Automatic payment after winning auction

[mishawakamike]

E bay's new policy of forcing buyers to automatically pay after winning auction is horrible idea. This is going to force buyers to pay total shipping costs on multiple wins. If I win six auctions on baseball cards with shipping costs of $4.95 for each item, I will now be forced to pay $29.70 on these six cards instead of a combined shipping cost of $4.95.  This is going to discourage buyers from making multiple bids. This policy needs to be fixed immediately!!!

[an-36344]

---

@battlecry! wrote:

Making Amazon look better and better all the time...Ebay may figure it out after they go bankrupt.... 

---

Agree 100% @battlecry!! What was the last best offer your Amazon seller accepted?

That was quit the hoot, wasn't it? And all those Amazon auctions, did you win them all?

[tobaccocardyahoo]

Even a seller who chose to invoke the immediate payment can refund the excess shipping, and I am sure many will.

[fastgraph]

As a seller, I don't like the auto-pay option either and have just disabled it.

I often have the same bidder win multiple auction lots closing on the same day. I also have shipping rules set up so the buyer is automatically charged the shipping cost for the item with the highest shipping cost, and all other lots paid for in the same transaction ship for free. I even explain this at the end of the description. That worked perfectly.

Sellers are also charged a final value fee that includes a 30 cent fee per transaction. So with auto-pay on, not only does it render useless any combined shipping rules a seller may set up, but if a buyer wins four auctions, the seller now pays a transaction fee of $1.20 (4x 30 cents) instead of a single 30 cent transaction fee.

Finally, I've bought and sold on eBay since 1996. In that time, I've only had one person not pay for items won at auction. Penalizing all buyers to mitigate something that happens so rarely simply isn't good business sense.

[atoqed_1]

I doubt ebay cares about anything we write on here, but I wanted to add my voice confirming that this is a horrible idea, and it has cost you money.

For sure I won't be buying cheaper singles (<$20) on ebay anymore, as this change makes it prohibitively expensive to do so. I used to actively seek out multiple purchases from a single seller so I could get combined shipping, which is a win-win for me and the seller.

Oh well. If they cared they'd look at the up and coming platforms that can seamlessly calculate reduced shipping costs dependent on how many items you purchase from a seller. I guess ebay is just going to go the route of trying to convince us that the dirty foot in our mouth tastes good.

[ittybitnot]

 I guess ebay is just going to go the route of trying to convince us that the dirty foot in our mouth tastes good.

@atoqed_1 

LOL....That "lipstick on a pig" approach is how this was presented to buyers who found themselves forced into providing a default payment method in order to proceed to bid or make an offer..."New, smoother checkout" "for your convenience" etc.  (of course omitting the details of reduced payment options and no more combined shipping invoices. )

I read an article the other day that was quite interesting where it seems one of eBay's goals is to perhaps change the buyer expectations for payment options/combined invoices so this won't be such a problem: (convincing buyers this is good for them?)

At eBay Open 2023, Senior Director Trust, David Newman admitted that solving the unpaid item problem has taken longer than intended due to the challenge of "unwinding 28 years of buyer behavior:

With best offer, the feedback from sellers has been incredibly positive and we're glad you are seeing our commitment come to life. That said we're still listening and acting on your feedback on how to make the experience even better and we have begun our work on auctions.

Jamie committed we would solve this problem and admittedly it has taken longer than we intended. The reality is that unwinding 28 years of buyer behavior in a way that is net positive to your business requires a great deal of testing and we'll remain deliberate and thoughtful in our approach.

Source:  https://www.valueaddedresource.net/ebay-sellers-warned-to-check-immediate-payment-required-settings/

Though supposedly a solution to non-paying buyers,  the forced compliance of  PAYING buyers apparently will "remain deliberate".  For me, forced compliance means eBay doesn't get my money. It surely 'unwinded' my 25 years of buyer behavior. 

[rrr555]

I'm done buying on ebay because almost everything I buy is auctions and now I'm being forced to put my payment method on file everytime I go to bid. When I did that with best offer; they billed my checking account even though I specifically gave my credit card with paypal and my preferred payment method with paypal. So I stopped making offers.  Now I get this message when trying to bid on auctions to put my preferred payment method on file.   I won't risk winning a bunch of auctions and having my checking account billed.  Not only do I lose out on the 3% cashback I get with  my preferred credit card, but I also run the risk of having my checking account balance go under what my outstanding checks might be.  So I'm done buying on ebay and will go to another site for my Christmas shopping and ALL my future buying

[fastgraph]

As a seller, I agree with 100% with your comments. Some follow up to my previous post on the topic...

