Card payment restrictions

[conleysgallery]

Too bad about the new policy, all my business purchases are done with American Express. I'm not a big company, but there are certainly so many large companies/business owners who also only use Am/Ex for business purchases. Consider that you're not the only market that has the products you have listed. You will lose business while looking to save a percent or two.

[ebooksdiva]

 If you had to pay the fees American Express charges to accept your payment you would get rid of them too. 
That is why eBay will discontinue accepting payment through that company. 
eBay doesn't list products, individual sellers do. 
FYI, eBay won't be seeing your post because no one from eBay reads these posts, only other buyers and sellers do.

[mam98031]

Get another card.  There are some good ones with Cash Back bonuses out there.  I have one from BOA that works fantastic for me.

It is important to understand that to give you all the perks you get with AmEx it costs real money.  They get that money from the fees they charge to merchants.  The merchant fees AmEx charges are the highest of all cards.  It is ridiculous.  So for Ebay to continue to take the card, they would have to raise fees to sellers.  None of us wants that as the costs will be passed onto the buyer.

[chariot_badges]

When we ran our B&M store we didn't accept AmEx either.

Had a few customers whine about it, but, too bad.   

"It's only 3%"

I told them if they'd let me charge them 3% more I'd take it.

Nobody said ok.

So if it look like 3% of MY money, it is worth a lot less that 3% of their money.

[fbusoni]

BoA told me to get two of their cards -- one to max out the rebates for purchases that the other card restricts.  I did and my monthly cash back is a little over $100.  

[tinsoldierunderground]

American express has been a point of contention with merchants for decades, long before ebay was conceived.  In younger years, I had a green card, then a gold card.  As I recall the green card annual fee was $55.00 at the time, I think the gold card was $75.00?   Amex hammers the card holder and the merchant with equal fervor and little benefit.  As others have stated, there are far better choices of cards from companies that actually value their clients.  

[mam98031]

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@fbusoni wrote:

BoA told me to get two of their cards -- one to max out the rebates for purchases that the other card restricts.  I did and my monthly cash back is a little over $100.  

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Humm.  I have their red card.  I don't have restrictions.  I can earn up to $1,500 in cash back bonuses a year.  One thing I really like about this card is that you are allowed to select a type of purchase you make to have a 3% cash back bonus rate.  I believe the options are gas, groceries, restaurants and online purchases.

I chose online purchases.  The others categories are 2% and 1%, not sure which is which off the top of my head.  Anyway, the card works very well for me and has for years.

[frankenhobbit]

It's not 'just 1%' more. 

If Visa charged 2%, and Amex charged 3%, that's 50% more in fees. 

In other words, Visa would charge $1000 on $50000 in gross sales, Amex would charge $1500. That 50 percent extra in fees is on everything too, Sales Tax, Shipping, all that. 

If any item in running a business cost you 50 percent more, you would scrutinize it more closely and see if it was actually worth it. 

I'm guessing eBay did the math and figured they would rather lose those few buyers that truly will take their business elsewhere (and are not just chest beating) than pay the extra fees. 

[kensgiftshop]

Contact Ebay and tell them buyers are willing to pay extra to pay for fees that AE charges.

There are a lot of places that don't take AE.

[fbusoni]

I'm old enough to remember when an AmEx card was a status symbol.  

[kensgiftshop]

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@fbusoni wrote:

I'm old enough to remember when an AmEx card was a status symbol.  

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Ya, not everyone could get one back then.

The ones that did, really thought they were something.

[southern*sweet*tea]

From the message I received in my inbox  (this is the second one actually)

"We recently reached out to let you know that effective August 17 we’ll no longer accept American Express as a form of payment on eBay. We wanted to remind you about this upcoming change. We accept a wide variety of payment methods such as PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and credit and debit cards such as Visa, Mastercard, and Discover.

To continue having a smooth checkout experience after August 17, use the link below to add another payment method.

Add another payment method

You can also continue to use your American Express card by adding it to your PayPal or Venmo account to pay for items on eBay. If you have any questions or concerns, just get in touch—we’re here to help.

Thanks for being part of the eBay community"

[tinsoldierunderground]

Yep!  When I was up and coming, it seemed all the rage to have one. 

[yuzuha]

I find it very difficult to believe that there are AmEx card holders out there who aren't used to being told that various places won't accept AmEx. I used to work at a store that didn't accept it, and whenever I told someone that when they pulled out an AmEx card, they would just put it back into their wallet and pull out a Visa or Mastercard instead.

[slippinjimmy]

Amex was ridiculously higher that Visa/MC back in the late seventies when I had my first Merchant Accounts. I was paying 1.7 for M/C and 1.75 for Visa, Amex kept chasing me to sign up but they wanted 3.75% PLUS a fixed transaction fee (the others had not yet instituted fixed transaction fees). Amex also had additional fees for non-US cards. They didn't have rewards cards at that time but I believe they had an additional fee to process those cards when they started coming out (in the 90's?).

The other big issue was that payouts took forever, up to two weeks, whereas the other cards would have funds in my bank usually within 24 hours.