Obviously you've never worked in retail sales. When you run a customer's credit card, do you think the card processor separates out the sales tax and politely skips collecting their processing fee on it? No, they do not. They receive a single amount, process a single amount, and deduct a contractually agreed percentage and/or a flat fee as their payment for services rendered.
All credit processors do the same. It's part of the common business model -- they provide a service, you pay a fee. That service is not to guess what part of your requested amount is sales tax, it's to collect that requested amount from the customer's credit card company and place it on account within their system. Part of the process is paying the service fee charged by the credit processor. Then, periodically, as per your contract with them, they will transfer your accumulated funds to your bank account.
That's it. No grand conspiracy. No making millions of dollars off 'banked' payments. eBay is not the card processor - they are the retailer submitting a payment request of Ayden, which Ayden processes, deducts their contractual fee, and holds the balance on account pending contractual payout. How that payout is handled has not been disclosed and is likely part of the contract between Ayden & eBay.
It's really no different than PayPal originally was. Remember, there was a time when you could NOT access funds deposited to PayPal immediately. PayPal saw an opportunity to differentiate themselves from other payment processors and began allowing prime members (and eventually nearly all members) the ability to access their funds immediately. That was a perk - not a business model standard.
Based on the amount of misinformation and pure conjecture floating around Managed Payments, I'm surprised more sellers haven't left in a huff over it all. Perhaps they've checked with other venues and found the process to be the same there as well. In fact, Amazon has only one payout model -- two payments a month. Period. And their definition of what is a cleared payment differs from eBay as well, so it could take you even longer to collect your payment from a sale.
If Managed Payments makes you that angry, leave. Speak with your dollars, with your sales, and take them somewhere with payment processing more to your liking. Businesses do it all the time - it's called "competition" and it's what keeps service providers looking for new ways to make their service appear better than the rest of their competition.
-Bob.
Yes, I know.
It's their formula. I know about it and factor it in as a cost of doing business.
Did you know that B&M businesses pay a fee to their credit card processor for every credit card payment and those fees are for the entire payment....including sales tax?
