eBay bans cash payments
eBay has officially outlawed cash payments among its 100 million members. The auction site has begun deleting listings from sellers who offer to accept cash through postal mail, saying that these sellers tend to be involved in scams.
"The U.S. Postal Service tells us it's unsafe, and now eBay is telling everyone that it is unsafe," said Matt Halprin, eBay's global policy VP. "So if a seller solicits or encourages offers to accept cash, [they are] encouraging unsafe payment methods and we do remove that seller's listing."
eBay managers approved the policy in October, but the change wasn't widely publicized or enforced until this week. Recently, several longstanding PowerSellers who have traditionally accepted cash complained that eBay is trying to force them to accept PayPal. eBay purchased the payments company in 2002, and is aggressively promoting its use.
After a rash of fraud last year, eBay and other sites such as Amazon.com warned buyers against paying for expensive items with non-reversible bank wire transfers. In many cases the fraudulent sellers posed as U.S. residents, but were actually outside the U.S. and never shipped merchandise after collecting the payments.
Some eBay sellers offering heavy or bulky merchandise don't offer shipping, and require buyers to pick up their goods. Some eBayers note that cash payments for in-person transactions can work fine in some cases, yet can present other types of risks. For example, sometimes buyers discover later that merchandise is defective. In these cases, disputes can arise over the demand for a cash refund.
"You've got to wonder though," said one eBayer who asked not to be identified. "Is eBay going to outlaw checks and money orders next?"
"The U.S. Postal Service tells us it's unsafe, and now eBay is telling everyone that it is unsafe," said Matt Halprin, eBay's global policy VP. "So if a seller solicits or encourages offers to accept cash, [they are] encouraging unsafe payment methods and we do remove that seller's listing."
eBay managers approved the policy in October, but the change wasn't widely publicized or enforced until this week. Recently, several longstanding PowerSellers who have traditionally accepted cash complained that eBay is trying to force them to accept PayPal. eBay purchased the payments company in 2002, and is aggressively promoting its use.
After a rash of fraud last year, eBay and other sites such as Amazon.com warned buyers against paying for expensive items with non-reversible bank wire transfers. In many cases the fraudulent sellers posed as U.S. residents, but were actually outside the U.S. and never shipped merchandise after collecting the payments.
Some eBay sellers offering heavy or bulky merchandise don't offer shipping, and require buyers to pick up their goods. Some eBayers note that cash payments for in-person transactions can work fine in some cases, yet can present other types of risks. For example, sometimes buyers discover later that merchandise is defective. In these cases, disputes can arise over the demand for a cash refund.
"You've got to wonder though," said one eBayer who asked not to be identified. "Is eBay going to outlaw checks and money orders next?"
posted by Steve Weber at 4/04/2006
24 Comments:
this is a good idea - an auction where the person asks for cash is just asking for trouble IMO. This protects the idiots (but on the negative side gives more business to paypal).
I don't agree. I accept cash for items that are for pickup. I think it instills confidence in the buyer to know that they get to see the merchandise before they fork over the cash. Besides, why pay Pay-Pal if you don't have to. I have been burned by non-paying bidders not coming to get their stuff, but that could happen even through Pay-Pal.
My local buys on eBAY are usually for cash. We tend to do pickups and i check the product thoroughly before giving over the money. Never had an unsatisfactory deal. But it also helps that the law is very strict here and people don't usually rip people off.
I think it's hard for eBay to defend a policy like this. It says right on a dollar bill, "Legal tender for all debts, public and private."
People who want to pay in cash (or accept cash) should be able to do it if that's the way they prefer to conduct their affairs.
I'm not advocating that foolish buyers be ripped off. Buyers should be warned against paying in cash, but I don't think it should be prohibited.
Apparently it is legal for businesses to decline to accept U.S. currency as payment, but I'm not sure eBay can compel other businesses (its members) to operate this way.
Interesting how ebay consistently says that online fraud is a miniscule percentage of ebay auctions and then put a policy into effect that affects so many sellers because of fraud. Does anybody else think that ebay is talking out of both sides of their mouth here?
It says right on a dollar bill, "Legal tender for all debts, public and private."
Try buying an large ticket item with cash, or renting a car, or leasing property... You'll quickly see how far the legal tender statement goes
What?!? Now I can't pay $0.01 for my e-book on how to become an Ebay millionare?
I don't think cash transactions should be banned. Only Lemmings fall for scams and there's no stopping people from running scams on PayPal. I think PayPal makes fraud even easier because the unsuspecting noob coughs up the cash right away.
I bought a big Sony 32" CRT TV off of ebay 6 months ago, it was about 5 years old and there was no way I was handing my money over before I saw the TV. I went to the seller's house, asked him to turn it on, everything was fine, I handed him 5 20's and carried the TV out. It is absurd that such a transaction could not happen in the future.
To clarify, here is what eBay says in its help file:
"Sellers may not solicit buyers to mail cash. Sellers may not ask buyers to send cash through instant cash transfer services (non-bank, point-to-point cash transfers) such as Western Union or Moneygram. Sellers may not ask buyers to pay with Stormpay. Finally, sellers may not request payment through online payment methods not specifically permitted in this policy."
