Require buyers to provide a payment method before they place a BID is BACK in account settings.
I just wanted to try and get the word out since eBay hasn't announced this.
Check your account settings everyone to make sure the buyer requirements are what you prefer. eBay just added back the option to require payment method before bidding on Auctions.
Some sellers have had these boxes CHECKED by eBay, even though they previously have not required the payment method. I prefer not to require since I have no issues with unpaids and want to combine shipping.
Here's a link to where you can check your account settings. Last two options on the page>
https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements
33 comments
kh-shawn
·5 months agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
sugarnspice777
·5 months agoTook me 2 years to figure this one out. I hate them doing check boxes for me. Communist type actions. I assume now I have lost money on bids on auctions.
broto_64
·2 years agoWhere can this setting be accessed, used to be under site preferences but I don't see it...
brightlightbookseller
·2 years agoIt's under Selling Preferences -> Managing who can buy from you (also known as Buyer Requirements, but that's not the wording that shows when you go to find it). Direct link: https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements
jcw711
·2 years agoI loath this change. First, why not tell all users this change would be occurring instead of the version where everyone will just figure it out on their own. Secondly, I hate any platform that requires linking of accounts. Absolutely no reason that I should have to provide payment information prior to purchasing. It introduces a security risk on my end that I just cannot tolerate. Gives me visions of walking in a grocery store with a guard asking for payment preferences before entry - ridiculous, but would make a great Sunday morning cartoon for the paper
Thank you for having this post - this is the only place I could find out why this feature was on. I would have won an auction last night had I known before-hand why I was dealing with this unnecessary feature. Yet, another aggravation.
occcomputer
·2 years ago@dbfolks166mt and @ Ebay and all sellers and buyers in general
You started by mentioning BINs that have nothing to do with the matter at hand and in all my understanding doesn’t, or at the least rarely, work in the way you describe.
But I am sure it was an honest question and not an attempt to downplay, demean, or belittle me.
I search, I find, I pay, I get.
Every reputable ebay seller wants paying buyers like me.
15 years on ebay and I have bid on 952 auctions and won 635.
I have no way in my dataset to separate BINs and Auctions on those numbers, but at least 60% of those 635 had to be BINs. If I was forced to give a % I would say something more than 80%
I have never seen a buy it now that wasn't.. buy it now.
With the exception of the perpetually grayed out "request invoice" link that if it wasn’t grayed out buyers would be a fool to use without first communicating with the seller and having an agreement on the combined price before-hand.
Of those 635 purchases I have paid immediately for BINs and from minutes to hours for auctions.
With the exception of one about ten years ago. A $250 set of Sennheiser earbuds I had put a starting bid of $25 with a maximum of $50 with plans to bid up to a max of $150 near the auction end.
I had noticed there was something wrong during the non-cancellation countdown period. Only one other bidder had bid and had put me to my $50 max. There should have been more bidders and an increasing price. So I looked hard at the sellers profile and the item.
Found the seller was based in china and was using a shipped from USA address, the ear phones were counterfeit, the bulk of the positive feedback was in broken English, and that a 0-10 feedback shill bidder had bid me to my maximum.
I was livid and refused to pay and made the seller cancel the sale by completing ignoring them.
This is the reason I can't have nice things and to the best of my ability I have to VET every single seller before I buy from them.
By the time I bid or BIN I have seen the sellers stated location and join date in "about", have read the sellers neutrals and negatives and sped-read at least a page or two of the sellers positives set at "View 240", have at the minimum quickly scrolled through the sellers other listings looking for red flags (and other items of interest to be worth chatting with the seller about combined shipping). By the time I bid or BIN I am as reasonably sure as possible that I will not be getting screwed or have to jump through hoops to get it made right.
And this is also part of the reason I am "very not happy" about this nerfed forced immediate payment requirement for auctions they are pushing on us with default settings turned on for sellers. I bet sellers have to dig through their obfuscated settings to find it as well.
This change they are in the process of implementing is NOT for the sellers benefit. It is for Ebays benefit, as all changes are. And yes, I think the whole point is they need to figure out how to fix this. Until they do sellers that run auctions at real auction starting prices are going to lose bids which = money.
But, for me there is no fix of this "nerfed forced payment choosing" that could ever put my auction bids back to what they were. Currently my bids are zero. Even best case I can think of my bids would never be even more than a tenth of what they were. No more starting bid to put it in my bid list, no more "not 110% planned" snipes, no more bumps, no more helping hand.
I can think of better ways to stop non-paying bidders.
