UNannounced change to cancellation process

[puredesignhome]

Along with the announced changes to the cancellation process, which was implemented without forewarning as far as I can tell, there are additional unannounced changes. The most impactful for us is that AmEx -- universally accepted for business purposes -- is no longer valid as a stored payment method, so we are unable to process refunds when buyers cancel and refunds exceed available funds.

A little forethought and beta testing would go a long way. And some heads-up along with detailed disclosures would give businesses the opportunity to plan, rather than react. It still feels a bit like amateur hour here ....

[brightlightbookseller]

Dropping Amex was an announced change, it just has nothing to do with the cancellation process so it was separate.  Are you saying your credit card on file for refunds was Amex, so you can't use it to process the credit for refunds anymore?  That is annoying, but you'll have to get a different credit card to use for other purposes here on eBay anyways, so it's a problem you'll have to solve.  Amex has a lot of downsides for merchants like eBay, so I understand why they dropped it.

[fern*wood]

There was an announcement made about the change to cancellations.  I subscribe to these to be sure I don't miss changes. 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/We-re-simplifying-order-cancellations/ba-p/34620625

[brightlightbookseller]

Their issue isn't the change to the cancellation process, but the dropped support for AmEx, which was I believe in a different announcement, though I can't find it.  They just thought they were wrapped up in one change, which they weren't.

[stainlessenginecovers]

Dropping AMEX was announced- somehow; because I know about it and I remember not caring because I don't have one. 

AMEX has been 'dropped' by MANY entities- making it useless. All or nothing. Too many other choices out there that give points.  

[fern*wood]

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@brightlightbookseller wrote:

Their issue isn't the change to the cancellation process, but the dropped support for AmEx, which was I believe in a different announcement, though I can't find it.  They just thought they were wrapped up in one change, which they weren't.

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I saw that you had addressed that.  I was just addressing their claim that the cancellation process change was not announced and giving a tip to subscribe so they wouldn't be blindsided.

[puredesignhome]

Thank you so much for your replies. I did see the announcement about refunds, but nothing in there indicated that we (i.e. our account in particular) would be unable to refund customers, nor had I heard anything about AmEx being dropped. After reading your posts, I finally found the announcement in eBay's PR section ("Press Room"), not in anything seller-facing, and it says this: "eBay customers are being notified about this upcoming change to prepare them for a smooth transition starting August 17. "

Oddly enough, eBay had no problem charging our AmEx a couple of days ago for our monthly fee. But no joy on us repaying their customers without acquiring a new business card.

I do see sellers and eBay saying you can tie the AmEx to PayPal, then pay fees with PayPal, but when I went to refund a buyer, "credit card" was the only option under "add a payment method." Does anyone have evidence of this 'hack' working?

Some buying agents have a single credit card to buy with. I see a lot of buyers and individual (not corporate) sellers saying "hey, what's the big deal?" or even "I would never pay an annual fee for a credit card so this is a nothingburger" but an awful lot of big businesses (and some of our best customers) run on AmEx, and as we're not in the collectible Pez dispenser business, this just makes eBay look like a small-time platform to us. Certainly our customers on Shopify and Amazon can still pay with AmEx, and I expect a few sales to move that way.

I think the fact that eBay simply didn't have the leverage to negotiate rates they could live with, and had to write off a bunch of sales over what's probably 50 basis points in margin on those sales, speaks volumes about eBay's strength in the marketplace now and in the future.