E-Checks

[lordevor_0]

A verified eBay user has offered to pay with an E-Check.  Is this legal?  He does not have a credit/debit card and closed his PayPal account to to issues with them.  He said the purchase will go thru eBay after the E-Check clears my bank account.    The item is $1000 so its not a smaller purchase.  Please offer me advise.

[anjofak]

You have to do your own foot down on checks banks apparently have started marking funds available even though the check has not actually cleared, I would put a 2 week waiting time or just say no to the transaction. 

[mam98031]

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devon@ebay wrote:

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

devon@ebay 

The last time I asked this question in another thread, I was told that you guys don't know.  So, just double checking here, since you're saying something different than I was told a few months ago by eBay (I think it was Velvet) in another thread.  

Since MP allows PP as a form of payment & PP allows e-checks, doesn't that mean that a buyer can still pay by e-check VIA Paypal?   Color me still confused, as I was thinking along the same lines as @lacemaker3  & when I explicitly asked this question, quite recently, I was told you guys don't know b/c it's a PP offering & you don't know what PP offers.  

ETA:  I realize in this case the buyer says they don't have PP. 

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@simply-the-best-for-you  Since we have implemented Managed Payments we are not certain on how PayPal handles e-checks for checkouts. We offer PayPal as a payment method and I would say it is best to reach out to PayPal to see if they offer e-check through themselves when going to checkout. 

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devon@ebay 

Now we are back to confusing the issue again.  Yes PayPal does allow Echecks.  It is a payment method the site allows.

The question is does Ebay allow echeck payments via Paypal and the answer is no for reasons previously posted.  MP simply is not set up to process an echeck payment for a variety of reasons.  So sellers here don't have to be concerned about getting paid with an Echeck from PP.

Now while PP may offer a variety of payment methods, just because any given site accepts PP shouldn't mean they have to accept all the payment methods that PP offers.  I would think that would be determined by the contract each site has with PP.  One can't simply add PP to their company payment choices without having a contract, or at least I wouldn't think they could.  

[lacemaker3]

@mam98031, and devon@ebay 

I just purchased a BIN item (with my buying account) and paid with an echeck (by removing my credit card backup from my PayPal account, and paying with my internet bank account, which has more than enough funds to cover the payment in full).

eBay did allow the purchase to go through, with the echeck payment. Obviously, I don't expect the seller to ship the item until the payment has cleared.

Now we will see what happens with this payment.

[mam98031]

Then maybe PP is guaranteeing the payment to be good.  That would be the only way that the MP system would be able to process it.  

The seller gets an email notification of when a buyer and on the Seller Hub it appears in the Available to ship area, so that a seller knows to ship out the item.  So in the case of an Echeck, the seller would be shipping out the item before PayPal actually processes there end of the payment unless they are fronting the money to Ebay and therefore guaranteeing the payment for the buyer.   And if at some later time there is a problem with the echeck, it becomes an issue between PayPal and the buyer.  That is the only way I can see this working. 

And if it is how it is working it does seem like something PayPal would do since they use to front to all of us our money.  

You could go and look at your purchases.  Does it show the item paid for in Ebay?  If it is like it was before MP, it would show that your payment is pending.

On the Seller Hub we do not have a place that shows up that an item has been purchased but the payment is pending.  Not to be confused with the Pending funds on the MP Summary page.  The two aren't the same.

[a_c_green]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

@mam98031, and devon@ebay 

I just purchased a BIN item (with my buying account) and paid with an echeck (by removing my credit card backup from my PayPal account, and paying with my internet bank account, which has more than enough funds to cover the payment in full).

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...but doesn't PayPal already have a direct connection to your "internet bank account," such that they can see the balance at the time you make the payment? Has the balance you see there already gone down by the amount of your payment? 

My father's PayPal account is funded by his checking account, and if he makes a purchase or sends money, the transfer occurs immediately. I'm having trouble visualizing anything on-line as an "e-Check" anymore, really (in terms of a money transfer that requires several days to clear), beyond maybe trying to fill my PayPal account balance by actually mailing the company a check.