But they don't/wouldn’t do that for the same reason that they no longer have a way to report shill bidders, won’t do a darned thing about huge volume sellers that have multiple hundreds to thousands of negative feedback, and won’t give buyers the same blocking abilities they give sellers. Just to name a few things that come to mind right now. It makes them more money.
How do I report shill bidding?
If you think that another member is shill bidding, you don't need to report it to us. eBay has a number of systems in place to detect and monitor bidding patterns and practices. If we identify any malicious behavior, we'll take steps to prevent it.
"We'll take steps to prevent it."
No, they won't.
https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/166789888728
gurlcat
·2 years agoYou didn't reply directly to the post by whoever is the "You" that you're talking to, nor tag them, so it looks like you're replying to the OP.
occcomputer
·2 years agoWell, seems they DO have that setting available. Default off.
Block buyers who caused (2,3,4,5) cancellations of unpaid order within (1,6,12) months
gurlcat
·2 years agoNow you replied to yourself. 🤣
occcomputer
·2 years ago@gurlcat I sure did. Right after I fixed my previous post on your suggestion.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoYou started by mentioning BINs that have nothing to do with the matter at hand and in all my understanding doesn’t, or at the least rarely, work in the way you describe.
But I am sure it was an honest question and not an attempt to downplay, demean, or belittle me.
It was intended to be an honest question. When I used to do BIN listings long ago I often had the same problem with non-payers since I did not use the IPR requirement but I seldom do BIN listings these days so I am not sure if it is still a problem.
This change they are in the process of implementing is NOT for the sellers benefit. It is for Ebays benefit, as all changes are. And yes, I think the whole point is they need to figure out how to fix this. Until they do sellers that run auctions at real auction starting prices are going to lose bids which = money.
O I 100% agree this function is/was intended to benefit eBay. Non-payers represent potential revenue loss to eBay just as it does for the buyers. It must have got to the point where it was potentially impacting eBay's bottom line. EBay is never going to make public the non-paying buyers/offerors information but I suspect it has creeped up over the years.
I can think of better ways to stop non-paying bidders.
But they don't/wouldn’t do that for the same reason that they no longer have a way to report shill bidders, won’t do a darned thing about huge volume sellers that have multiple hundreds to thousands of negative feedback, and won’t give buyers the same blocking abilities they give sellers. Just to name a few things that come to mind right now. It makes them more money.
We agree on more than you think. I have not and will not, unless eBay forces it, turned on the option to require a bidder to provide a payment method before they bid. EBay has always coddled the buyers including the good, bad and the ugly and I don't see them changing that view.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoI have posted this information to several postings that complained about the non-payers on offers and auctions. While it is an option it does have trade off's the inability to do combined shipping being one of the biggest ones.
While it is an option I do remember during the pilot that the number of postings about non-paying buyers had decreased to almost nothing, once they shutdown the pilot those complaint postings started to increase again.
My thoughts were eBay should have focused on the buyers and made providing the payment information mandatory for any buyer that has more that x non-payment strikes. Sure the sport bidders could have created new accounts but maybe the hassle of doing so would have discouraged them a bit and since you cannot use a guest account for auctions that would be a non-starter.
occcomputer
·2 years agoEbay obviously wants to lose business. As of today I find every single auction I have checked is requiring me to have a payment method chosen so I can be auto-billed at the auction end. They can GF themselves.
ittybitnot
·2 years agoAs of today I find every single auction I have checked is requiring me to have a payment method chosen so I can be auto-billed at the auction end.
@occcomputer
eBay reinstated the requirement on the seller's Buyer Management page a couple of weeks ago. I would assume there are still plenty of sellers who don't know it exists, as they never were informed the first go round. It was amazing for some sellers to see how their bidding improved when they turned the requirement off. As my purchases are basically offered at auction, it was sad to see the paltry ending prices for some of these items. I would have been willing to bid MORE, knowing I could combine items for one shipping price. I quit on those auctions as well.....i.e. who wants to to $60.00 in shipping for ten pairs of earrings that would ship for $5.00?
Other sellers think it is wonderful, and do not realize that they are turning away PAYING BUYERS, but that is their choice. Once your BUYER ID is enrolled in this, you will find the requirement in place with ANY seller who retains the requirement. Buyers who fell for the "new improved smoother checkout" nonsense last time probably already left anyway, and may not even bother with eBay anymore after being so discouraged.
Instead, eBay proclaims buyers like cheaper shipping...LOL... and have enrolled all sellers into their previously unpopular program of providing buyers with the seller's discounted rate for shipping. eBay has the best "discounted shipping" program available on the net. It is called COMBINING ITEMS FOR ONE SHIPPING PRICE....which has been removed as an option at every opportunity.
