Which current account safest for ebay's managed payments?

newlease

Ebay's new managed payments process is requesting bank accouunt details before I can list items for sale. Paypal is no longer allowed for selling. Users have been invited since last year and there are some real horror stories for those who changed to the new system and their banks closing accounts. The presumption is these are seen as unusual payments or business activity if values are high even when frequency is low. Examples I read were selling a handful of unwanted Christmas gifts like a phone, tablet and laptop within UK for several hundred. In this forum people discuss the increasing sudden closure of their bank accounts for various reasons. Sometimes valid probably but in many cases it just looks like banks being overly cautious. So which banks are considered safest or least fussy for this? 

eskbanker

Not sure any bank would wish to be known as the least security-conscious, but the key thing is to use an account from a different banking group for Ebay selling from the one you pay your day-to-day bills out of, so as to contain the risk if it happened.  If the selling activity could reasonably be construed as a business by a bank (regardless of Ebay's policies) then use a business account....

s_r

You could use something like Wise (TransferWise) that mimics a bank account (comes with relevant details such as sort code/account no.), but isn’t really an actual back account. My wife uses her Wise account details on EBay rather than using her actual current account details for a peace of mind.

janeskips2

Bank blocks are automated looking at unusual patterns and unless you are a lucrative customer paying fees for the bank blocks will not be reversed by the bank team and accounts closed. You are right don't use your main account it is an unnecessary risk. Use an account that has some activity. After the first rounds of sellers had their main accounts blocked people started opening accounts just to use for ebay. They had balance of 5 quid with no transactions for weeks or months then sold a load of electronic and bank blocked because it looked dodgy payments. This change is global for all ebay users but the bank closures are only UK when I read the ebay forums. Nobody is US or Europe has this problem. Our banks must be more sensitive. Everyone should be moved to the new system by the end of this year so hopefully our banks adjust their fraud systems to save everyone the trouble of incorrectly blocked accounts.

Thrugelmir

newlease said:

 Examples I read were selling a handful of unwanted Christmas gifts like a phone, tablet and laptop within UK for several hundred. 

Unwanted Christmas presents?  Do people believe that banks are that stupid. Hardly surprising that their accounts are getting closed. 

There's a constant flow of shared intelligence. Whatever form the laundering takes it'll soon be identified. Such are the software systems in place now. 

WillPS

Thrugelmir said:

newlease said:

 Examples I read were selling a handful of unwanted Christmas gifts like a phone, tablet and laptop within UK for several hundred. 

Unwanted Christmas presents?  Do people believe that banks are that stupid. Hardly surprising that their accounts are getting closed. 

There's a constant flow of shared intelligence. Whatever form the laundering takes it'll soon be identified. Such are the software systems in place now. 

I've sold unwanted gifts on ebay before. Nothing so valuable as a laptop but things like wallets and clothing which I didn't like; if I did receive, say, a tablet which I decided after a month or two that I didn't really want as much as the cash it was worth I don't see anything dodgy about selling it.

kuratowski

Actually my reaction was similar to Thrugelmir!  I've never received or given a Christmas present remotely as expensive as a laptop or smartphone.  Which may very well be a sign of my age as much as my social class.  Who are these people who receive a laptop worth hundreds of pounds as a gift but say nah I'll just sell it?!  Within my family, if someone was thinking of getting such a pricey gift they would make very sure it was what the recipient wanted and needed first.  If it were sold, then the giver would be sure to notice and then you'd cause a family ruckus.  It sounds far-fetched.

scoot65

This thread has got me thinking. I need to identify a bank account to used for eBay. I have a couple of TSB accounts that are now dormant. I could use one of those.  

My main account is with Lloyds, are TSB still part of the Lloyds banking group or are they totally separate now?  

I don't want to risk having my Lloyds account closed because of using the TSB account for ebay.

colsten

TSB hasn’t been part of Lloyds since Sept 2013.

Thrugelmir

scoot65 said:

I don't want to risk having my Lloyds account closed because of using the TSB account for ebay.

Are you running a business on Ebay or just selling ad-hoc low value items? 

nyermen

colsten said:

TSB hasn’t been part of Lloyds since Sept 2013.

They did share some banking systems afterwards for a while, but those were all changed a couple of years ago (that was all that fuss about their systems breaking down - the new Sabadell ones didn't work very well...)
Now, they are totally separate I believe.