Monday, November 24, 2008

New eBay Policy - No Personal Checks








Greetings,

I have got this real love/hate thing with eBay. Some days I make OK money selling on it and other days it does these stupid things that make me want to scream! Today is one of those days. I updated a fixed price listing to accept 'Best Offers' and toward the end (when the item was listed) I was told I had an unacceptable form of payment listed. Huh?

Long ago I had cleaned up my auction listing terms of any references to Western Union, Bidpay, Greenzap and all the other forms of payment I used to take. I find it pretty remarkable that the U.S. government would allow eBay to bar the use of Cash (printed by the government and still legal tender last time I checked) or Money Orders (also printed by the government at the Post Office) and ONLY allowing Paypal and ProPay (essentially private banking companies).

I mean, isn't there a U.S. law about merchants having to accept cash if offered since it is legal tender? I'd like to hear from anybody who knows one way or the other in the comments.

And . . . if you think this new policy is inconvenient bullsh**, feel free to contact eBay and tell them it is.

Jim McGarigle
Polymath Numismatics
ANA, ANS, ACCG

My Ebay Store
http://stores.ebay.com/Polymath-Numismatics-and-Etcetera

My Myspace Page
http://www.myspace.com/numismatistguy

My eBay 'ME' Page
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/polymath_numismatics

My Coin Blog
http://awcoingeek.blogspot.com/


3 comments:

Ed Snible said...

Snopes has some facts on merchants refusing pennies or cash. See especially their link to the US Treasury FAQ.

Unknown said...

A lot of people have been upset about the change to no cash or money orders on eBay. The reason for the change is that these are the least secure forms of payment on eBay. While there are many people who haven't had problems with accepting cash or money orders, eBay is hoping that the change will decrease the number of buyer and seller complaints.

ProPay is an extremely secure payment option. We have been around for more than ten years and we have just recently been integrated into eBay's checkout. We currently only offer account for Silver PowerSellers and above and we will be offering an account for Bronze PowerSellers early 2009.

Sorry that the change has been inconvenient but there are some really good options that are more secure and dependable than what has been offered in the past.

Brandon Crotts
Senior Account Manager
ProPay

Jim said...

Thanks for the info Ed, I appreciate it even though I kind of hoped it would be different.

As for the info about ProPay Brandon, I'll have to take it under advisement and think it over. It does seem to be a reasonable option for processing credit cards.

Jim