Imperial eBay
A Bridge Too Far
I have had an eBay account for over 25 years, but have not bought or sold any thing for a while. Back then eBay acted more like a listing service, and my payments were received by check from the buyers, and sent by me to the sellers. Then, a number of years ago eBay mandated PayPal usage for everyone (about the same time they bought PayPal company.) Today I thought I would list my antique SWTPC 6800 computer, so I logged on for the first time in a while, only to find that they now demand direct, unfettered access to Sellers' bank accounts, and PayPal is no longer even an option. Well, that is definitely not going to happen. Ebay is not a government agency even if they act like one!
84 comments
glorybells
·2 years agoeBay in the early days stood alone among online marketplaces. But, after over 25 years, everything has changed in this world.
In 1999, I didn’t know very many people with a cell phone. Now everyone has one.
In 1999, laptop computers were unusual and expensive. Now nearly everyone has one.
Music streaming was just beginning in 1999. Now it’s the way we listen to music.
Now, eBay is not the standalone marketplace it once was. Now there’s almost a glut of these sites. Amazon, Etsy, Mercari, etc, etc, etc. eBay had to change with the times or be plowed under. All of the other sites I mentioned also require your checking account information. In 1999, the 2018 Supreme Court decision on sales tax for online sales didn’t exist. I was one of the sellers who got dragged kicking and screaming into PayPal in 2002. Then I began to love it. I’ve been in managed payments since 2020. Now I love it.
You either change with the time or get plowed under by it. The whole world has changed since I started selling on eBay 25 years ago. In a lot of ways things have been massively simplified on eBay. No variable listing fees. No waiting for payment. Shipping has been streamlined and simplified. It’s the eBay we have now, take it or leave it.
broto_64
·2 years agoThe reason why things are the way they are is also why we can't have anything nice on this planet.
mam98031
·2 years agoWOW, I'm really sorry to hear this. I do hope things improve in your world very soon!!
luckythewinner
·2 years agoThey do do not demand "unfettered" access to your bank account. They demand access to your bank account for transactions in keeping with the user agreement.
I have had six selling accounts tied to the same bank account for at least 4 years, and eBay has never mad a transaction they were not entitled to.
thelongball
·2 years agoA FYI- You also can't leave Negatives for Buyers any longer either.
Just so it doesn't blow your mind later after you make a sale.
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoOnline selling grew up - no, it's not as fun as it was in its infancy, but neither is adulthood. ðŸ™
mam98031
·2 years ago@101airborne
I get the shock of it all, especially because you have been away for so long. But Ebay doesn't get "unfettered access" to anything. But to make you feel better, I'll tell you what I've said to anyone else that this caused a concern for. Just open up another Checking account, they are usually free, and use it only for your online sales.
Because wherever you go, if they process your payments, they will need all the same information Ebay is asking for.
Yes Ebay has changed since they are now our Money Processor but the Federal Laws have changed too and money processors are required my law to collect certain information from their sellers.
Paypal is an option for buyers, but you are correct as a seller we can not use them anymore because Ebay is now our money processor. Even if you were able to use PayPal as your money processor, they too would need the same info that Ebay needs as it is Federal Law, not just something Ebay dreamed up.
Whatever you decide to do I wish you well. Happy 4th of July!!! 🎆
fashunu4eeuh
·2 years agoThings change.
chevymontecarlo88
·2 years ago@doc-holmes
I guess if you say so. Did not realize that was such a sensitive topic in Canada.
From what i understand it is limited to interpretation but again, i am not Canadian.
Many of my Canadian friends play hockey throughout Canada, Europe and the US professionally and they have a good grasp of what most think there.
Actually some could argue you sound more American than Canadian. 😂
Its all good and i can appreciate your point of view regardless if it does not align with some of my friends.
gurlcat
·2 years ago🤣 Yowsa, such master level passive aggression in there! Some could argue you sound more like a chick than a dude. I think you might even be a contender for my mother in law's crown.
chevymontecarlo88
·2 years ago😂That was a good one. Thank you for that laugh!
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoWut?
gurlcat
·2 years agoI was just riffing off his "more American than Canadian" bit. I swear I'm actually a feminist; I just play a sexist on TV.
chevymontecarlo88
·2 years agoWut? Don't apologize for being funny. I may not agree with some of your views but you are hilarious and i think more of that is good for conversation. If you need to help those who may be offended, i offer you femmi bear.
You can ask them to point on the bear where your words hurt them. 🤣
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoIt's only banter on a chat board. Not to worry.
cardxcraft
·2 years agoI hear you, but, there's always a workaround. Be smart, and open a business account strictly for Ebay...be creative.
janet9988
·2 years agoLots of changes have been happening with all types of businesses throughout the years so it is not just ebay.
