I just established an EBay seller’s account as I have a series of small items, mostly books and memorabilia (mebbe whistles, eventually) to sell. I doubt if any of the transactions will be even $50. I know a lot of you use it for whistles and such so I would like to know if you think the PayPal registration Premier account is worth the security risks and just general complication.
Also, if not, do I just ask for check and money orders? I spent quite a while reading their Forum but I know some of you are quicker to the point and could give me some tips.
“Just Say No” to PayPal! We had an account that turned into an absolute nightmare for us. There’s nowhere to go for help if you run into trouble or unusual circumstances - nobody to contact. If we hadn’t had an extremely patient and understanding buyer, we’d have been in real trouble. We finally had to give up. Haven’t used it since - and wouldn’t.
Susan
Then Susan, what about second question? Do you think most people use checks or money orders on Ebay rather than PayPal? I guess I am wondering if it will hinder the sale to not use it…
Is it a breach of etiquette to wait for check to clear leading to complaints about the seller or is it expected? I really don’t know as I have never spent any time there.
I’ve been using Ebay as a buyer for years, but I’ve never sold anything. I have used Paypal for 99% of all my transactions and I’ve never had a problem where the seller didn’t get paid. Dunno how paypal is from the other side, though, so YMMV.
I’ve used ebay extensively in past years as both a buyer and seller, thugh not a seller in the past two years roughly, so I don’t know about more recent changes. I have a ‘personal account’ as they called it at the time and it’s not hooked to a credit card. A personal account cannot accept payments made by credit card (if you get one, it’ll tell you to upgrade to a fee based account before you can accept it, so you have to decline the payment and contact the purchaser to explain) but it can accept payments from monies already in the account.
I have come across people who really wanted to use Paypal, and people who absolutely don’t trust it. My auctions usually say paypal is preferred, then postal money order (as you can cash it when sending the package), bank money order, then personal check. I reserve the right to wait for the check to clear though I hardly ever do, and don’t worry if a buyer is too impatient to wait - it’s their loss. But do explicitly state in the auction that you might wait X days for it to clear.
The highest price item I ever bought with paypal was a new side mirror for my car last spring and with shipping that was about $70. No problems. The highest I’ve ever received was probably about $50 or so. No problems that I can recall.
I believe this was about 1-1/2 to 2 years ago. We’d had the account for quite some time and when the sale went through realized we hadn’t changed some of the information in the account. We couldn’t get anyone at PayPal to respond to anything we sent explaining what had happened. It caused a HUGE problem as the buyer’s payment went off into never-never land. It took weeks to get it straightened out…with us finally having to mail them a refund check.
Since then, my daughter has sold several items on ebay and requested check or money order each time. It’s standard procedure to wait for the check to clear before sending off the item. If they send a money order, we ship the item right out. Although a little more time consuming, it’s much easier and we haven’t had a problem since.
Thanks for answers, Beth and Susan. When I went to the page and read the info, it SEEMED like paying extra for Premium would be the way to go, because its all about ease of payment to me and it didn’t seem worth it to sign up just to turn around and deny credit card transactions. Also, I didn’t understand exactly how they charge for that premium. It showed some numbers but didn’t make it clear (to me, anyway, which isn’t saying much) if its based on every dollar that you get or is a per-transaction fee.
But in the back of my mind is the fact that these will all be small sales anyway. I gonna have to go for it and make my first attempt at selling I guess and learn as I go, with all yer good help.
My wife just finished selling off some stuff on eBay, and she also had a personal account with PayPal. The problem is, when she decided to accept PayPal at all, the logo they put on her eBay listing told buyers to use their credit cards, leaving her with the option to refuse a payment (which some of the buyers objected to, potentially leading to negative feedback) or suck it up and upgrade her PayPal account and pay their extra fees.
By the way, Week, they charge both a per-transaction fee and a percentage of the dollars you get (which includes the dollars you get for shipping, so be sure to increase that charge accordingly).
She finally decided to upgrade the account, lose the PayPal fees, and then never use them again.
Nah weeky, it’s pretty easy. What I usually say is something like “pay pal payments accepted, however due to paypal restrictions I cannot accept payments made by credit card. Please use funds already in your account, or transfer funds to your account before paying.”
I’ve only had it be an issue less than half a dozen times, and the payers have always understood - after all, they have paypal too so they either have the same free account or understand about the fees. Sometimes they opt to send a check instead, and it takes a day or two for the funds to be returned to their account so there’s a bit of a delay in their repayment till they get the first one back.
Seems complicated but it’s really not. PM/Email me if you have more specific questions on this, or if you want to do a practice penny transaction back and forth to see how it works. I will be more or less out of touch for roughly a week starting today, but I’d get back to you after that.
As for the logo stuff that Steven mentioned, that’s optional -just don’t tell paypal your ebay account name and they won’t know WHY someone is sending you funds. And in order for them to put their logo in your ebay account you need to give them your password, which I wouldn’t recommend - at least that’s how it worked years ago. I prefer to type paypal.com in myself anyway rather than click a link. There was a scam some time back where some people made a fake paypal site using a capital I instead of an L in the link - it looked the same in the font. So you’d click the link, try to log in, and poof, they had your account info. Oops.
My rule of thumb - unless it’s a link you made yourself, never follow a link to a personal finance related site.
Hi - I started using PayPal about four years ago, when it was in its infancy. At first, I used it only to buy stuff. I did hear a lot of stories at the time of shady business practices and bad customer support, etc, but I luckily never experienced any problem.
