Now requiring payment upfront when making offers???

[ethanweisinger]

Since when? Is this recent? I never had to do this before, like a month or two back.  And thanks GOD I didn't fall for this new eBay scam. What POS is eBay now days man 😞 What else is eBay going to do to run customers away????

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Requiring-payment-upfront-when-making-offers/td-p/32690693/page...

[tigercatt-16]

Disclaimer: I am strictly a buyer.

Here’s why this doesn’t bother me in the least:

I only offer occasionally on stuff that I really want bad and usually can’t find anywhere else.

Since I don’t plan to make ridiculous lowball offers I pretty much go into it assuming my offer will be accepted. So I have no problem with giving payment information. They won’t charge if it isn’t accepted from my understanding.

I’m curious. Since you are actively cheering the demise of eBay, then why are you here?

If I don’t like a store I leave. I don’t go galloping around the store trying to talk all of their other customers into leaving with me.

😉

[yuzuha]

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@myangelandmyprincess wrote:

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I've had all those issues happen as well as a buyer.   As a person who is a seller and a buyer my perspective is that buying has a lot more protection in place.  Now that absolutely is in part thanks to many sellers who would use loopholes to scam and eBay continually having to close those loopholes costing honest sellers that protection. They're trying to offer some of that protection back to top rated sellers. There is no perfect system but buyers have good protection to not get scammed. 

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See, for me as a seller, this new system has created a huge problem that never existed before. All of my offers involve a buyer messaging me and going "hey, I'd like to buy A, B, and C from you, would you be willing to do a discount?" I always say yes in a case like this because I love buyers who buy multiples and I'm more than happy to discount and combine shipping! Normally I send them an offer for each item they want to buy so they can accept and then I send them an invoice for the total + combined shipping. The problem is that now, no thanks to this new system, if a buyer has been forced into the immediate payment thing, I CAN'T send them an invoice because it forces them to pay immediately. Which means that I'm then forced to give them partial refunds, which is a pain in the *bleep* for both of us.

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@yuzuha wrote:

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@myangelandmyprincess wrote:

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I've had all those issues happen as well as a buyer.   As a person who is a seller and a buyer my perspective is that buying has a lot more protection in place.  Now that absolutely is in part thanks to many sellers who would use loopholes to scam and eBay continually having to close those loopholes costing honest sellers that protection. They're trying to offer some of that protection back to top rated sellers. There is no perfect system but buyers have good protection to not get scammed. 

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See, for me as a seller, this new system has created a huge problem that never existed before. All of my offers involve a buyer messaging me and going "hey, I'd like to buy A, B, and C from you, would you be willing to do a discount?" I always say yes in a case like this because I love buyers who buy multiples and I'm more than happy to discount and combine shipping! Normally I send them an offer for each item they want to buy so they can accept and then I send them an invoice for the total + combined shipping. The problem is that now, no thanks to this new system, if a buyer has been forced into the immediate payment thing, I CAN'T send them an invoice because it forces them to pay immediately. Which means that I'm then forced to give them partial refunds, which is a pain in the *bleep* for both of us.

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As a seller you can turn it off and not require it. 

[handsolo]

I am with you. This has caused me to not make a lot of offers I wanted to. The issue, for those sellers complaining about people not completing deals, is that eBay is forcing buyers to not only pay for the item immediately if the offer is excepted, but ALSO the shipping. Why is this an issue? If I am making multiple offers to the same seller, which I do when shopping comic books, I am forced to pay the full shipping for EACH item. This is b*llsh*t. This could cause me to pay 100's of dollars in shipping that I am not willing to wait on a refund back to my credit card for. This new system screws buyers out of combined shipping on offer items. If eBay removes the immediate payment on the shipping part of the offer, then I would be fine with it. It should be no problem to not include the shipping in the automatic payment process and allow the seller to send an invoice for shipping fees. Otherwise, sellers are going to have to deal with buyers like me contacting them directly to make offers now, and then send an invoice, or just wonder why your sales are down since this policy went into effect. Deadbeat offer makers resulting in having to relist an item is less of inconvenience the sellers and eBay have cause by implementing this policy.

[selsa84]

4 times in 2 weeks which is more than 2 years combined. ALL newish sellers also. Just because it isn't happening to you doesn't mean it isn't happening 

[vlelet_123]

I also do not like this new eBay policy on buyer making offers. Handing my open wallet to eBay scares me. Some sellers are considerate. When I sent the seller a message via eBay about my price offer predicament, the seller asked about my price offer. Then I received an offer from seller on my eBay activity page for the item with my suggested price offer. I accepted the seller's offer and paid immediately. However, some eBay sellers are not as responsive and considerate.

[yuzuha]

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@myangelandmyprincess wrote:

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As a seller you can turn it off and not require it. 

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I have it turned off. The problem is that some buyers are forced into it regardless of what I as a seller choose.