Good thing you read up on all of ebay's policies before listing so you avoided something you did not fully understand or agree with. Most do not read the policies before jumping in and finding out this too late.
bonjourami
·2 years agoAnd op, if you do decide to list here, read up on holds, because, with no recent selling history you are considered to be a new seller, and your funds can be subject to up to a thirty day hold.
house*of*paws
·2 years agoHi @101airborne
Most sellers have used a separate checking account to use just for selling on eBay ... so have no fears of eBay having any access to their personal account.
I certainly can understand if you don't want to take the trouble to learn about everything that's changed since you ventured on to the eBay site ... but please know that the ideas you have about what's happened to eBay are mistaken. But best of luck in selling your computer!
isaiah53-57
·2 years ago@101airborne
You can do what @tobaccocardyahoo suggested below - Its exactly what I do - I have an account specifically designed for fund dumps and nothing else - Have no debit cards or any payable accounts attached to that account and all I have to do is make one deposit per month and keep above a $10 Balance for it to be free - For some banks you likely dont even need to do that for it to be free... Pretty sure there's no safer way to go...
Mind you, I'm not condoning trying to sell it here with all the site problems, fraud and ALL the other changes you likely dont know about, But should you decide to do so you may go that route we mentioned...
PS... Thank You for your service - My Brother was Airborne stationed up in Anchorage for a good portion of his duty - Went National Guard - Reupped after 9/11 and was stationed in Afghanistan for several years. Poor guy is a mess, but loves the Lord - God Bless you sir.
vintage-camerastuff
·2 years agoChecks, money orders, western union money transfers. Those were the good old days. Now it is all about control and power just like the government.
bonjourami
·2 years agoPersonally I hated waiting for checks and money orders, had a few checks bounce. I then got a merchant account which simplified things until a couple years later when PP started.
P.S. and holding the merchandise until the check cleared..meh.
chevymontecarlo88
·2 years agoYeah but back during that time you could at least leave negative feedback for buyers. 😀
Seems so long ago.
bonjourami
·2 years ago"Yeah but back during that time you could at least leave negative feedback for buyers.
Seems so long ago."
Yes and the buyer would neg you right back, it was a catch 22. And when I started, you could actually leave feedback without a purchase...it was a free for all!
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoOh, lawdy no. I do NOT miss those days - bits of paper in the mail for online transactions. And I lost count of the amount of times I was stiffed and strung along. That was when there were a lot more buyers than sellers and the 'three strikes' rule. Now I think there are probably more sellers than buyers and the struggle is real.
m*and*l*sales
·2 years agoYes, but what about having to wait to get a zip code from the buyer, then lug the package to the Post Office to get a shipping quote, then lug it back home and tell the buyer the cost, then wait a week or so for the check in the mail, then wait for it to clear, then finally ship it out....
This is way faster.
lilyswan2
·2 years agoit is faster but why not let sellers accept checks and money orders if that is their choice?
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoFees are deducted in real time. If eBay allowed sellers to accept mail-in payments, they'd have to come up with a separate billing system to run concurrently in order to cover fee payments. I haven't sold on any actual marketplaces that allow mail-in payments in quite a while, though I'm sure there are some (I dealt with mail-in payments on Facebook for some time but that was fee-free situation).
fyeo20000
·2 years agoback in the day, most sellers accepted ca$h by mail ... out of approx. 200 transactions, only 1 went 'missing'
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years agoWith all the sellers who post here complaining about the level of USPS service. and buyers who pay late or do not pay, It would be a curse to go back to the Good Old Days.
readabouthorses
·2 years agoIt was fun. I remember going to my credit union with so many checks and money orders that it took 2 or 3 deposit tickets. The tellers would give me funny looks because these checks were from all over the US. Postal money orders could be cashed at the PO if they had enough funds. And then the cash! My favorite was when a buyer from the UK sent me $200 in crisp bills for a Porsche manual.
Now it seems all the fun is gone. All we do is complain about each other and no one trusts anyone anymore.
gurlcat
·2 years agoI can understand not being too troubled by having to drive somewhere, stand in lines, fill out forms, etc. but how was it fun ??
skatefool
·2 years agoThe same way sourcing, researching, listing, packing and shipping items and keeping the books is fun - if you enjoy doing it, it's fun. If you don't enjoy it - it's a PITA.
readabouthorses
·2 years agoIt was fun for me because my background is advertising and marketing. It was fun to create the listings, keep the books, deposit the money ... and all the time you kept telling yourself "can it really be this easy". You put up a bunch of auctions (we had no Fixed Price listings) and 7 days later they were all sold with multiple bids with excited happy buyers anxiously waiting for you to send them an invoice so they could send you a check or a money order or cash.
