Question
... not honouring their own auction terms.
The more perceptive regulars here may have noticed that I have an aversion to using PayPal. Australians have also embraced online banking and direct deposits as a form of payment. As well as my aversion to PayPal, I also have an aversion to bankjing online. I have a belief that once a bank account is brought online it is a little more vulnerable to being hacked, and that the internet was not built with bank security in mind. Perhaps I am over cautious, I can accept that.
When I am bidding within Australia on Ebay, I favour auctions that accept cheques (checks). If the item is hard to get or respresents good resale value, I will bid if they accept money orders. In rare cases I will go to the bank to make a deposit for a must have deal.
I am now up to my third seller who includes money orders in their terms, but when I have asked for their postal address, insists that it is just as easy to go to the bank as it is to go to the Post Office and only supply their bank account details. I have also had one who insisted that everyone now uses PayPal, so I should just pay through PayPal. In the latter case when I said they may as well neg me because I will not join PayPal under any circumstance, they relented and supplied their postal address.
In the three other cases, I am sure that if I kept asking for a postal address I would have eventually gotten one, but instead I have wasted half an hour at a time travelling to a bank and making the deposit, after my first protest has been refuted (today's example: "half an hour bank, half an our post office, difference?" followed by an offer that I "can do the money order", but not supplying an address to send it to).
I will point out that I have had no problem with sellers who accept cheques.
I am sick of it. If I overlook the terms, then it is entirely my responsibility, but every one of these I have checked the terms before bidding. This means that I have several options:
(1) Keep jumping through hoops set by sellers who don't want to honour their terms.
(2) Just stop buying on Ebay.
(3) Only buy from buyers who accept checks, since they seem to mean to accept that type of payment.
(4) Write to every seller to confirm whether they accept the payment options listed in their auctions, before placing a bid.
At this moment (in a crappy mood) options 2 or 3 look the most viable. I suspect that many genuine sellers would not even respond to option 4. Would the sellers here feel offended by an email asking them if they really accept the payment options listed?
Half ranting and half deciding whether to keep buying on Ebay, Kevin
Answer
What ever happened to the concept of giving the customer what they want?...I, too, get a bit annoyed at the "demands" of some sellers, and would be really PO'd if a payment method that was indicated as acceptable in an auction were revoked on the whim of a seller...
As for your options, FWIW here's MO
(1) Keep jumping through hoops set by sellers who don't want to honour their terms.
Well, that could be great exercise!...If you're gonna go with that option, please install a webcam on your computer so we can all watch you "jump"
(2) Just stop buying on eBay.
Oh yeah, there's always THAT option, but ya know that we are addicts and well, I don't think you can do it!...
(3) Only buy from buyers who accept checks, since they seem to mean to accept that type of payment.
But, um, didn't ya run into problems with those who said they did, but once the auction was done, changed their tune???
(4) Write to every seller to confirm whether they accept the payment options listed in their auctions, before placing a bid.
Although a royal PITA to have to email sellers before each bid, this is probably your safest option...A few minutes up front and it should save ya alot of "hoop jumping" in the end...Good sellers shouldn't object that inquiry...
Dontcha wish you could write up "Buyers Terms"???
Answer
If you start clicking through the "Pay your seller" ("Pay Now"?) buttons at the top of the auction screen... and select check or money order as the form of payment... you will arrive at a page which has your address, their address, the item name and number, and the total. This is very handy to print out and send along with your payment, it has their address on it, and it will forward the information to them that your payment is coming in a manner they set out in their terms.
Answer
Quote:
(3) Only buy from buyers who accept checks, since they seem to mean to accept that type of payment.
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But, um, didn't ya run into problems with those who said they did, but once the auction was done, changed their tune???
G'day Phoenix,
On this front, every time the problem has been with those who say they will accept money orders but not checks/cheques.
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Thanks Toy,
This is the problem of being "old school", I have always stuck with direct communication, except on one seller who required the use of checkout or an equivalent system. I have never thought about following that side of the system on other transactions. Yes, there is a "Pay Now" button on today's auction - I will certainly keep this in mind as an alternative approach with unco-operative sellers.
A week or two ago I had my first buyer that (I think) was offended by direct contact. They contacted me through Ebay, and as always I replied directly with my invoice (I do not send invoices until the "run" of listings has finished, but reply immediately when a buyer contacts before the run of auctions has finished), the response was "Hi, I sent for total thru ebay, you sent total thru e-mail,...." - I get the feeling that direct contact is now viewed with suspicion. I am guessing that "old school" customer service is now considered to be a bad thing.