[swrwizard]

I very recently had this happen to me & it was after I had made offers to one seller without the buyer requirement to provide an alternate payment method.  The seller let the 1st round offers I made expire. Then I went about sending offers for the same items & on the 1st one a different pop-up appeared requiring me to provide that alternate payment method which happened to be the eBay credit card I have available to me. What I didn't realize is that as soon as the seller accepts offers with that card available, they auto-charge that account with FULL SHIPPING on EVERY ITEM! This seller sells comics & absolutely no one would knowingly pay for full shipping on each raw comic and this seller has a shipping calculator set up too, making the whole thing a blatant blind-side to me/the buyer! I did go about getting the 4 items that were charged cancelled & removed the eBay mastercard from my payment methods! If I didn't realize what was happening sooner, the situation could have been far worse because I had made far more offers before going about immediately cancelling them...

[2013grotz]

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@fairydust_factory wrote:

I have the "immediate payment" toggled on all of my listings that aren't auctions. However, even if it is an auction and I am allowing people to make offers, it will require you to pay for it as soon as it is accepted.

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OBO doesn't work like that with regards to "Immediate Payment".  Even if you have "Immediate Payment" toggled, if you take offers and accept one, the buyer consequently gets 96 hours to pay instead of an "Immediate Payment" and consequently gets the possibility of being a deadbeat buyer.   It's been reported on here that some buyers have sent offers equal to the asking price, just with the intent of "loopholing" the requirement. 

The feature being complained about here by some is amending OBO to require payment up front, which makes it akin to the "Immediate Payment" feature that works only when there is no offer.

[selsa84]

Your money isn't taken till the offer is accepted. Negotiations end when offer is accepted. Then you pay. Not upfront. 

[ed8108]

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@ethanweisinger wrote:

 😞 What else is eBay going to do to run customers away????

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i can't really help answer your question, but there are still manny things that ebay could still do that will discouage buyers.

[smilingrip]

As a long time buyer (21 years) with a perfect payment record (over 1700 purchases), I too have heartburn over this new requirement to a set a default payment in order to make an offer.  Yes, absolutely, of course an offer is binding and shouldn't be entered into without full expectation of making good on the payment - same as a BIN or an auction.  Ebay should be dealing harshly with non-paying buyers for all three types of transactions!

However, I firmly believe there are very legit concerns here for buyers, beginning with the statement on the "set default payment" popup, which is confusing if not downright ominous...

"Set default payment method

This is the default payment method for items you purchase through auctions, offers, and Buy It Now."

What exactly does that mean??  If I am selecting a payment method strictly for this one offer, that seems reasonable. HOWEVER, if I am setting a default and will have an auto-payment for ALL future transactions, I have to refuse to do so.

As a buyer, with a long and spotless record, here are my problems:

1. I will often look to see if a seller has multiple items that I am interested in (for examples, CD's), and will always be looking for combined shipping and maybe a discount for buying multiple items.  Having auto-payments occur will prevent this and at best will make extra work and headaches for sellers and buyers, necessitating emails and refunds for combined shipments.

2. I have multiple credit cards on file and will choose the one that is offering me the most reward points at any given time.  So now I will have to remember to go and keep changing my default?  This is inconvenient at best.

3. I use Capital One Shopping to get an extra credit back, and it only works when going through the checkout process in my browser - it will not be applied if an auto-payment occurs.

4. If it's true that funds are being put on hold for multiple days, even when an Offer is Declined, that is a crappy situation for the buyer!

If this is going to persist, Ebay needs to make changes:

1. Make it clear the payment method/auto-payment will ONLY apply to the specific Offer being made, NOT all future offers, BIN's and auctions.
2. There needs to be a way to defer the Shipping portion of the auto-payment, to allow for an invoice to be sent for combined shipping.

3. Funds should never be placed or kept on hold unless an Offer is Accepted.  If I don't have verified payment accounts, then why am I even allowed on ebay in the first place?

[craft-stash]

Thanks ebay!

Time to Pay is Right Away!!!

Too little too late but one more Dead Beat is too many!

[aristocratsandgypsies]

Hahaha, oh thankyou for the giggle. What next, passport ID before purchase, a photo of family pet to show decent character, proof of house/car/boat ownership?  Of one thing we can all be sure, eBay will most certainly find ways to make buying even more problematic, that is if our buyers can ever find what they are looking for

[aristocratsandgypsies]

This happened to me yesterday, I have a flawless  buying record with no unpaid items, I am also a seller, so why eBay demanded all my CC details, including my 3 digit security code beggars belief. 

Sellers have been opted in by default, why eBay chose not to tell us in clear, they knew we would not want it for it is a guarantee that this would be a blanket cover with no fine tweeking. 

Many of us have had non paying buyers for make-an-offer items, but it is part & parcel of selling here, I actually write to all buyers who have made an offer, or check to see that they have made recent purchases via their feedback. I also always write to  those buyers who habitually  never leave feedback..

Here is a link to sign out, it is at the bottom of the page... you really could not make this stuff up.

https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/BuyerRequirements