And here's the entire eBay Safe Payments Policy
If they are that concerned with fraud they shoudl DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I've dealt with safe harbor on several occasions and have not gotten satisfaction, ever. In fact one scammer just kept runnign his scam over and over again because he knew that eBay wouldn't do anything. I had a former neighbor that made a living running scams on ebay for many years, selling "one of a kind" bootleg videos of various rock concerts and behind the scenes sort of footage. the "one of a kind" stuff were 5 video tapes he bought copies of on ebay and probably continues to this day to make (worse and worse quality copies of them) and selling them on ebay.
Nothing is perfect, but why not try www.BuySellFree.com for a better deal than Ebay.
Finally, sellers may not request payment through online payment methods not specifically permitted in this policy
THATS the part I have a problem with and I believe its ILLEGAL (anti competitive monopolistic) they are basically ONLY there payment services are legal so any other paypal competition is illegal.
Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/
They should allow users to accept cash payments after they reach a certain positive feedback tier. If I have 1000 positive feedbacks, let me accept cash as payement if I want to. It's these zero feedback accounts originating out of China and other countries that are the bad apples.
I've been defrauded (and screwed) more on PayPal purchases than any other kind of payment. eBay isn't going to help me out in cases where I'm defrauded (they sure as hell haven't in the past), so what business is it of theirs (unless some class action lawsuit has been filed, in which case, where do I sign up?).
I was actually stupid enough to pay cash (in person) for an ATV (listed as absolutely perfect) on ebay recently. It was a local pickup and I had actually talked to the seller on the phone and several emails between us. He is a police officer so I though that surely he was to be trusted.......I was wrong. I picked up the ATV and the next day noticed that it had frame damage under one of the skid plates. I immediately contacted him and of course he offered no help. I filed a dispute with ebay and when he agreed to compensate me for a frame I ended the dispute. It is now 2 months later, and of course I have received no money.
How long before PayPal is the only accepted form of payment? Of course, this won't stop people from accepting cash -- it only stops people from advertising in their auctions that they accept cash. I've done tons of local buying and selling and have always used cash. Who wants PayPal's 3% charge on a local deal?
why don't we just start calling ebay what is really is—paypal auctions.
buyers like paypal, while sellers don't like it as much. buyers love ebay. sellers like it too, but less and less.
maybe a good upstart auction site will come along, one that starts off like ebay did and makes it a great place for buyers and sellers. ebay would be more attractive if they hadn't become so greedy.
//
ebay quit being a venue when it started dictating payment methods.
PayPal quit being a money transfer servicewhen they got into the freezing accounts business, aong with their other more bank-like activities, such as offering credit for larger ebay purchases.
Ebay /PayPal are now the 2 largest scams in the world. Best to simply AVOID both.
Folks need to write their legislators to step in to investigate and possibly regulate these outfits. Looks like anti-trust or monopoly, or RICO violations to many.
While i see how this is rediculous... I had auctions shut down 2 months ago due to the mention of cash...It wasn't hard to see this coming.
Ebay is already the biggest most profitable company that doesn't " sell anything, buy anything or process anything... sell anything bought or processed... or buy anything sold or processed... or process anything sold, bought or processed... or repair anything sold, bought or processed"
It only seems fitting that a corporation which doesn't deal with anything material is excluding cash from it's list of approved payment methods. THEY ARE A CORPORATION WITH THE GOAL TO MAKE OBSCENE AMOUNTS OF MONEY....why do you think they bought out paypal in the first place.
You still have the option of dealing with buyers without letting ebay in on it....First off, insist on sending all correspondence through email rather than ebay's messenger system...You still have a choice, no matter what ebay says. Let's remember that great quote from Friederich Schiller..
"Der Mensch ist frei, und wäre er in Ketten geboren." "Man is free, even if he is born in chains."
Don't let Paypal/Ebay rule your commerce.
great comments. I have 5 companies on my list that I will never do business with EVER. Sprint PCS for constantly spamming their name when I called customer service (every other word was "Sprint"). AOL for not allowing me to cancel without jumping through hoop after hoop. Mitsubishi for making inferior "copycat" cars and not honoring my model I had owned in a recall even though it used the same balljoint (to replace a simple balljoint required basically a whole new front end). Paypal for freezing my business account that had something like $20,000 in it when ONE complaint from someone froze the account for at least 2 months. And last but not least, I forget the 5th but it's a good one to avoid :)
I just recently sold something on ebay (It's been two years since the last time) and it cost me 12% between the eBay fees and the PayPal fees! And, no I did not use any of the fancy features like bold or premier or whatever...
I'd like to make that kind of profit off of all my transactions!
Dumb eBay is just trying to make you use their paypal more or something... they take a huge chunk of fee's so many times. Lame.
Looks like ebay is trying to slowly move out of operating the EBAY STOREs and become auctions again and let the brick and motar drop off ebay stores do their thing. They generate tons for ebay/paypal because thats how most of them are set up...
They can't make paypal profits when you pay with cash. How do you scam someone paying with cash? You have it or you don't... Not much trickery there.
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