About two years ago, I started selling my software products on-line, so I signed up for the business account. I had read about that time about a shift in policy at PayPal and an improvement in thier practices. It was around that time they finally actually posted a real phone number on their website for complaints and technical support. The one time I ever had to call the number, my call was answered by a very polite and helpful person, and my problem solved immediately. I’ve probably sold over 200 copies of my product using PayPal by now, and have never had a single problem with that. Even chargebacks went without a hitch. At tax-time, as well, they have very easy to use reports to show you exactly how much money changed hadns between any dates you specify. Very nice.
I am a fairly active eBay hound, as well. In fact, I just bought an Overton Soprano D on eBay, and I used PayPal. (I CAN’T WAIT FOR THAT TO ARRIVE!!! ALthough I know I’ll have a little bit of a challenge explaining it to my wife…)
So, I’ve never had a problem buying things or selling things with PayPal.
When you sign up for the PayPal business account, you have to link the account to your bank account. I had heard bad stories about the PayPal Blue Meanies nicking funds out of people’s accounts without asking, if there was a dispute going on.
Although they are supposed to have changed their policies, I still decided to open a new checking account, in an entirely different bank from my personal account. I use that new account exclusively for my PayPal transactions, and therefore my exposure is limited to the funds that may be in that account at any given time.
I highly suggest this practice - DON’T EXPOSE YOURSELF
I’ve sold around 200 whistles using PayPal. In my experience, it’s well worth the fees to offer the convenience to your buyers. I recommend setting up so your PayPal account can accept credit cards. The more people who are willing to use your payment methods, the higher your bidders will likely go, since there’s more potential competition. I think this more than pays back the fees, etc..
I’ve also processed 50 or so checks from eBay sales (small checks; typically $18.35), and I never wait for them to clear. I asked my banker about this, and she said she’s read a recent report showing that such small transaction checks are seldom problematical. Of course, if I were doing larger transactions, I would wait for them to clear, but my reputation for very fast order filling is worth the risk of losing an occasional $18.35. If checks start bouncing, I’ll change my approach, needless to say. This is a very personal decision, however, and I’m only presenting this information do explain what I’m doing. I’m not making a recommendation.
Best wishes,
Jerry
P.S. It’s also worth mentioning that a high percentage of people who pay by mail use money orders or other bank checks. I suspect I’m getting a fair number of orders from students or other people who don’t have their own checking accounts. So the actual number of personal checks is relatively small in proportion to the total number of transactions.
I also have used PayPal a few times without problems. I think it’s a good service for the occasional seller, but expensive if you sell in large volume.
It’s a numbers question. Since a majority of eBay buyers seem to prefer PayPal, your pool of bidders is significantly larger if you offer it. The bottom line question is, how much higher does the bidding go if the PayPal preferring eBayers participate compared to if they don’t participate? My seatofpants take is, PayPal pays for itself.
Jerry makes a very good point. Speaking from experience, I find it very easy, when I am shopping on eBay for something I really want, to be a bit more cavalier with my PayPal money than I would be if I knew that I’d have to go get a money order cut with funds taken out of my bank account.
But maybe I’m a special case, because I have a rule that I will only spend money that I receive through PayPal sales of my software. In essence, I never see the money - it’s just digits in my PayPal account. So in my personal reality, I can sort of pretend that I’m getting all this stuff for free, like gifts
A note about Jerry - when I bought a tweaked Shaw from him, and asked if I could use PayPal to pay for it, he said yes, and gave me the same price as if I had sent him a check or money order.
As a PayPal seller myself, I know that they always take a considerable percentage of the sale from the seller as a service fee. I offerred to pay the difference for the convenience of using PayPal. It was only a few dollars, but I think this is a courtesy we buyers should always offer to honest, small business-types, who are selling inexpensive items with such low profit margins already. I think it is perfectly fair if Jerry wants to charge slightly more for his services and products for PayPal buyers.
Others might disagree - in fact, even Jerry sounds like he believes the seller is the one who benefits from the convenience. Maybe that’s true bidding on with eBay, but with direct, personal transactions, I think the seller should pay at least some the PayPal fee, because it’s a convenience for all involved.
Well, I’m still stewin’ over this. I just did a search of the book I want to sell and discovered that it’s sorta rare. You can get one of two used copies for $48! And here I thought I would be lucky to see $20.
I also was scopin’ out how people word their conditions. About shipping rates, bla, bla bla. I gather that you have to specify who pays the shipping.
So Ebay, after I make the sale, just takes a percentage off of the credit card I had to register with them? How do they know that I have received the money?
Anyway, it now may be worth the commission just to run up the price…sigh…I am terrible at Greed 101…I can see that somebody who is just dyin’ to have it wants it yesterday, and PayPal must facilitate that because its instantaneous. Sort of like the way I hound Mike Burke for my new whistles when I buy 'em.
I also have a bunch of ol’ Underground Comix I want to sell but they don’t seem as valuable as I would have thought. One guy on Ebay seems to have a lot of titles and there are 0 bids on em. I guess people swoop in late or something…
Other random thought: will probably sell better closer to Xmas, nestce pas??
I see that you have had your questions answered, but I’ll also put in that I use both Pay Pal and ebay. I have not had any problems with either service. Ebay, by the way, automatically debits the card that you sign up with once your transaction is complete… they don’t take it off of the payment, they just do it as a secondary transaction. PayPal takes their fees out of the amount the was paid to you on any given transaction.