Even when a seller sends an offer now, it is "immediate payment required"...no invoicing, no combined shipping. Unlike the "auto-pay" situation, buyers can choose how to pay, but again why accept offers for ten pairs of earrings when the shipping will be $60?
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoAs of today I find every single auction I have checked is requiring me to have a payment method chosen so I can be auto-billed at the auction end.
@occcomputer
eBay reinstated the requirement on the seller's Buyer Management page a couple of weeks ago. I would assume there are still plenty of sellers who don't know it exists, as they never were informed the first go round. It was amazing for some sellers to see how their bidding improved when they turned the requirement off. As my purchases are basically offered at auction, it was sad to see the paltry ending prices for some of these items. I would have been willing to bid MORE, knowing I could combine items for one shipping price. I quit on those auctions as well.....i.e. who wants to to $60.00 in shipping for ten pairs of earrings that would ship for $5.00?
Other sellers think it is wonderful, and do not realize that they are turning away PAYING BUYERS, but that is their choice. Once your BUYER ID is enrolled in this, you will find the requirement in place with ANY seller who retains the requirement. Buyers who fell for the "new improved smoother checkout" nonsense last time probably already left anyway, and may not even bother with eBay anymore after being so discouraged.
Instead, eBay proclaims buyers like cheaper shipping...LOL... and have enrolled all sellers into their previously unpopular program of providing buyers with the seller's discounted rate for shipping. eBay has the best "discounted shipping" program available on the net. It is called COMBINING ITEMS FOR ONE SHIPPING PRICE....which has been removed as an option at every opportunity.
Even when a seller sends an offer now, it is "immediate payment required"...no invoicing, no combined shipping. Unlike the "auto-pay" situation, buyers can choose how to pay, but again why accept offers for ten pairs of earrings when the shipping will be $60?
I use the auction format almost exclusively and have the option turned off. For the brief time it was turned on by eBay unilaterally I never noticed any difference in bidding or sales.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoEbay obviously wants to lose business. As of today I find every single auction I have checked is requiring me to have a payment method chosen so I can be auto-billed at the auction end. They can GF themselves.
Do you also ignore any BIN listing that has immediate payment required? Do you not shop online if the merchant requires you to pay for the item before you complete the order?
occcomputer
·2 years agoThere are online, or any, purchases that can be completed before it is paid for?
With BIN listings, or ANY purchase, I can choose what method of payment to use. I have multiple methods to pay and can choose which to use at that moment. Which method to pay with can vary day to day, and this forced payment method removes all options I have and locks me in to one.
ALSO, there is no option to use a gift card as a payment method with the forced method.
I also have no clue what BIN listings you are referring to that can be purchased without payment.
Yes. Combined shipping can be a MAJOR deciding factor in ANY online purchase
Besides that you can't know how many people didn't bid on an auction
You run 7 day auctions at buy it now pricing, and I imagine you didn't notice a difference.
In the past 84 days you have had:
276 Auctions ended
40 of those sold
Of the 40 sold:
34 were single bidder
5 were 2 bidder
1 was 3 bidder
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoThere are online, or any, purchases that can be completed before it is paid for?
With BIN listings, or ANY purchase, I can choose what method of payment to use. I have multiple methods to pay and can choose which to use at that moment. Which method to pay with can vary day to day, and this forced payment method removes all options I have and locks me in to one.
ALSO, there is no option to use a gift card as a payment method with the forced method.
I also have no clue what BIN listings you are referring to that can be purchased without payment.
The fact that the current auto-pay for offers and auctions locks you into one form of payment is simply a function that eBay needs to fix, that was also a complaint during the pilot. If a BIN does not have IPR required a buyer can basically purchase the item and never pay just like they do with auctions or offers.
There is some irony in the fact that a lot of sellers tell posters to use BIN/IPR as a solution to auction and offer buyers that do not pay but without the IPR the BIN has the same risk of non-payment as an auction does. I am assuming as a buyer BIN/IPR gives you the options with regards to payment that you seek. Why eBay simply did not mirror that capability with the auctions and offeror's is beyond me.
Besides that you can't know how many people didn't bid on an auction
Why would I care?
You run 7 day auctions at buy it now pricing, and I imagine you didn't notice a difference.
Actually I run both 7 and 10 day auctions at BIN prices all of which are setup on Sunday as scheduled listings.
