eBay offers want payment up-front

tightauldgit

prowla said:

tightauldgit said:

prowla said:

Exodi said:

prowla said:

soolin said:

prowla said:

tightauldgit said:

prowla said:

soolin said:

Oooh, I wonder if the pay immediately trial has spread to the UK?  The US sellers have been excited about a trial where buyers making offers have to pay immediately if they are accepted and I admit I was quite excited as well as I’m fed up with time wasters. 

I can understand the frustration as a buyer if you want to check an item if you are collecting, but it must be such a minuscule of people who are planning to collect but who might not buy that I honestly can’t see it is going to be a major problem. 

Debbie9009 said:

Having had quite a few time wasters making offers and then not paying, I love the idea of them paying immediately, sorry OP.

tightauldgit said:

Qwertybaz said:

This happened to me as well. I was making an offer on an item I was interested in and was prompted for payment details. I also backed out of the purchase. The item then failed to sell so I wonder how many times this is happening 

I wouldn't think it would be very common - an offer is (or should be) binding so if it's accepted you have an obligation to pay either way. There's no real reason I can think of not to pay immediately unless A. You weren't a serious bidder in the first place or B. You have an objection to giving Ebay your payment details and only use cash for everything

I suspect B is pretty tiny proportion of the Ebay user base.

As a seller it'll be great if Ebay are tightening up on timewasters sending offers and then disappearing. 

moonpenny said:

Qwertybaz said:

This happened to me as well. I was making an offer on an item I was interested in and was prompted for payment details. I also backed out of the purchase. The item then failed to sell so I wonder how many times this is happening 

Why would you even make an offer if you are unable to pay for it?

I will typically look to collect the more expensive items for cash and i would need to inspect it first.

I'm not comfortable with the "I'll make you an offer and hand over the money and you can decide whether to accept it" approach.

I can appreciate that sellers may see it as a plus, but it's not if it puts off potential buyers.

I've got someone I consider a PITA to be trying this with me now - it shouldn't even be possible to do anymore as I am pointing out to them. In order to exchange details to arrange a collection you have to have paid for it first otherwise the seller gets hit with fees even if the buyer doesn't buy. 

The correct way to do it is to pay and then arrange to collect. If the item isn't right when you check it then you get a refund. 

Ebay is not Gumtree. 

tightauldgit said:

soolin said:

I don’t know how the Uk system will work but we usually follow the US lead, In the US payment is only taken once offer is accepted, so there is no worry about funds being taken and held. I really don’t think that is unreasonable at all, you make an offer, it is accepted and you pay and only when payment is taken is item sold. this is exactly how it works on Vinted.

Why wouldn’t a buyer expect to pay if their offer was accepted? 

I suspect there are a lot of people who treat Ebay like Gumtree and think an offer means 'I'll give you 50 quid for it if I look at it and like it' rather than 'i will buy this for 50 pounds here's my money if you accept the offer'

As I said people seem to think you can arrange collection/inspection before paying. 

Well, you may want things to be that way as a seller, but as a frequent buyer of used kit I will never pay up-front if collecting; there are so many things which may only show up when hands-on.

If I'm paying £1000 for an item, I'm going to make darned sure it's all in order before handing over my readies.

The idea that I would pay, go to the seller's, see it's not right, have a discussion/argument about the issues, and then ask them if they wouldn't mind refunding me please is just plain daft.

Whatever the opinions are; the net effect is I'll be less likely to buy on eBay, so the sellers lose a potential buyer.

It's eBay who are changing how it's been for many years and this is a new departure.

The reality is though that the amount of people regularly spending £1000 on items that are commonly not as described so need inspection before paying must be so small as to be almost incalculable. The vast majority , in fact I suspect almost 100% of offers are made on quite ordinary things that will be posted out so leave buyers reliant on an SNAD claim if it is not as described, so paying immediately or next day is not likely to impact them at all. 

Sellers have been frustrated for years about buyers who can seemingly offer or accept an offer then just never bother paying, it takes our items off the market for 4 days and can cost us to relist , or lose us our FVFs offers depending on whether sale was on a business or private account. I have posted on my own thread, and many others saying that the idea that someone can make an offer or accept an offer and just not pay puts sellers off of using offers full stop.

By making everything paid at point of sale it might encourage more sellers to look at accepting or making offers without risking losing potentially 4 days worth of visibility, and more offers mean more buyers perhaps paying less than listed price.

Having had a very high percentage of non payers on offers I can only support a process where buyers can no longer auction wreck like this.

tightauldgit said:

prowla said:

tightauldgit said:

prowla said:

soolin said:

Oooh, I wonder if the pay immediately trial has spread to the UK?  The US sellers have been excited about a trial where buyers making offers have to pay immediately if they are accepted and I admit I was quite excited as well as I’m fed up with time wasters. 

