Immediate Payment on Offers Not Working?

[travelandtreasure]

Hello! I received an offer on a shirt yesterday that had the note from eBay saying this buyer had a pre-approved payment method and I would be paid immediately if I accepted the offer.  I accepted and it's been 12 hours and it's still unpaid. 

I sent a payment reminder to see if  that would work and the buyer messaged back saying they weren't in a rush, they're having problems with their credit card and they would pay tomorrow night (!). 

Why did the offer say it was going to be an immediate payment if it isn't? I am more likely to accept offers with immediate payment even at a lower price to avoid this payment hassle and this feels like bait and switch. This is the second time in a few months I remember this happening.

Thanks for any feedback. Would love to see eBay implement immediate payments on offers for real.

[pburn]

"Immediate payment required" is not available/does not apply to offers. 

If the member has not paid within 96 hours/four full calendar days (no one seems to be sure quite which time frame is correct), you'll see an option to cancel for nonpayment. The option does appear until the time allowed for payment has passed.

Using the unpaid transaction cancellation process will give the member a "strike" on his/her account. Most savvy sellers have their buyer requirements set to block any member with two or more strikes in a twelve-month period (the most restrictive) from buying from them.

You can read more here:

Resolving unpaid items with buyers 

[pburn]

Here's where to set buyer requirements:

Buyer Requirements 

[travelandtreasure]

Thanks, yeah I'm a very long-time seller and know how this normally works.

What I'm referring to is a relatively new feature eBay is rolling out in which they pre-authorize someone when they make an offer which means that if the seller accepts payment should go through immediately, as it does on other platforms. I think it's only been around a year or so.

Next time I will get a screenshot of it, but the wording is that this is an Immediate Payment. 

[papa486516]

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@travelandtreasure wrote:

Thanks, yeah I'm a very long-time seller and know how this normally works.

What I'm referring to is a relatively new feature eBay is rolling out in which they pre-authorize someone when they make an offer which means that if the seller accepts payment should go through immediately, as it does on other platforms. I think it's only been around a year or so.

Next time I will get a screenshot of it, but the wording is that this is an Immediate Payment. 

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Yes please, as this is all we know about 

Send an offer with "immediate payment required"

right now.

[lonebuck-books]

I had that happen to one that I accepted last week.  It also had the immediate payment message from eBay on it saying if I accepted, the buyer had already submitted their payment method and the order would be paid immediately.  It's the new payment system for offers that they are testing out.  I accepted and it took a day for the payment to actually post.  Seems like their immediate payment for offer system needs a bit of work!

I had one a few months ago that went as expected, they offered with the immediate payment message from eBay, I accepted and the payment went through in under 5 minutes.  

[lonebuck-books]

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@pburn wrote:

"Immediate payment required" is not available/does not apply to offers. 

If the member has not paid within 96 hours/four full calendar days (no one seems to be sure quite which time frame is correct), you'll see an option to cancel for nonpayment. The option does appear until the time allowed for payment has passed.

Using the unpaid transaction cancellation process will give the member a "strike" on his/her account. Most savvy sellers have their buyer requirements set to block any member with two or more strikes in a twelve-month period (the most restrictive) from buying from them.

You can read more here:

Resolving unpaid items with buyers 

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This is not what the OP is talking about.  eBay is beta testing a new system where some buyers are required to enter their payment information prior to making an offer with the agreement that if the seller accepts it, they will be charged immediately.  That is the the OP is asking about.  I have had the same thing happen to me. The new system needs some work!

[pburn]

I'm fully aware of the test regarding immediate payment on offers.

I am guilty, however, of reading and replying to the original post too quickly.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

This feature is not "rolled out", even if you've opted in, which I did months ago.  It's still being tested.  It seems silly to allow users a way to select the feature, which implies it's an active function.  More than silly, it's not good implementation.  But to the best of my knowledge, there hasn't even been a decision of whether it will even be implemented & if so, when. 

[albertabrightalberta]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

This feature is not "rolled out", even if you've opted in, which I did months ago.  It's still being tested.  It seems silly to allow users a way to select the feature, which implies it's an active function.  More than silly, it's not good implementation.  But to the best of my knowledge, there hasn't even been a decision of whether it will even be implemented & if so, when. 

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I don't know how limited the roll out is but I've had a couple of offers in which payment was immediate.

[lepke1979]

I had one of these yesterday. The payment part took about an hour or two.

Hard to know for sure. But I'm guessing the payments are done in batches. Not as likely. But could also maybe be an issue with the buyers bank where the approval is slow for some reason.

But who knows. Maybe the payment went through and just hadn't updated on our end yet.

[ittybitnot]

Next time I will get a screenshot of it, but the wording is that this is an Immediate Payment. 

@travelandtreasure 

Someone posted a screen shot of a similar notice in message #4 here: 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Offer-that-may-be-too-good-to-be-true-should-I-accept/m-p/3347...

Other sellers that have accepted these offers say the funds appear anywhere from a few hours to 24 hours later.   So I guess the buyer is making an "immediate payment",  but it is not an "instant payment" to the seller.  "Managing" a payment with eBay likely takes a while. 

[travelandtreasure]

Got it, thanks for all the great replies. It has been about 36 hours now and still unpaid. I sent a note to eBay for Business on FB and will report back if I hear anything.

And sorry for the confusion above - I wrote “rollout” but that should be “test”. Really hope they rollout some form of instant payment of offers soon.

[lacemaker3]

I suspect that the delay in this case (36 hours plus) is because of the type of payment the buyer selected.

Many buyers still use PayPal, and if the buyer pays from their bank account attached to PayPal, it is not an "instant" payment unless the buyer also has a back-up payment method (credit or debit card) on their PayPal account. If there is no back-up payment method, then PayPal calls this an e-check, and it can take several days to clear. Up to a week, or 2 calendar weeks, if it doesn't clear the first time and PayPal submits it again.

A PayPal e-check will be accepted by eBay, but it will not clear until PayPal says it does. There have been reports where buyers insisted that they had paid, but the sellers were able to cancel after 4 days for non-payment, which was probably because the buyer paid with an e-check and it had not cleared within eBay's 4-day requirement. Sometimes a PayPal e-check does clear fast enough, but sometimes it doesn't.

The ability to opt-in/opt-out for immediate-payment-for-offers is there because some sellers do not want it on their listings. The default is opted-in, the seller has to take action to opt-out. This was added after some sellers complained about not wanting this requirement on their listings. Some sellers want to be able to  combine shipping for their buyers, and some sellers have found that requiring immediate payment results in fewer offers (and therefore fewer sales). Some buyers will not pre-authorize their payments, so they just won't send offers if that is a requirement. Many of these are the buyers who would pay ASAP if their offers were accepted, so they are good buyers that sellers would be glad to have.