Kind Regards, Kevin
Answer
I feel your aggravation, Kevin. Between sellers who either are too lazy/careless to update their auction terms (or are just fickle) and buyers who are either too lazy/careless to read the auction terms in front of them, eBay can be a real PITA. Sometimes it really doesn't seem worth the trouble.
I'm a bit curious about how you make payments there. Are you saying that the seller provides their bank account information (acct #, routing #, etc.) and then the buyer goes to the bank and makes a deposit?
That sounds like a potential crook would have a LOT of information... wouldn't they?
Editted to add:
And do you have to go to the Seller's bank? Or can you do it from your own bank? If you do it from your own bank, do you get charged a wire-transfer fee?
Sounds like it would be very inconvenient!
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Kevin~ The eBay system is now so easy for buyers, that when I see a seller who has all this "don't contact me through eBay's system, I will email you after the auction" stuff in the TOS, I weigh whether or not I really want to bid in that auction or can find the item somewhere else. It says to me "this seller needs me to hold his/her hand". Buyers are used to fast and easy, with little muss and fuss. What you consider to be "customer service", the current crop of eBay buyers may well consider to be "dealing with a problem seller"... just because all of that isn't necessary any longer. Instead of adapting to your buyer's comfort zone, you are hunkered down in your own.
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Kev, I was going to suggest the same thing Toy initially said: try the checkout process indicating you will send a cheque. eBay USA then provides the seller's address, and you need never contact them for it.
I would hope eBay Australia works in the same manner.
When you checkout ... the seller receives your info. If their auction says they accept a cheque (or MO), that option will be allowed in your checkout process. You could easily have a cheque in the post before a cantankerous mind/policy changer had time to make your life difficult.
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I'm a bit curious about how you make payments there. Are you saying that the seller provides their bank account information (acct #, routing #, etc.) and then the buyer goes to the bank and makes a deposit?
Seller supplies BSB number (branch number) and Account Number, and the name of the account. Buyer either transfers money from their account to the seller's account on-line (very quick and easy if you trust internet security), or goes to the local branch of the seller's bank and makes the deposit. A deposit can be done from one bank to another bank, but it can take a few days and has extra costs involved.
One of the major differences between Australia and USA (as far as I know) is that most of our banks are national, and our system appears to be far less disjointed (per example I have seen talk a while back of personal checks taking weeks to bounce in the USA - 5 days would be the maximum here).
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I guess that I have to learn to invoice instead of just sending EOA's myself and being able to directly reply to bidders.
I am not only obsolete, but now also innappropriate to this marketplace.
Kevin
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What I am wondering here about the bank transfers is exactly what I've been told... Isn't giving out your bank account number to someone you don't know a pretty bad idea?
The reasons:
1. The dishonest person can use the routing and account number to print forged checks. They can then go shopping.
2. The dishonest person can withdraw money directly instead of deposting money.
This even parallels the Nigerian email scams mantioned by the U.S. Secret Service. The scammer simply wants your bank account number so that they can deposit a whopping big amount of money, when in reality, they intend to drain the account dry.
Perhaps down under, the people are still more trusting and have less problems with these account targeted scams, or there is some way to protect against them there...?
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G'day Dennis,
I have no idea. The fact is that the same information is on any cheque/check that you write. Cheques here start with the cheque number, then the BSB, and then the account number, and has the account name written above (numerically similar to USA checks, but in a different order). I am not bothered by paying with a cheque, and other than hearing of the amounts on cheques being altered, I have not seen much successful cheque fraud of THAT nature (bank cheques being stolen from a bank that was subsequently burnt down has happened down here a few times, and of course there is cheque fraud with items paid for with "rubber" cheques by the owner of the account or from a found/stolen cheque book).
I assume that having the numbers available on a check does not give a person ACCESS to the account, or the ability to drain it unless they alter the face value of the check, or create fake checks that the bank fails to recognise as fake (and in the latter case I assume the bank would be liable - here at least).
What does bother me though, is hooking up a bank account online. I may be wrong but it just strikes me as "hackable". Rather than the bank being liable for a fraud, the customer would have to *prove* that they did not give the password to another person, and having the BSB and account numbers puts the hacker two steps closer to being able to hack the account directly from the internet. I am guessing that because I have never put my accounts on-line, that they can not be directly hacked (if someone got into the bank computers, they may be hackable, but I have a better chance of proving the bank is liable). I may be wrong in all of this, because I do not know/understand the systems or laws fully, but if the information found on a check (alone) really does leave one vulnerable, cheques should be phased out as a financial instrument.
Kevin