I can understand the frustration as a buyer if you want to check an item if you are collecting, but it must be such a minuscule of people who are planning to collect but who might not buy that I honestly can’t see it is going to be a major problem. 

Debbie9009 said:

Having had quite a few time wasters making offers and then not paying, I love the idea of them paying immediately, sorry OP.

tightauldgit said:

Qwertybaz said:

This happened to me as well. I was making an offer on an item I was interested in and was prompted for payment details. I also backed out of the purchase. The item then failed to sell so I wonder how many times this is happening 

I wouldn't think it would be very common - an offer is (or should be) binding so if it's accepted you have an obligation to pay either way. There's no real reason I can think of not to pay immediately unless A. You weren't a serious bidder in the first place or B. You have an objection to giving Ebay your payment details and only use cash for everything

I suspect B is pretty tiny proportion of the Ebay user base.

As a seller it'll be great if Ebay are tightening up on timewasters sending offers and then disappearing. 

moonpenny said:

Qwertybaz said:

This happened to me as well. I was making an offer on an item I was interested in and was prompted for payment details. I also backed out of the purchase. The item then failed to sell so I wonder how many times this is happening 

Why would you even make an offer if you are unable to pay for it?

I will typically look to collect the more expensive items for cash and i would need to inspect it first.

I'm not comfortable with the "I'll make you an offer and hand over the money and you can decide whether to accept it" approach.

I can appreciate that sellers may see it as a plus, but it's not if it puts off potential buyers.

I've got someone I consider a PITA to be trying this with me now - it shouldn't even be possible to do anymore as I am pointing out to them. In order to exchange details to arrange a collection you have to have paid for it first otherwise the seller gets hit with fees even if the buyer doesn't buy. 

The correct way to do it is to pay and then arrange to collect. If the item isn't right when you check it then you get a refund. 

Ebay is not Gumtree. 

tightauldgit said:

soolin said:

I don’t know how the Uk system will work but we usually follow the US lead, In the US payment is only taken once offer is accepted, so there is no worry about funds being taken and held. I really don’t think that is unreasonable at all, you make an offer, it is accepted and you pay and only when payment is taken is item sold. this is exactly how it works on Vinted.

Why wouldn’t a buyer expect to pay if their offer was accepted? 

I suspect there are a lot of people who treat Ebay like Gumtree and think an offer means 'I'll give you 50 quid for it if I look at it and like it' rather than 'i will buy this for 50 pounds here's my money if you accept the offer'

As I said people seem to think you can arrange collection/inspection before paying. 

Well, you may want things to be that way as a seller, but as a frequent buyer of used kit I will never pay up-front if collecting; there are so many things which may only show up when hands-on.

If I'm paying £1000 for an item, I'm going to make darned sure it's all in order before handing over my readies.

The idea that I would pay, go to the seller's, see it's not right, have a discussion/argument about the issues, and then ask them if they wouldn't mind refunding me please is just plain daft.

Whatever the opinions are; the net effect is I'll be less likely to buy on eBay, so the sellers lose a potential buyer.

It's eBay who are changing how it's been for many years and this is a new departure.

And if i agree to send you my phone number and address for £1000 item then Ebay charge me £150 quid in fees and you don't bother turning up and/or don't like it for some spurious reason or want to try to rehaggle  the price I'm out of pocket for the fees. So yeah I'm not going to be doing that. 

On the other hand the buyer if they dont like the item can simply walk away and file a refund request with ebay and get it - no question of trying to have to have a discussion or argument or ask for them to do you a favour. 

And this isn't even a new thing Ebay are doing - it's been this way for sometime that you are expected to pay before exchanging contact details. 

Well there y'go - there are two sides to an argument.

I hope you can appreciate that your view isn't as the average buyer, but a very specific set of circumstances as someone who happens to be buying high value used equipment that require inspection, also happens to be collecting it and prefers paying in cash. I also really don't see how it's that big of a deal deal falling back on the refund procedure like everyone else, eBay is (in)famous for siding with buyers. Regardless, I doubt eBay will care about the 0.1% of buyers, to the continued detriment of a far greater number of sellers.

A typical buyer will be paying by card for posted items. As a buyer, I pay immediately after my offer is accepted anyway, so it's no skin off my nose whether payment is taken automatically or not (if anything, it would be easier). I actually find it strange that a buyer would take issue with payment being taken with an offer they make... I honestly have trouble understanding any argument made against this (well except your scenario, there are no arguments being made, just blanket statements of 'I won't be making any offers in future' without any real justification).

The offer page is already plastered with warnings about your offer being a commitment to purchase, so why people are taken issue with it is confusing to me. Currently I think it's odd I can make 'binding' offers without payment.

As a seller, I don't allow offers (I did in the past, and I was often bombarded with mickey mouse offers so I disabled it on future listings and stuck to 7 day auctions, which seem to have treated me well).

As I say, it's your choice and your perspective.