If PayPal does still accept e-Checks, I can't see them doing any kind of an outbound payment to eBay until the e-Check clears with them and the funds are genuinely in hand, since eBay (or Adyen) expects an immediate payment and doesn't do any kind of inbound "pending payment" transaction.

P.S. Per your reply above, @mam98031, yes, I suppose if PayPal wants to eat the risk themselves, they could do an instant payment to eBay, and wait for the buyer's e-Check to clear on their own terms.

[lacemaker3]

@a_c_greenand @mam98031 

Maybe it would be best to just wait and see what happens. That's what I'm going to do.

At the moment, PayPal and eBay are both showing the echeck payment as "Paid" which is all the update I can provide. I will not be provide any further updates until something is updated, no matter what updates or attacks occur in the  meantime. So just back off.

devon@ebay, sheila@ebay, velvet@ebay and brian_burke@ebay, Please don't allow any attacks on my account in the meantime.

[mam98031]

@a_c_green 

"P.S. Per your reply above, @mam98031, yes, I suppose if PayPal wants to eat the risk themselves, they could do an instant payment to eBay, and wait for the buyer's e-Check to clear on their own terms."

It is the only way I can think of that they could get it to meet the needs of the MP system.  It simply isn't set up to deal with Echecks of any kind.  

[a_c_green]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

At the moment, PayPal and eBay are both showing the echeck payment as "Paid" which is all the update I can provide. I will not be provide any further updates until something is updated, no matter what updates or attacks occur in the  meantime. So just back off.

devon@ebay, sheila@ebay, velvet@ebay and brian_burke@ebay, Please don't allow any attacks on my account in the meantime.

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What do you mean by "updates or attacks" on your account? 😕

[cellguy215]

Never accept any payments outside the eBay checkout system. I would suggest stop communication with anyone who even suggests this. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

@a_c_greenand @mam98031 

Maybe it would be best to just wait and see what happens. That's what I'm going to do.

At the moment, PayPal and eBay are both showing the echeck payment as "Paid" which is all the update I can provide. I will not be provide any further updates until something is updated, no matter what updates or attacks occur in the  meantime. So just back off.

devon@ebay, sheila@ebay, velvet@ebay and brian_burke@ebay, Please don't allow any attacks on my account in the meantime.

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Thank you @lacemaker3  .  Sorry, I wasn't able to get back to this thread last night.  Please follow-up with what happens & thank you for trialing it!   Just the fact that you WERE ABLE to pay with an e-check, is good enough for me, in that regardless of what may happen behind the scenes (which we don't know at this point), it DOES prove that a buyer can still pay with an e-check via PP.

Lacemaker just did & that means any buyer who does this is going to correctly believe that they can do so.  Now, how it's actually funded may still be at question but from a buyer's perspective, he/she paid with an e-check.  I would like to get to the bottom of this for once & all, since it keeps coming up. 

devon@ebay 

[lacemaker3]

@simply-the-best-for-you 

Here's an update on my echeck purchase.

To be clear, this was an "echeck" according to PayPal's definition of the word. Meaning that I paid for the item from the checking account attached to my PayPal account, with no other means of payment available as backup; no credit or debit card, and no balance. These results might not apply to other kinds of echecks.

From what I could see, from the buyer's viewpoint, the purchase last evening was exactly the same as usual on eBay. The payment was "pending" for a few minutes, and changed to show "paid" status after 5 minutes. I got the timing from the emails that I received; the "Order confirmed" email from eBay was exactly 5 minutes after the "You have authorized a payment" email from PayPal. So I did not see any difference in timing with the echeck payment. Actually, my last purchase, which was an "Instant payment" from my credit card, took about 9 minutes.

Last evening, I did not see the withdrawal in my bank account, but when I checked first thing this morning, the money had left my bank account.