In the past 84 days you have had:
276 Auctions ended
40 of those sold
Of the 40 sold:
34 were single bidder
5 were 2 bidder
1 was 3 bidder
Probably pretty accurate other than the one BIN I sold where a buyer asked that I relist the item. Almost all of the effort I put forth was mainly done on Sunday. The rest of the week I was not chained to eBay since I also don't use OBO. Without counting exactly out of those 84 days I was probably away from home for 40 of those either fishing, camping, hiking sourcing items and in at least a couple of instances I had flown out of state for several days to visit family and friends something that would have been more complex with BIN or if I accepted offers.
Bottom line is sellers have the option to use or not use the auto-pay functionality just like they have the option to use or not to use IPR on BIN listings. In either case there are trade offs as there generally is with anything in life. The solution eBay came up with may not be optimal, which doesn't surprise me, but at least it's a start they just need to work out the major issues.
a-lotta-stuff
·2 years ago" ... and want to combine shipping."
If this is still being run like it was back in Jan/Feb, when we had nine total auctions say in the action column - 'autopay in [three days later] 11:00pst' - the seller has three days to sent an invoice if needed. We didn't need to but could have. And best part, they all were paid for, unlike the three that first said 'awaiting payment' for four days and then said cancelled.
Now having paypal as the only payment option - don't know if that's the same as before or a dumb 'improvement'
update - read a reply from our post about this in Jan and that person said " It does allow you to change your payment information before the auction is over' - so it seems ebay un-improved it this time around.
gurlcat
·2 years agoI wish I could be relieved to see that the requirement remains optional, but I don't believe it is functioning properly. I had an auction close last night that I am pretty certain did not allow unimpeded sniping like would normally have happened for the kind of listings I run at auction. In fact, this one should have done extra well, yet it had no bids in the final hours (never mind final minutes) and closed abysmally LOW.
Don't believe my suspicion if you don't want to. I don't want to either. Believe that.
brightlightbookseller
·2 years agoI believe it, only because I've had customers tell us they were unable to make an offer (we don't do many auctions, but the function is similar) without a credit card entered, even though we had the setting turned off and always have.
gurlcat
·2 years agoAre you serious? How many, and when? Like recently? Did they just write email messages to you to tell you that?
brightlightbookseller
·2 years agoYep, they sent us direct messages. Only maybe 2-3 customers, and it was a while back so the issue we had could have been fixed (not expecting that, though), but yeah, they were complaining because they couldn't make an offer without adding card info first and they didn't like that.
redmodelt
·2 years agoThose that complain about not being able to do the combined shipping seem to be the loudest, I feel like they are in a small minority of buyers. Most items sold on eBay are single items so this should not be a big deal and if you want to bid, you are going to have to pay. Works for me as a buyer.
Thanks for the heads up for those sellers that don't want to use the feature.
gurlcat
·2 years agoI would agree with you on that since I don't get a lot of buyers who want to buy multiple things. But when it comes to auctions a huge part of my winning bid amounts come from snipers, and that is clearly threatened now.
12345jamesstamps
·2 years ago"small minority"....I don't think so. Stamp and coin auctions are big on eBay. And it matters for combined shipping for stamps are basically pieces of paper.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years ago"small minority"....I don't think so. Stamp and coin auctions are big on eBay. And it matters for combined shipping for stamps are basically pieces of paper.
During the pilot the combined shipping, or the lack of being able to do so was one of the major issues.
brightlightbookseller
·2 years agoThanks! Fortunately still unchecked for us, as we're not fans of that feature, but it is indeed back in the settings!
ittybitnot
·2 years agoI would suggest you take a look at the screen presented to the BUYER. It is likely going to be easy to miss the small print at the bottom.
See the screen shots in post #76 here:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Auto-payment-now-mandatory-for-AUCTIONS/m-p/34493790#M489020
mr_lincoln
·2 years agoThanks for posting @comics-scifi-collectibles
Imagine my surprise today when interacting on another thread on this topic that I just thought to check my own account settings to find that eBay added the Auto-pay BACK on my account WITHOUT TELLING ME ... AGAIN!
So I had to update my pics showing the on then off and now on again status of Auto Pay for the Auction flow. At least THIS time they didn't turn it ON without my consent.
wastingtime101
·2 years agoAs far as I can tell, whatever setting was in place before eBay removed the setting was retained when they restored the setting (checked or unchecked).
ckimodog
·2 years ago@wastingtime101
Mine were the same as what I checked off prior to this little "glitch?" If that is what it really is. I know several here who posted the same were upset as they felt eBay should have notified us...yeah right, that'll happen. 🙄
mr_lincoln
·2 years ago@wastingtime101
That's what it looks like BUT, they turned it ON after I turned it OFF the very first time it was added to my account. Nothing is off the table for the venue in my view.