At the time I started selling in 1999 I also had a part-time job. I began to make more money selling on eBay than my part-time job was paying me. I quit that job and did eBay. I originally started selling on eBay to raise the funds for an expensive operation for my horse (the one pictured in my ID) but when I made more money than I did working it sort of became a mission of just how long can this keep on.
So you really had to be there in the early days ... it was fun, it was exciting, it made you happy. I had a lot of regular buyers and some of them even became friends and one of them became my mentor. I don't see those kinds of connections anymore and it sort of makes me sad.
gurlcat
·2 years agoYeah after I asked the question, I thought it might just be that you had more success back then. It can definitely be hard to separate things that are merely associated from those that are truly correlated. You made more money because you had way less competition, not because people paid with checks, but I could picture it feeling that way.
readabouthorses
·2 years agoAnd also I've always been lucky that I've had really great buyers. The only neutral I got was from a Canadian buyer who was a nightmare to deal with and I have no negatives and lots and lots of repeat buyers. But then the horse community is usually a very close-knit group. We stick together and we support each other online and in real life.
glorybells
·2 years ago@readabouthorses , I had horses myself for 37 years! I really miss them.
gurlcat
·2 years agoUntil this is proven wrong to me, I believe item category is the most pivotal factor in "good buyers" vs. "bad buyers." Of course it depends on what one considers "bad," like if you consider frequent returns bad regardless of why, then you would likely consider the apparel category to have lots of "bad buyers." In my couple years of experience with that, I felt it was just the nature of items that really need to be tried on to glean true satisfaction level, so I didn't resent it -then again I did have a few cases where I'm pretty sure the "buyers" were actually (free) renters of the garments/footwear for events or whatever. But if by "bad" one means buyers who purchase without being certain the item is what they need, auto parts appears to be rife with bad buyers. And if one means scammers, obviously electronics attracts them like flies.
But I bet all of the above was the same in 1999 as it is now. Again I could be wrong.
Hey what kind of horse-involved items do you (or did you) sell? Just curious; I'm not a horse owner, just a lifelong wish-I-was, obsessed with them as a kid, and still have some Breyers (also got into buying and selling those here for a while), and every time I turn around, Youtube compels me to watch this or that horse video. Actually this morning it was the birth of a donkey foal, OMG THE MOMENT SHE GOT THOSE GIANT EARS TO STAND UP ! ðŸ˜
mam98031
·2 years ago@vintage-camerastuff
I would just add that for me, I'm glad those days are gone. I didn't like running to the bank all the time to deposit payments from buyers. Then wait and hope they all cleared, then ship the item. That could be up to a couple weeks before shipping.
Times change, buyers change. It is highly likely that most buyers would never want to wait that log to have their item shipped.
Just imagine how many FAKE money orders we would have to deal with if payments still had to be mailed in.
We have to move forward or we will be left behind. Electronic payments and Mobile shopping allowed Ebay to move forward and grow.
chevymontecarlo88
·2 years agoI think i am going to watch A Bridge to Far tonight. What a great movie with some of the best Actors of our time.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years agoI never trusted PayPal with access to my household checking account, still do not.
I opened another checking account for PayPal and other what I feel are insecure sites.
Ebay Managed Payments has access to the same account now.
The new checking account is free.
monica-sells
·2 years agotake off the blinders my friend....
ebay would much rather operate under 1990's rules.....
less regulation and government oversight...we were ALL happier.....
I am not a big seller, but, as has been pointed out...ebay has access to all 3 bank accounts that I created strictly for ebay deposits (3 selling accounts)....not saying it can't happen (it can happen with any account for any vendor), but so far so good.....
kensgiftshop
·2 years agoThey've had access to my bank account since I started and haven't had any problems.
No more waiting to transfer money from Pay Pal to my checking account, it's so much easier.
mtgraves7984
·2 years ago"... but have not bought or sold any thing for a while."