I accept that ebay has somewhat shifted to trying to be a more business/retail-orientated service, where perhaps new commodity items don't need inspection.

In my case I've said I won't commit to buying an expensive used item unseen and am not comfortable with paying up-front on the basis I can claim a refund at eBay/PayPal's leisure if there is an issue..

And I'm also uneasy about paying up-front to collect something on the risk that the seller has no motivation to be in.

FYI, I've been with eBay for many years; I've got feedback over 1500 and most has been buying; TBH, I gave up selling a while back, as it was too much hassle.

tightauldgit said:

So my PITA buyer came back and we arranged to meet for him to collect but he steadfastly refused to actually purchase the item despite me telling him I wouldn't meet without payment. I'm not interested in doing a 30 minute each way trip just to get a tyre kicker or someone trying to do a lowball offer after they've got me committed. 

So I just told them to leave it and blocked them. 

Anyone not willing to pay for the item they say they want isn't worth entertaining in my view. 

That's a shame you feel you were mucked about; you say you were going to travel 30 minutes - were you expected to deliver the item on a maybe?

Regarding blocking, I do wish ebay would allow buyers to block sellers, but that's a different topic...

Yeah they started with a low ball offer along with a 'meet halfway to collect' and I said I'm happy to meet if they pay the asking price. So they agreed in principle but started wanting my contact details etc which I was happy to send but got a warning from Ebay saying if i sent my number then i'd be charged a final value fee on the item regardless. So I didn't. 

I explained if they wanted my contact they'd have to pay and also told them I wouldn't travel without having had payment. Then they backed out when I made it clear I wasn't travelling until they'd paid 

I suspect what would have happened is they'd have made me another lower offer after checking the item out and wasted my time and money travelling. Possibly not but I wasn't willing to take the risk after previous experiences of people taking the p on things.

Me, I like to go places on the weekend, so if I've arranged to buy something, I'll have a day out planned around that.

I don't know how you're supposed to arrange pickup without having the contact details; I guess ebay are paranoid about folks avoiding fees.

However, using cash avoids payment fees.

Nope. I don't even take cash payments any more. I just point people at Ebay and ask them to make payment on the system. 

I did one 'pay on collection' because buyer was at least willing to come to my house but had already at least made an offer on the item that I had accepted. The downside was when they paid via Ebay i had to wait about 5 minutes for it to update through the system so i could scan the collection code. 

As a seller I'd much rather people just went along with Ebay's system than trying to find ways around it. 

FFHillbilly

prowla said:

Regarding blocking, I do wish ebay would allow buyers to block sellers, but that's a different topic...

they have a system in place for this already actually, if you don't want to buy from a certain seller, you don't. amazing isn't it?!

prowla

FFHillbilly said:

prowla said:

Regarding blocking, I do wish ebay would allow buyers to block sellers, but that's a different topic...

they have a system in place for this already actually, if you don't want to buy from a certain seller, you don't. amazing isn't it?!

Arf!

Not quite...

You knew I meant not to have their listings returned in searches, right?

tightauldgit

So.... it would seem that nothing has changed in terms of accepting offers and getting payment as far as I can tell. 

Just accepted an offer on an item and it's sitting as 'awaiting payment' so obviously nothing was pre-approved. 

Perhaps they've started trialling it with some people but it doesn't appear to be a thing as yet. 

se2020

I don't know how they are applying it.
I have had best offers coming through as normal but also best offers that say "we will automatically take the buyers payment when you accept"
Of the automatic payment ones that I have accepted payment has come through anything from 5 to 20mins after I have accepted the offer. Non have been 'immediate" 

soolin

Same here , I accepted an offer yesterday and wasn’t expected to pay immediately although obviously I did. 

FFHillbilly

I made an offer on Monday morning and was told to put in my card details, had the offer accepted a few hours later whilst I was out and it was sent by lunchtime, I've got it now it arrived today in the post.
on the old system I probably wouldn't have got round to paying for it until Monday night, and wouldn't have it yet

GabbaGabbaHey

messia07 said:

thanks for the heads up. i will not be making offers if i have to pay up front.

i did a quick search on the ebay forums and one complaint was it can apparently take upto 15days to get a refund if your offer is rejected.

That's not how it works. You do not pay anything "up front".

If your offer is Accepted, then the payment is taken at that point (which is really no different from paying for an accepted offer now, and, as a buyer, is actually more convenient to my way of thinking). If the offer is Rejected, then no payment is taken, so there is never a case of needing to get a "refund" .

donnac2558

I can across this on Monday when buying a bottle of perfume, I picked my offer price and filled in Paypal payment.

Now the payment did not show on my bank account until this morning, and I am talking even the hanging balance.  It did show on Paypal account.  I was nearly caught out with my online banking, thinking why have I more money than I should?

jeffuk

I wonder if they're trialling it on serial non payers, would make sense.