eBay’s New Payment Policy is Giving Me Butt Cancer!

Written by John Comments
Last Updated September 17, 2008

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303284582 26b443535f eBays New Payment Policy is Giving Me Butt Cancer!

While the end of electronic payment may be troubling for some, for me? I am happy to see them go. I have personally not taken checks since 2005 when I got burned several times during the Christmas rush when we had the new Tickle Me Elmos. Both mothers and grandmothers alike took pleasure in writing bad checks to get in on the frenzy. So I stopped taking checks forever and have not missed a beat. Money order, well even though I still accept them, I do not like going to the bank once or twice a week. Bank tellers usually are slow, the lines are long, and freakin Canadians keep sending me money orders in Canadian dollars so I have to go inside the bank instead of being able to use the drive thru.That is just a few of the reasons why I do NOT like paper payments. Anyway, back on the topic…eBay hand picked the ProPay guys as an alternative to Paypal for processing. So I chatted with them and was suprised to hear that they (ProPay) had no idea that eBay would choose them. They simply got a call one day out of the blue from eBay! Now mind you the ProPay system has been around in electronic commerce for more than 10 years actually since 1997. But that was MOSTLY in the brick and morter world for credit processing. Why in the world eBay would just jump up and select them over other established ecommerce platforms is something that got everyone scratching their heads. But ProPay says that they are ready and willing to handle the challenges and are looking forward to making new connections with eBay sellers.

But today, I read a story from Digital Transactions and it really has me concerned about what future plans eBay has for these changes come January 2009! According to the story titled “Payment Changes at eBay Go Well Beyond Tossing Out Checks“ it says:

“When eBay Inc. announced its all-electronic payments policy last month, the move triggered what an eBay executive calls a “mixed” response, at best, from the online marketplace’s sprawling seller community. But the policy changes go beyond banning checks and money orders on eBay. They include requirements that will force third-party payments vendors, as well as sellers with merchant accounts, to integrate their payment systems with eBay’s checkout process. And they have vaulted an 11-year-old processor in Orem, Utah, into prominence as the first provider other than eBay’s PayPal unit to provide integrated electronic processing.”

Google Checkout But that’s not all there is to the all-electronic policy. Starting in late January, eBay will require sellers with merchant accounts to integrate their sites with eBay’s checkout interface through PayPal’s Payflow transaction gateway. PayFlow service will be free of charge on eBay transactions indefinitely, McDonald says. Ebay expects to complete the conversion within a month. “Of all the changes, this will be the easiest for the seller,” he says. Yeah right, OMG I feel the rocky road is coming for us all!

That “11-year-old processor from Utah is of course ProPay. Coming out of RocketPlace last week, I did get to sit down and speak with the guys from ProPay. ProPay was hand-picked by eBay to be one of the first, and only, right now, 3rd party payment provider for the new eBay electronic payment ONLY rule. Coming this October, eBay will do away with ALL non-electronic payment methods. Yep, that means no more checks, money orders, stamps, cash or sexual favors (LMAO) to pay for your winning auctions on eBay.

One of the things that I got from speaking with them was that they are VERY vendor focused. They know that we, the vendors, are their customers and that is their main priority when it comes to support. So I was extremely glad to hear that and I look forward to working with ProPay in the future as an alternative to PayPal when necessary for customer transactions.

That is all well and good, but troubling to me is the fact that the new policy does not change eBay’s stance toward Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., whose payment services the online auctioneer does not permit its sellers to use. Google and Amazon run operations eBay views as competitive with its own or with PayPal. Ebay has banned Google’s Checkout online-payments service since it started in June 2006. That is where the bull***t hits the fan for me. At the same time eBay is claiming it wants to make online payments safe, eBay skips over the safest payment processors online today. So I just want to tell John Dohnahue that it is your company and you can do as you see fit, but PLEASE do not blow smoke up my…u know what…because that can cause colon cancer

Read the full story here: http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=1916

John

Hello Brandon, that is fantastic that you chose to put that comment out there for us. Really appreciate the personal touch.

