EBay managed payments may have caused my bank accounts to be closed

soolin

Rotti said:

You imply you are a private seller, are you perhaps taking a lot of money into your account via managed payments, enough to make HSBC think you are a business and therefore misusing your account? 

No implication - I am a private seller thinning out CDs, kitchen stuff, books and all the other accumulated stuff we no longer need.  I am selling less gradually as it dwindles but maybe the bank just don't like eBay having access to the accounts?  None of it is high priced and eBay is getting so bad these days I am getting more interest on Facebook locally so there are no fees or packing.  Various measures brought in over the years and an increase in dodgy Chinese sellers have driven people away from the site so the buyers are not there like they used to be.  There is no way anyone could look at the activity and think we are a business.  There seem to be a lot of people around with similar problems, not only with HSBC, but I was kicked off the boards 10 years ago for a very minor infraction so can't even see what others are saying about it.  There seems to be quite a bit on Google though and I have a friend looking around on the boards.  If it does turn out to be down to eBay then although I enjoy selling having had my own shop for years, I will dump it and find another hobby and the local charity shops will do well.  

Where are you seeing all these other reports- might it be worth asking on there? There is nothing on the ebay discusison boards nor in any of the usual forums I read, so if you have found a forum where this appears to be common, they might be best to see how others have linked their HSBC accounts being closed to the ebay managed payments system - and work backwards from there, it might also help to see if there is any one who has retrieved an account- and if so how. I'm also struggling to find the mentions of this on google - do you have links please so we can have a look to see if anything appears obvious or if there is a pattern in these closures. If you can establish a pattern or something in common that might be a way back to appealing if you can speak to someone in branch.

You also mention having an ebay shop, which is of course entirely possible for a private seller - but due to costs tends to only be used for those with huge 'private' turnovers as most people seem to manage with the usual 1000 free listings. I still wonder if the amount you are paying through your account leads HSBC to suspect you are a business as there are a few mentions of banks closing private accounts which they consider are being mis used.

MR1988

My first guess would have been same as soolin that the bank is ending your accounts due to business activity. My bank is flagging payments from Ayden (eBay's automatic payment) as revenue now while PayPal was only flagged as transfer. Not sure if it makes a difference but that seems to be the only change in what you have been doing and it's a bit too coincidental that they closed it right after you joined Managed Payments. My understanding is Managed Payments was introduced so people who sell as a business under private accounts could be tracked easier.

Rotti

jon81uk said:

What sort of value have you been selling on eBay? I think anything under £100-200 a month wouldn't even be noticed by the bank. But if it went on for a while and you got over a few thousand a year it could look like business activity.
If you didn't want lots of small payments you could have turned on weekly payouts with eBay so you only receive one lump sum on a Tuesday. That would basically be the same as previously with regular withdrawels from PayPal.
I took money out of PayPal once a week so weekly payouts are similar. But then my total selling is only a few hundred a year clearing out stuff.

Easily under that amount as it's mostly ridiculously small stuff that I can't even understand people paying postage to receive! 
And as the payments have only been going into the bank for a few months it wouldn't be the amount that's an issue.  If it is the issue I will give up eBay rather than the bank as I am currently not getting any offers for credit cards from anyone even with a high credit score.  Spent all morning listening to mind numbing hold "music" so far and not got to speak to anyone.  

martindow

Rotti said:

Spent all morning listening to mind numbing hold "music" so far and not got to speak to anyone.  

Can you send a secure message or use live chat within your online banking?  Might be a way of avoiding endless muzak ...

soolin

Rotti said:

jon81uk said:

What sort of value have you been selling on eBay? I think anything under £100-200 a month wouldn't even be noticed by the bank. But if it went on for a while and you got over a few thousand a year it could look like business activity.
If you didn't want lots of small payments you could have turned on weekly payouts with eBay so you only receive one lump sum on a Tuesday. That would basically be the same as previously with regular withdrawels from PayPal.
I took money out of PayPal once a week so weekly payouts are similar. But then my total selling is only a few hundred a year clearing out stuff.

Easily under that amount as it's mostly ridiculously small stuff that I can't even understand people paying postage to receive! 
And as the payments have only been going into the bank for a few months it wouldn't be the amount that's an issue.  If it is the issue I will give up eBay rather than the bank as I am currently not getting any offers for credit cards from anyone even with a high credit score.  Spent all morning listening to mind numbing hold "music" so far and not got to speak to anyone.  

Completely off topic- but why are you paying for a shop on ebay - I always try and never give ebay a penny more than I need to

jon81uk

MR1988 said:

My understanding is Managed Payments was introduced so people who sell as a business under private accounts could be tracked easier.

No managed payments were introduced because eBay sold PayPal and then wanted to keep more of the profits themselves, so brought payment processing in house (even if much of it is done by Adyen) so they keep more of the fee instead of it going to PayPal.

Rotti said:

jon81uk said:

What sort of value have you been selling on eBay? I think anything under £100-200 a month wouldn't even be noticed by the bank. But if it went on for a while and you got over a few thousand a year it could look like business activity.
If you didn't want lots of small payments you could have turned on weekly payouts with eBay so you only receive one lump sum on a Tuesday. That would basically be the same as previously with regular withdrawels from PayPal.
I took money out of PayPal once a week so weekly payouts are similar. But then my total selling is only a few hundred a year clearing out stuff.