The big problem was that all sellers were automatically opted-in to the new auto-pay feature by default, and many sellers did not even know about it. In my case, a great regular buyer brought it to my attention. It would have been much more preferable to offer the feature with everybody opted-out by default. Some sellers may like the auto-pay feature; if so, publicize the feature and they can opt-in if they so choose.

Another idea is to show "Seller requires automatic payment" or some similar verbiage adjacent to the seller's feedback score if they have auto-pay enabled. This would let buyers know before attempting to place a bid, and it would make it clear to sellers that something has changed.

Ideally, additional options besides just simple opt-in or opt-out would be good. Some possible examples:

- Require auto-pay for bidders in the seller's blocked bidder list.

- Require auto-pay for bidders with less than N feedback score, where N is seller-configurable.

The current scheme with auto-pay enabled really punishes both buyers and sellers. Thankfully there's a way to disable it.

[ed8108]

 How not to stimulate sales  !

Ebay Auto pay with pre authorization & immediate payment is a demand on the potential buyer ,comply or move on & away.

 I suspect auto pay , appears to more than a few individuals, as very Buyer unfriendly

[netstuff-sf]

This nonsense reminds me of the massive money-grab that the software industry is in the midst of now that they can get away with all their products continuously monitoring each and every endpoint via the internet .(Now that everyone has internet and it tends to be on most of the time)

So instead of "buying" a copy of software they are shoving perpetual rental fees down everyone's throat. And for someone who is only an occasional user, it's like banning time-share condos and forcing everyone to pay the full cost of the property year-round even if they only set foot in it once a year. (And charging others for the other 364 days of the year along with it. Woohoo! What are they gonna do with all that dough?)

And whenever they get an itch in their hind quarters they can just revoke that so-called license, change the terms, increase the price, whatever they want, because users have zero say in the matter.

This sort of commercial behaviour should be illegal.

[netstuff-sf]

---

@fastgraph wrote:

Ideally, additional options besides just simple opt-in or opt-out would be good. Some possible examples:

- Require auto-pay for bidders in the seller's blocked bidder list.

- Require auto-pay for bidders with less than N feedback score, where N is seller-configurable.

The current scheme with auto-pay enabled really punishes both buyers and sellers. 

---

And the reason they will do NONE of that unless hell freezes over is because the whole POINT of this sleazy move is to SNEAK this onto users without their notice or consent.

Because they KNOW that if they had instead made it an OPTION, a LOT of buyers and sellers WOULD NOT have chosen to enable it.

It's like the car dealer sneaking in the highly profitable "ups and extras" onto the bill of sale of your new car without telling you.

It really should be illegal to do this kind of thing.

---

@fastgraph wrote:

Thankfully there's a way to disable it.

---

NOT for buyers!!

And that's precisely why they do NOT make it obvious when you look at an item - they want to SNEAK you into this money grab without your knowledge or consent.

It would have been TRIVIAL to flag items where the seller has this option enabled, but gee, funny how they didn't bother. (Because they really intend to sucker-punch people instead)

Disgusted.

[woodrowmo-30]

If you have concerns about a specific policy, it's a good idea to reach out to eBay customer support. They can provide clarification on the policy, and if there's a widespread issue, they may consider feedback from sellers.
eBay often values feedback from its users. You may want to express your concerns through eBay's official channels for feedback. This can include seller forums, surveys, or direct communication with eBay support.
If there are changes in eBay policies that affect your business, consider adjusting your listing strategies. This could include clearly communicating combined shipping options in your item descriptions or offering discounts for multiple purchases.
In your listings, you can inform buyers about the combined shipping option and explain that if they win multiple auctions, they should wait for a combined invoice before making payment.

[netstuff-sf]

Thanks for nothing, bot. 🤖

[dsalesco]

I stopped buying on ebay too. There are plenty of other venues to buy

[ittybitnot]

I stopped buying on ebay too. There are plenty of other venues to buy

@dsalesco 

As you were advised on your other thread, you are requiring YOUR buyers to participate.  Maybe they stopped buying, too. 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Auto-pay-for-winning-bid/td-p/34215283

This takes TWO things to make it work: 

The seller retaining the buyer payment requirements (that sellers can turn off)

AND

eBay forcing the BUYER ID to comply

[usa_vintage]

Being opted into things I don't want/need is a big problem here. Overnight I saw my auction sales drop by 75% and the ones that did sell sold on the low end. Then I saw an auction sale show "Auto Pay" scheduled for 3 days after the auction end.  That's how I found out that Ebay had enrolled my auctions into Auto Pay (which I now have disabled). For Best Offers it makes sense but for Auctions it discourages people from bidding. As a buyer I won't  give my payment info unless I win, and won't bid on anything that requires me to do that.