Thanks,
John (ColderICE)

Brandon

My Name is Brandon Crotts, I am a product manager at ProPay. The announcement that ProPay will be added to eBay's list of acceptable payments in October has brought lots of questions about us. ProPay has been in business for over 10 years. Right now we only offer a merchant account, but at the end of September we will be announcing a new special account for our eBay customers. You can check more out about features of propay's ebay payment option, and we also encourage you to watch for our announcement regarding the package we will offer for ebay sellers.

colderice

Eddie that is an issue that should be looked at with eBay. Since the industry is NOT accustom to electronic payments, could there be some way for eBay to bring that issue to the front and allow for certain transactions in those niches to exist under the new policy? Hmmmm....

John

Eddie

Yep, we deal with quite a few US sellers of collectables who do not either accept Paypal at all, do not accept Paypal from International buyers and also do not have their own Merchant accounts - OK it is a niche market - but nevertheless it exists, and quite what these sellers are going to do in the future (apart from breal eBay policy) I have no idea - there is no immediate solution for them.

So Fritz and all you other coin/stamp dealers in Europe - I have no idea how you can buy of those non Paypal eBay sellers ?

Eddie

Cliff Aliperti

I agree, it's going to be less work for us in the long run as checks/mo, even without any fees tied to them, are really a PITA to receive and process--especially receive, I often have to play mix and match to figure out what a buyer is paying for and have even returned a few saying they needed to identify their purchase.

I've maintained all along that eBay's #1 job during this paper payment elimination is educating buyers, and not doing it with BS--I mean, why not just say "we're banning these payments because that's our choice"?

That said, I'm very happy they're going to allow us to accept them for a time, if we so choose, as long as we don't mention it first. Yeah, I don't really want them, but I don't like turning down a sale, you know?

If ProPay runs any kind of extended Promo I'd sign up in a second. I think it was Henrietta's Red Ink Diary that showed they were not a very good alternative in terms of fees. I do like the idea of having a PayPal-alt for the PP-haters, so I'll probably sign-up anyway, but an extended promo would certainly help make up my mind!

Thanks,
Cliff

colderice

Cliff, from my short talk with ProPay they are looking for seller input. they asked if I would be open to doing some of that with them and I agreed. But also they are really ramping up quickly to deal with this new partnership and that is alot to handle.

From all the sellers that I do come in contact with, I find that many collectors seem to be VERY familiar with check acceptance. It seems like that is almost the PREFERRED payment method for many of the high prices antique dealers going back many years.

So I do understand that it is all about where your products are and who the buyers are. As you said it is a personal choice between buyer and seller and I chose to cut it off long ago. I would take money orders forever, but to see them go...I would not shed a tear honestly.

Cliff Aliperti

Well at least eBay has seemingly backed off Google Checkout being unsafe when John McDonald said "Why not include Google Checkout? The simple answer is that Google’s products and services compete with eBay on a number of levels. So we are not going to allow Google Checkout on eBay."

I can at least respect that as an honest answer.

I don't get how or why buyers are so PO'ed in transactions involving checks/money orders. I can see how sellers might not like it, but it's the buyers choice. Why are they pissed, cause their check bounced? Because the seller actually waited for it to clear? I don't know.

That said, I've only had one check bounce in 8+ years on eBay, no fake money orders, and I've been screwed once as a PayPal buyer, 2 or 3 times as a PayPal seller, so my experience ranks them all pretty evenly. Then again, I'm not working with high demand items like the Elmo doll. My last PayPal dispute taught me that anyone who pays with a credit card can basically dispute anything and get their goods for free--that's just part of the cost of doing business, but at the same time, that seems least safe to me as a buyer.

It may be a pipe dream, but I wouldn't be shocked if sometime in the future, and I'm talking years here, after the dust settles quite a bit, we have PayPal on Amazon and Amazon Payments on eBay.

So you're going to try ProPay out then? I'm leaning towards giving them a shot myself.

colderice

I see this as a problem for many sellers and 3rd party vendors. The time frame is compressed for a rather complex operation. Then to have only 1 other authorized user on the platform is simply the cause for one hell of a traffic jam. I hope this whole thing get reconsidered fast!

Henrietta

This is the question I asked you the other week, how would the upcoming requirement that your merchant credit processor integrate with eBay checkout affect your operation.

Given the glitchiness and general instability of the eBay platform as a whole, together with the planned anonymization of the communication process between buyer and seller through temporary email addresses -- adding the famed 'not quite ready for prime time' eBay rollout label, it looks like a recipe for nightmare soup.

eBay’s New Payment Policy is Giving Me Butt Cancer!

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