New eBay payout method is a mess! Just to circumvent AMEX fees?

[reumne-0]

I almost knew from the first email from eBay about their new in-house payout method it was going to be a non-stop gotcha gag-reel... now here we are...

I set up my AMEX Business card to pay ALL fee's and prior to this new process all my seller fee's and shipping cost for UPS and FedEx were just billed to my AMEX on file... but turns out this entire payout change only serves to lower eBays processing fee's as they now take their fee's right off the top of a sale! Not only that, they will almost always try and dip into your bank account on file for payouts for small last minute "gotcha" fee's, in my case a rouge UPS shipping charge that should be getting billed to my AMEX on file and not drawn from my bank account on file. I can only imagine eBay is doing this to circumvent the AMEX processing fee's, or at least mitigate their fees since it's probably cheaper for them to dip into an account on file than paying AMEX to process it.

Its wrong! It's not okay! I have a charge card on file for a reason! I trusted eBay for less than a few weeks with my bank account and already I can see it's going to be a non-stop nickel and dime of my bank account which is only there to take incoming payments from eBay anyway! 

Why do they call it the "Payout" method if they just plan to debit from it at their discretion when it saves them a few cents? 

eBay needs to fix this! 

[forward-motion]

What are these "gotcha fees"? I don't pay anything that was not agreed upon. To me it's much easier now than before. If there was a gotcha fee it was the monthly bill, not that is gone things have been much better. If you don't have money in pending it comes out of your bank account, it's that simple. You can change it to weekly payouts if you don't like the bank charges, but for me the bank account and the pending account just work hand in hand to get the job done. 

[reumne-0]

And I should also mention that when I printed a shipping label for the USPS yesterday it billed immediatly to my old PayPal account! LOL! It's always been that way though, with USPS wanting paid immediatly thru PayPal for their shipping labels. It just don't make any sense because now that my eBay payments aren't going to PayPal I doubt there will be much of a balance in that account anymore. 

Just seems like these new changes are just making things unreasonably inconvenient for sellers! 

I hope they can fix and improve this. I like having the option of all three mail carriers, I'd just like their charges and any that eBay may need taken from my account listed on file for these purposes. 

Seems like my FedEx shipping charges are being billed to my AMEX like usual... So we to assume that if a seller wants to ship with UPS they must kick back some of the payout from their checking account for the fees? And when we want to ship with USPS we have to use PayPal? And for FedEx it will actually bill to the proper payment method on file? Does this not sound crazy? 

I guess this explains why USPS and UPS have been beating the snot out of FedEx for shipping prices lately. LOL

[reumne-0]

If eBay takes a payment and skims their selling fee off the top, then sends you that payment to your bank account, only to turn around a few days later and re-pull the shipping charges? I'm sorry but that's just ridiculous! Why not just take the shipping fees at the same time as the selling fee and save the electricity and paper? 

I'm not sure your level of business acumen, but most everyone with a merchant account will tie it to an account that is more or less there just to take incoming payments, not to serve as the petty cash box for the merchant, that is what a "payment account" is for. 

[forward-motion]

It depends how you ship, USPS is taken out right away. Fedex and UPS bill ebay so it is delayed. Do you have your settings to take the shipping out of your pending sales? If not that could be the problem you are experiencing.  

[reumne-0]

I don't know, I'm still trying to navigate that part of the system... I do have my AMEX set up as my "Automatic Payment" option. I didn't see anything that let me get more in-depth than that.  Could have sworn that recently my FedEx shipping charges were billed on my normal monthly billing date, but along comes this UPS charge they want to dip out of my checking for... wonder why it's not being billed to my charge card on file like FedEx?

I'd like to use my AMEX to pay USPS too now that PayPal has been cut out of the loop. I don't want to keep money in there just to pay for USPS shipping. It's a real pain to put money into PayPal and they even charge you money to make a cash deposit, or you would have to wait until the funds transfer three or four days. Imagine trying to explain to a buyer that you're waiting on your funds to transfer into PayPal so you can buy their label? LOL, I'm sure they would totally be cool with that! lol

[forward-motion]

Imagine trying to explain to a buyer that you're waiting on your funds to transfer into PayPal so you can buy their label? 

If you have your setting set to pay out of pending sales there is no waiting on getting paid to ship, it comes right out of the sale as the money is in there immediately. After you have it set, it is easy to manage, easy to see what is going on. There are no gotcha fees. 

[reumne-0]

The "gotcha fee" is having money spread across at least three accounts to perform the necessary transactions to complete a sale.

I am not seeing all these settings you're talking about. All I see is a little box with three options, one for your pay out account, one for payments and another as a "backup"

If eBay is paying FedEx and UPS on our behalf then it's because they are taking a small cut, there would be no other reason to not just allow the buyer to pay direct and let FedEx and UPS take the hit on processing fees. I don't see any way to change how FedEx, UPS or the USPS gets paid. I'd like to know because it's not a problem right now, but it will be in the future and I'd like to deal with it now. 

[forward-motion · Accepted solution]

When you print a shipping label. At the weight and measure screen, scroll down. You will see select how to pay. Check paying out of pending payouts. 

[frodobagginskennedy]

when you go to print a label go all the way to the bottom of the page.  THere will be a check box to take payment from pending funds.

[oldold-timer]

Why pay for shipping labels with pending funds when you can pay with a 1.5 % cash-back credit card through paypal?  Used to pay eb fees with same cash-back card until eb started taking fees out of pending funds.

[toysaver]

"but turns out this entire payout change only serves to lower eBays processing fee's as they now take their fee's right off the top of a sale!"

EBay is not a public utility subsidized by the government.  EBay is a business like no other with shareholders, employees and customers.  For them to not take every opportunity to be profitable would be negligent and irresponsible.  For my business to succeed I need eBay to be as successful as they can be.  I consider them a partner in every transaction.  If they decided managed payments helps them it helps me.

[toysaver]

"Why not just take the shipping fees at the same time as the selling fee and save the electricity and paper?"

Not sure how it would save paper but the actual shipping fee is not set in stone until the label is bought and there are many variables that can change the cost.

[postingid7659]

You can go in and set it so eBay bills your CC on file for outstanding fees before your bank account, but they will always pull fees from your payout balance if you have one.   

I too think that's bee ess and you should be able to pay the fees in the manner you choose. 

[sweetbabyjamez]

Profitable? Yes. Ethical? Not so much.