posted on March 29, 2001 07:21:47 AM
In one of our weekly threads on the legitimacy of passing along BillPoint/PayPal fees to customers, one poster said they didn't think passing along electronic check fees fell under the ebay rules of not passing along surcharges.
Curious, I emailed SafeHarbor for a clarification regarding electronic check fees.
Not terribly surprising, SafeHarbor responded that the passing along of electronic check fees is ALSO PROHIBITED and if I knew of anyone doing it, they would be happy to put a stop to it. (I don't know of anyone doing it, so I'm cool).
Sooo, if it's a payment by BillPoint (electronic check or credit card) or a payment by PayPal (credit card or non-credit card), it appears ebay considers that none of the surcharges can be passed DIRECTLY to the customer.
posted on March 29, 2001 12:55:27 PM
Hello eventer That is correct but it appears to only apply to the US. Here is a post by an eBay "pink" from the Trust & Safety Board:
QUOTE
From: [email protected](6) (view author's auctions)
Topic: Re: eBay Workshop: Trust & Safety Overview of Fee Circumvention & Fee Avoidance
Message: 105 of 152 (In response to rosalie!)
Sent: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 18:13:35 -0800
"Actually, international law differs considerably from US law. In many states, surcharges are not allowed, which is why eBay doesn't allow sellers to tack on fees for payment methods, their eBay fees, etc. on our core US site. In other countries, however, there are no similar rules. I can't say precisely what the rules are for Germany and eBay.de, but you can report one of these auctions with that question to [email protected], and they will route to the German support staff to get an answer for you."
END QUOTE
Electronic Check is the newest way to pay on eBay! Enjoy fast, risk-free online payments. No more bounced checks. Guaranteed. No paper work. No chargebacks. Electronic Check is a great alternative to paper checks! Best of all, Electronic Check processing is FREE and your payment is guaranteed! Now you can accept online payments for your eBay items from any U.S. buyer with a checking account.
posted on March 29, 2001 01:22:13 PM
And the BEST thing about BillPoint's e-check is that you don't have to hurry to ship the item!
Ebay's BillPoint takes 4 to 12 business days to clear your customer's check!
Oh, that doesn't mean they don't withdraw the money from the customer's account. They do so immediately, but they don't post it to your account for another 4-12 days!
You can log on, see that the payment is pending, so you know its there. When your customer writes to tell you that they've paid days ago, you can self-righteously smirk and send them a copy of the "e-check pending" email where eBay tells you "not to ship".
Best of all, you don't get charged a dime for this extra service!
posted on March 29, 2001 01:36:06 PM
Pending means just that...waiting to clear. As in "real life" checks take time to clear. It still takes less time than waiting to receive it in the mail and having the seller hold it for whatever they feel is safe for clearance (usually up to 10 days? as most auctions state)...which really doesn't matter because it can take up to 30 to have a "bounced" check return to you. At least Billpoint guarantees it...something sellers don't have when receiving checks through the mail...I'm happy with that. Even at Xmas time the clearance time never went over 5 days for me and 85% of my sales were paid by echeck in December. Actually payment was confirmed in a minimum of 3, maximum of 5 days.
Sounds like you didn't have good experiences with this form of payment...
[ edited by Red883 on Mar 29, 2001 01:36 PM ]
posted on March 29, 2001 03:53:16 PM
I love Billpoint e-checks. Free to me, and no worry about a chargeback.
Over the past couple of months I've phased out PayPal altogether. The recent imposition of fees by AW made me take a long hard look at some of my low-dollar items...should I stop selling them altogether, or pare my costs and continue to offer these very popular items? I decided to go "cold turkey" for a little while and cut out all the fee services, just to see what would happen.
Maybe it's the current "sweepstakes" promotion. Maybe it's the fact that Billpoint e-check is currently the only online payment service I accept. Maybe it's PayPal's newer verification procedure turning off new buyers...dunno what it is, but I went from zero e-check payments to about 50/50 over the past couple of weeks.
Right now my auctions are shut down since I'm going on vacation, but I had such good luck with the e-checks that I'm going to continue my experiment when things start up again. I didn't notice any reduction in bidding and my ending prices were berry berry nice. I will still consider using Billpoint cc for higher-end items, but it seems that I won't have to drop my low-dollar items after all.