Easily under that amount as it's mostly ridiculously small stuff that I can't even understand people paying postage to receive! 
And as the payments have only been going into the bank for a few months it wouldn't be the amount that's an issue.  If it is the issue I will give up eBay rather than the bank as I am currently not getting any offers for credit cards from anyone even with a high credit score.  Spent all morning listening to mind numbing hold "music" so far and not got to speak to anyone.  

I would be almost certain it is nothing to do with eBay then and its another reason your bank has closed the account.
Probably best to go into a branch and talk to them.
Calling up eBay probably won't fix anything, you need to talk to HSBC and/or set up a new bank account elsewhere.

soolin

jon81uk said:

MR1988 said:

My understanding is Managed Payments was introduced so people who sell as a business under private accounts could be tracked easier.

No managed payments were introduced because eBay sold PayPal and then wanted to keep more of the profits themselves, so brought payment processing in house (even if much of it is done by Adyen) so they keep more of the fee instead of it going to PayPal.

Rotti said:

jon81uk said:

What sort of value have you been selling on eBay? I think anything under £100-200 a month wouldn't even be noticed by the bank. But if it went on for a while and you got over a few thousand a year it could look like business activity.
If you didn't want lots of small payments you could have turned on weekly payouts with eBay so you only receive one lump sum on a Tuesday. That would basically be the same as previously with regular withdrawels from PayPal.
I took money out of PayPal once a week so weekly payouts are similar. But then my total selling is only a few hundred a year clearing out stuff.

Easily under that amount as it's mostly ridiculously small stuff that I can't even understand people paying postage to receive! 
And as the payments have only been going into the bank for a few months it wouldn't be the amount that's an issue.  If it is the issue I will give up eBay rather than the bank as I am currently not getting any offers for credit cards from anyone even with a high credit score.  Spent all morning listening to mind numbing hold "music" so far and not got to speak to anyone.  

I would be almost certain it is nothing to do with eBay then and its another reason your bank has closed the account.
Probably best to go into a branch and talk to them.
Calling up eBay probably won't fix anything, you need to talk to HSBC and/or set up a new bank account elsewhere.

Ayden is just another third party processor like paypal- it isn't owned by ebay but obviously have a much better deal with them.

I totally agree, I really don't think this is anything to do with ebay and managed payments - that's why I asked OP if he could link us to the other reports he had found so we could see if there was anything in common, I can't find anything at all .

I can't see any point at all in talking to ebay- only HSBC can help- but I would be surprised if it is them that is taking hours to answer the phone as I always find they answer easily within a few minutes.

OP as for the credit card - that might be worth a different question on the MSE credit card board. When my OH took early retirement he was very mindful of the fact that it might make getting decent limits on new credit cards more difficult and so we both signed up and took new cards with different banks to add to our existing cards - just to future protect us a bit. Although we are not users of credit - we do look having credit cards with decent limits on them for holidays and large purchases- and I too would be upset to lose my card if it was the only one I had.

Rotti

soolin said:

Rotti said:

jon81uk said:

What sort of value have you been selling on eBay? I think anything under £100-200 a month wouldn't even be noticed by the bank. But if it went on for a while and you got over a few thousand a year it could look like business activity.
If you didn't want lots of small payments you could have turned on weekly payouts with eBay so you only receive one lump sum on a Tuesday. That would basically be the same as previously with regular withdrawels from PayPal.
I took money out of PayPal once a week so weekly payouts are similar. But then my total selling is only a few hundred a year clearing out stuff.

Easily under that amount as it's mostly ridiculously small stuff that I can't even understand people paying postage to receive! 
And as the payments have only been going into the bank for a few months it wouldn't be the amount that's an issue.  If it is the issue I will give up eBay rather than the bank as I am currently not getting any offers for credit cards from anyone even with a high credit score.  Spent all morning listening to mind numbing hold "music" so far and not got to speak to anyone.  

Completely off topic- but why are you paying for a shop on ebay - I always try and never give ebay a penny more than I need to

Where does it say that?  I'm not paying for a shop on eBay, I have a private selling account.  

MarvinDay

Rotti said:

soolin said:

Completely off topic- but why are you paying for a shop on ebay - I always try and never give ebay a penny more than I need to

Where does it say that?  I'm not paying for a shop on eBay, I have a private selling account.  

I think soolin saw this:

Rotti said:
If it does turn out to be down to eBay then although I enjoy selling having had my own shop for years, I will dump it and find another hobby and the local charity shops will do well.  

and thought that you were referring to an eBay shop

RFW

soolin said:

Ayden is just another third party processor like paypal- it isn't owned by ebay but obviously have a much better deal with them.

Yes. It saves Ebay having to set up their own financial services which is quite costly and takes years.

On the subject of getting a credit card, the MSE eligibility checker is quite good and if there is eligibility will put you on the right path.
Capital One is pretty good at offering a relatively low credit start for those with poor credit rating but increasing it as time passes and it's managed well. The other I can think of is Aqua. As Martin Lewis is prone to always point out, on the high percentage credit cards make sure you pay it off in full each month.