TAKE NOTE: New change to Immediate Payments for Auctions

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I think this is new.

If you go to your Account Settings > Selling>Selling Preferences>scroll down to "Your Buyers">Managing who can buy from you>click "edit">scroll down to "Buyer Payment Requirements"....you'll see you have been automatically opted in (at least I have been) to require immediate payment not only for buyer submitted offers (which is not new) but now also for buyer bids. If you do NOT want to be opted in for this (possibly because you get a lot of multiple item purchases), it looks like you need to opt out.

[heckofagame]

Thank you for posting this.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Note that, as with immediate payments for buyer submitted offers, this currently only impacts a select group of buyers....in other words, until this rolls out to everyone, this won't prevent ALL non paying bidders.

[buyselljack2016]

Been there, done that already. I seldom do an auction, but do not need this eBay induced deterrent to the bidding process.

Oh, the havoc this is going to cause when "pending charges" start showing up on CC/DC accounts that are used to preauthorize the amounts of these "bids".

[lisa5768]

Thanks for the heads up, I see it also opted in on my account. I don't do auctions any longer so it does not matter to me but given the number of complaints about requiring payment info on offers this will take it to the next level.

[steady2304]

I don't run auctions anymore but this is going too far. I am tired of having to check my preferences weekly to see what roadblock eBay is implementing and having to disable it.

My question is what this will do to buyers who use a sniping service to enter last second bids on auctions.

[wastingtime101]

So far I've seen a few different buyers post this month when they ran into auto-pay on auctions (and there are probably more), so eBay is actively testing this.

This thread is largely about auto-pay offers, but posts 42, 43 and 47 are all from buyers that ran into auto-pay auctions:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Default-Payment-Method-quot-can-quot-or-quot-must-quot-set-Why/...

There was at least one other discussion but I don't remember enough about it to find it quickly.

[wastingtime101]

Here are a few more:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Payments/Why-is-Ebay-forcing-some-sellers-to-choose-a-default-payment/...

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/Default-payment-method/m-p/33800229

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/Changes-to-bidding-and-payment/m-p/33871330

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Best-Offer-amp-Auctions-received-a-pop-up-that-we-need-to-updat...

Probably many more out there.

[a_c_green]

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@steady2304 wrote:

My question is what this will do to buyers who use a sniping service to enter last second bids on auctions.

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Hopefully this won't be a time-sensitive roadblock, such that you go to slam in your snipe bid 5 seconds from the end (I do my own sniping in my buying account, without a service), only to have a popup screen interrupting to demand your payment info at that time.

In other words, I would not have a problem supplying the payment info in advance of my bid, but bids in general can be split-second affairs as the auction winds down to its final seconds, and we can't have the heat of battle interrupted with a demand for paperwork.

In the not too distant past, the bidding procedure would have an Are You Sure? confirmation popup appear, just when you thought you'd submitted your winning bid by hitting the, you know, Bid button, and so you'd watch the auction end half a second before your now-confirmed bid went in. Common sense finally prevailed and the confirmation popup went away. Hopefully this new test enhancement is not going to just be another, similar, unnecessary last-second hurdle to overcome.

[slippinjimmy]

Interesting, there was quite a bit of advance info when eBay started testing this on Offers but I have not heard anything about extending this to Auctions.

I would speculate that something may be coming but somebody jumped the gun by making the opt-in/opt-out visible before the actual testing was announced.

Although there has been some push-back from buyers related to the Offers I can see this causing major issues when applied to Auctions from BOTH Buyers and Sellers especially in situations where sniping is very common.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@slippinjimmy  It was previously announced that this would be coming to auctions "soon", so I guess ebay felt that was notice enough. But, since sellers are being automatically opted in without any notice, there should definitely be a formal announcement of some sort, for those who might want to opt out. Hopefully we will see that soon.

It would also be nice if ebay would provide a FAQ of some sort, so we know just what procedure buyers are dealing with. As noted, are snipers hearing about this for the first time as they try to snipe? Or is it more of an email goes out beforehand, letting the buyer know he's got to select a payment method for any future bidding? I realize this is still being tested, but there are legitimate questions they could be answering. 

[wastingtime101]

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@slippinjimmy wrote:

Interesting, there was quite a bit of advance info when eBay started testing this on Offers but I have not heard anything about extending this to Auctions.

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eBay brought up auto-pay auctions at eBay Open a couple years ago and at a few of the seller check-ins. We knew it was moving in this direction and it makes sense that they're testing now since auto-pay offers is basically a done deal. I think auto-pay offers are rolled out site wide at this point.

[tdl_collectibles]

I don't do auctions as a seller but it's the way the world is going with other auction sites and makes sense.  As a buyer I want to know I'm bidding against a real person and not a shill bidder that isn't going to pay.  At least this will give them some grief in getting their money back....

[cardxcraft]

Thanks for letting us know. I'm a sniper so I better check this out.

[valueaddedresource]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@slippinjimmy  It was previously announced that this would be coming to auctions "soon", so I guess ebay felt that was notice enough. But, since sellers are being automatically opted in without any notice, there should definitely be a formal announcement of some sort, for those who might want to opt out. Hopefully we will see that soon.

It would also be nice if ebay would provide a FAQ of some sort, so we know just what procedure buyers are dealing with. As noted, are snipers hearing about this for the first time as they try to snipe? Or is it more of an email goes out beforehand, letting the buyer know he's got to select a payment method for any future bidding? I realize this is still being tested, but there are legitimate questions they could be answering. 

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devon@ebay  elizabeth@ebay kyle@ebay  are there currently any help or FAQ pages that can give some insight into how immediate pay for auctions works?

It looks like this page has not been updated - it still only shows the past info for auctions with BIN.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/creating-managing-listings/immediate-payment-works?id=415...