, and they do so in only 7 days, as opposed to weeks of waiting, marking down, sending offers, etc. The way I photograph, title and describe them, the precise ratio of clarity and mystery creates a frenzy among certain kinds of buyers. It has worked so well up to this point, that HALF of my annual income has tended to come from them, despite running only 1 or 2 per week, and despite occasional spikes in BIN profits from highly valuable individual pieces I happened to acquire cheaply (in other words, a totally unreliable income source).
What WAS reliable was running 1 or 2 of these auctions every week, Sunday to Sunday, and not only did they provide consistent weekly income of $2-400, they also got eyes on my BIN items, and they got them ALMOST FREE, because of Promoted Listings Express. Now that's over, so not only do I have to promote my auctions at PLS rates, when they draw eyes to my BIN's, a lot more of them are now "sold via promotion" because of .... F, I can't remember the stupid word, "echo" effect or something like that, I am too upset to care right now.
I KNOW that the lot that closed last night should have been one of my best in a long time, a bare minimum of $200 all by itself because it was extra large and included some very desirable pieces .... $250 wouldn't have been surprising, and $300 wouldn't have been shocking. And it was getting all the views and watcher counts that it should have, especially the final 2 days, just like normal. I remember it getting a bid for $89 a few hours before closing, and I checked to see that it had 49 watchers! 49! And I don't need to hear anything about watchers not meaning anything -they do when it comes to auctions.
Or at least ... they did.
I got busy on some other tasks and forgot about the auction, until hours later when I heard the 'CHING' sound on my phone. -Something sold, but what? Did someone accept one of those offers I sent on BIN's earlier? Did someone buy one of the new BIN's I listed in the past couple days? Then I looked at the clock, and remembered (with fearful adrenaline) that it was the time for that auction to close .... but I had not heard any 'bid' sounds for hours. Surely there were ones I just didn't hear because I was in another room, SURELY. I picked up the phone and there was the window, congratulating me on my auction selling for $89! I opened the listing to find that it had ONLY 7 BIDDERS!
There is NO effing way some would-be bidders, namely snipers, weren't prepay-walled, NO WAY. And of course, the winner did view the listing via PLS promotion, so almost $6 will come out of it, instead of the PLE $1.49-$1.99 that would have a few weeks ago.
I don't know what to do now. I am seriously panicking.
intuitive
·2 years ago@gurlcat
My auction sales dropped by 18.3% in the past month.
Until now I had no idea there was a preference that blocked bidders who do not provide a payment method.
I just checked my Buyer Management page and found the option, which I have never seen before.
And it was checked ON.
The box for Offers was checked ON as well -- although that one I may have done myself.
But I know I did not authorize the buyer requirement for auctions.
I owe you one for making me aware of this.
intuitive
·2 years agoIf bidders were using sniping software -- which many do -- I can't see how they weren't blocked. Since the pre-payment option was checked on my Buyer Management page (without my knowledge), I'm now wondering how many snipes were automatically turned away from my underwhelming auctions this past weekend.
What eBay should do instead is make all bidders register a payment method, then automatically deduct the payment once they win the auction
gurlcat
·2 years agoI don't understand. You say you quit auctions long ago because you don't like waiting for them to end. So, if you're not bidding on auctions, then how did you make the assessment that the autopay feature "appears to be on many of them" ?? -The only way to find out is to try to place a bid. But again .... you ..... said you don't bid on auctions, you quit long ago.
transamcc
·2 years agoI LOOK and examine the conditions on a few interesting ones of RARE items. I sometimes even put in a possible bid, and when that payment screen comes up I GO AWAY. I bought an auction just days ago BECAUSE it did not have that asinine requirement on it. I entered a bid one dollar higher than the current bid to check if seller had the requirement set . Surprisingly not and it did not require the second 50 cent interval to win 4 days later. I believe, counting that one, I have purchased 4 auctions in the past 9 years. I guess I should have used "avoid auctions" instead of "quit auctions" in my previous post to satisfy the literary critics.