@101airborne
Yeppers, and it's been a long while. I think I onboarded with MP in 2018. Nothing nefarious has happened so far. 🤞
toysaver
·2 years agoEBay would also have requested your SS# and reported the sale to the IRS.
gone.c-33
·2 years agoYou missed the part about many sellers complaining about PayPal becoming mandatory and having the same type of access (actually kind of worse because they would something sneak in and fetch the money for a refund at the same time people made a payment for a purchase without them realizing and that got many a knicker twisted) to our bank accounts.
bonjourami
·2 years agoYes, and I like paying the one fee here and knowing what it is without having to figure in the PP fees all the time.Im all for anything that makes my life easier.
gurlcat
·2 years agoOh man you just reminded me how the fees were a monthly BILL, instead of as-you-sell. I guess it's been long enough that I kinda forgot about that. Mercy I do NOT miss it. I remember the due date was the same as one of my household bills, so if I didn't have enough for both it was Sophie's Choice time. Just awful.
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoWhat is a check?
bonjourami
·2 years agoLike millions of other sellers, Ive been in MP for years and like it. No problems at all, and altho Im just an infrequent seller now, I like getting those deposits to my checking account. No going back and forth to PP to transfer and collect,its made getting paid much simpler.
doc-holmes
·2 years agoNeither eBay nor the government have unfettered access to my bank account.
chevymontecarlo88
·2 years agoMaybe not Ebay but some may argue that the Canadian government can access your account and even freeze your account. I don't know because i am not Canadian but that is what i have heard.
doc-holmes
·2 years agoI'm not sure what you're talking about, but that just sounds like fear mongering.
chevymontecarlo88
·2 years agoLike i said i am not Canadian so i have heard this second and third hand. Apparently some citizens had there bank accounts frozen for protesting a few years back. I do understand you all don't have Free Speech and have different laws so i can't say for sure if it was warranted. A lot of folks apparently did feel like it was over reach. Not trying to fear monger. Just pointing out something some of my Canadian friends concerns.
On another note, if the Habs get Kane, maybe it will help them contend next year.
gone.c-33
·2 years agoIf you meant the bank accounts of the Canadian Yall-Qaeda, their funds weren’t seized because they were protesting but because they were committing multiple crimes including harassment and threats. Many people associated with those bank accounts were on watch lists for being part of white supremacists and right wing extremist terror groups.
Pretty sure if a bunch of National Vanguard members gathered in Washington and threatened to ram a bunch of semis into the White House, they would face some asset forfeiture of their own.
chevymontecarlo88
·2 years agoNo i was not referring to that. Again i am not Canadian so i can't verify what the facts were but i know my friends are not part of any white supremacists. Actually they are quite Liberal. The government is always going to go after terrorists and rightfully so. Why would i offer to defend a terrorist group or have friends that associate with such views? Duh
gone.c-33
·2 years agoI made the assumption since the Canadian Emergencies Act that allowed the freezing of bank accounts of protesters was only activated once, during the “Freedom†convoy… Sorry!
doc-holmes
·2 years agoWe do have free speech. It's called freedom of expression and it's guaranteed by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Maybe you need to stop listening to your friends.
isaiah53-57
·2 years agoI'm not sure I would call it fear mongering, especially since I believe it is somewhat accurate information? Even for ebay to do as such - I'm pretty sure you give ebay the right to go into your account and withdraw funds if they need to when you sign up for managed payments - I have seen several people post here about the site taking funds from a checking account to settle cases.
I had daily payouts and got my funds within one or two days of receiving them out of the account I used to eliminate any issues, so I was never really worried about it.
bonjourami
·2 years agoIf the seller does not have a cc or a debit card as their payment source, then in the event of an unresolved buyer refund, funds will come from their checking account.I cant say Ive seen a lot of those complaints on the boards tho. Ebays first step if they cant recover refunds from the sellers seems to be to turn them over to collections.PP was known to take funds from checking accounts, but I dont hear much of that on the Ebay boards. Im sure if it was a big problem, it would be posted more.
bonjourami
·2 years agoAnd I remember on the old Paypal board, there were constant complaints of PP withdrawing money for unresolved cases from checking accounts.
readabouthorses
·2 years agoI never had that problem with PayPal. PayPal Damon helped me get my PayPal account set up and he advised me to connect it to a savings account instead of a checking account. Only people who could withdraw from that savings account was me and my credit union.
bonjourami
·2 years ago"I never had that problem with PayPal. "
Im glad you didnt, but did you ever read the old Paypal board? Lots of people did.
mam98031
·2 years agoIDK about PP allowing that, but their structure is very different than Managed Payments. It is required to have a bank account attached that they CAN deposit to and deduct from for purposes of paying for a refund, pay unpaid fees, here in Managed Payments.
I agree with you, when PP was our money processor I did not have any issues them them beyond what I see with Managed Payments. But there are a whole lot of people that didn't have our experiences with them. A simple internet search on this subject can be a real eye opener.
bonjourami
·2 years agoHappy Trails.