The seller purchased a shipping label earlier today, and the package is now in the possession of the USPS and is scheduled for delivery Saturday. The seller is TRS, and quite experienced, so I'm sure they would not have shipped it before eBay told them the payment was complete.

My conclusion is that, for at least some buyers, it is indeed possible to use a PayPal echeck to pay for an eBay purchase. The timing of the payment was the same as other managed-payments purchases I have made, there was no delay while the payment cleared. Other people's experiences may vary.

I should mention that my PayPal account was verified ages ago, and I have never defaulted on a payment or had any difficulty with a payment since I opened the account. So I would probably be considered a "low risk" for bouncing the check. On the other hand, I don't think I have made more than a few echeck payments, ever, and the last one was probably more than 15 years ago.

Also, my bank is a major one, and the account has more than enough funds and is covered by overdraft protection automatically, so it is possible that the bank simply confirmed that the funds were available quite promptly. Perhaps the echeck really did clear that fast. PayPal says that it can take "up to" 7 days; it doesn't say that it's always going to take several days to clear.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

@lacemaker3   Thank you!  That's kind of what I expected.  If you are game to test it again, I'd be happy to have you purchase one of my items, I can even throw up something really cheap (just got some adorable elephant postcards) & I can report what it looks like from the seller end & then we can cancel the tx.   I'd be happy to do it & report on if the seller even realizes it's an e-check.  I no longer use PP, so can't do the purchase myself.  PM if you're game & we can set up the details.  

[mam98031]

Excellent information.  So PayPal must be guaranteeing the payment for it to process as you described.  As it is different than how an Echeck processed on Ebay when PP was our processor.

I think your test answers a lot of questions and verified what was accurate.

Your PP account being verified would not likely have anything to do with this process but good to note.

[mam98031]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

@lacemaker3   Thank you!  That's kind of what I expected.  If you are game to test it again, I'd be happy to have you purchase one of my items, I can even throw up something really cheap (just got some adorable elephant postcards) & I can report what it looks like from the seller end & then we can cancel the tx.   I'd be happy to do it & report on if the seller even realizes it's an e-check.  I no longer use PP, so can't do the purchase myself.  PM if you're game & we can set up the details.  

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While I think that would be a good test to do, it isn't likely to show a difference in what an Ebay seller sees with any other payment.  Managed payments just doesn't have another category / process other than what we are all use to seeing.  There is no section on the Seller Hub, Order box to account for a payment that is awaiting an echeck in clearing.

I think we all are likely to remember before MP how it presented in Ebay when an Echeck was used for payment.  But MP isn't set up to allow for such a process.

Still your test would be interesting.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

@lacemaker3   Thank you!  That's kind of what I expected.  If you are game to test it again, I'd be happy to have you purchase one of my items, I can even throw up something really cheap (just got some adorable elephant postcards) & I can report what it looks like from the seller end & then we can cancel the tx.   I'd be happy to do it & report on if the seller even realizes it's an e-check.  I no longer use PP, so can't do the purchase myself.  PM if you're game & we can set up the details.  

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While I think that would be a good test to do, it isn't likely to show a difference in what an Ebay seller sees with any other payment.  Managed payments just doesn't have another category / process other than what we are all use to seeing.  There is no section on the Seller Hub, Order box to account for a payment that is awaiting an echeck in clearing.

I think we all are likely to remember before MP how it presented in Ebay when an Echeck was used for payment.  But MP isn't set up to allow for such a process.

Still your test would be interesting.

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Maybe, maybe not.  I am not convinced without seeing it.   I'm also pretty unconvinced that PP is guaranteeing the payment.  That would be highly unlikely IMO.   I get what you're saying that there's no box that allows for the waiting in SH, but perhaps the info would come through in the email.  I would really like to test it out with an inconsequential item or something cheap that I throw up for this purpose.   As a systems/IT techie, I won't make assumptions until I see what it actually does from the seller POV.   I haven't heard back from @lacemaker3  yet, but they are probably busy, as I know I was swamped today (non-eBay).