Ebays new shell game .Cant tell who is the mark.

[Edwin Dirnbeck]

I have been selling machinist stuf on Ebay for 10 years. Most of my product is around $100. This has been a good steady side business .People allways paid with Paypal. Paypal charged me 2% to 4% depending on the phase of the moon or some other arcane formula. Sooooo Ebay recently ENHANCED MY SELLING EXPERIENCE. Now people can pay with paypal,apple pay or credit card. I cant tell how people are paying ebay. None of the sales are showing up on my paypal account and I am not paying papal commission.This is a good deal for me,but I know that I am wrong. I am still trying to figure out who got screwed.Edwin Dirnbeck

[J Tiers]

If you are not paying for the product, then you ARE the "product"........

[mattthemuppet]

that's ebay's new payment system to try and screw over Paypal. They're charging the customer directly and deposit they money in your bank account, no Paypal involved.

You can tell the difference it's made to Paypal as they're now charging for family and friends payments..

[Georgineer]

I engaged with an 'on line chat' with ebay and discovered that they can also withdraw money from your bank account if your ebay account goes into the red. They didn't answer my question about what protection is in place (such as the Direct Debit Guarantee), which makes me uneasy.

George B.

[polaraligned]

It is EBay’s new “managed payments” and they take 12.35% on most items. The payment goes directly into your bank account. You have to sign up for it if you want to continue selling. They forced me to sign up last July. No complaints.

[jcfx]

Not to mention eBay wants your SSN for tax purposes, my guess is you'll receive a 1099 from them at the end of the year..

[Mcgyver]

Not to mention eBay wants your SSN for tax purposes, my guess is you'll receive a 1099 from them at the end of the year..

yeah, and the annual sales number on which its triggered is going from thousands to hundreds this year or next. That means the IRS could easily cross check your tax return. Which means keeping track of the cost and receipts of everything you ever bought and then sold. Got to pay for all this folly somehow. Who needs the brain damage? Better to go back to cash and carry local classifieds.

they keep hounding me for a bank account. Have to set up a zero charge virtual bank account, can't be bother yet and hope they lose a ton of business the sobs. Why do they care where I want to take a payment? I mean the last I thing I'm doing is giving a company like them carte blanche to come and withdraw from my bank account without my approval. Are they kidding? As if they are trustworthy or good to deal with....cripes you can't get a human on the phone when something goes wrong

[polaraligned]

yeah, and the annual sales number on which its triggered is going from thousands to hundreds this year or next. That means the IRS could easily cross check your tax return. Which means keeping track of the cost and receipts of everything you ever bought and then sold. Got to pay for all this folly somehow. Who needs the brain damage? Better to go back to cash and carry local classifieds.

they keep hounding me for a bank account. Have to set up a zero charge virtual bank account, can't be bother yet and hope they lose a ton of business the sobs. Why do they care where I want to take a payment? I mean the last I thing I'm doing is giving a company like them carte blanche to come and withdraw from my bank account without my approval. Are they kidding? As if they are trustworthy or good to deal with....cripes you can't get a human on the phone when something goes wrong

The sales threshold is $600. Same amount that triggers a 1099 to my subcontractors. The Federal Gov't has mandated this, not Ebay. You would be better off just claiming the income and selling on Ebay. Most shippable items will sell faster and for FAR more on Ebay than they will locally, that is if you can even find a local buyer in many areas. I can't give away stuff on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. If you purchase something from a little old ladies estate, you would need a receipt from her to deduct your initial purchase price if you ever sell it...good luck with that. I guess you can always make one up.

A lot of Ebayers I know keep a separate checking account just for Ebay.

There is no real issue with managed payments. It has been working flawlessly for me and many tens of thousands of others for well over a year.

[Tom S]

At this point I actually don't mind the new setup. ebay has never like PayPal, but they were a necessary evil that eBay could not have functioned and grown without. I see this change as eBay's attempt to separate themselves from PayPal once and for all. I use Electronic Fund Transfers all the time for personal money transfers rather than cash, this is just an extension of that. I did set up a separate account for eBay transactions since I see eBay as a prime target for hacking (as is PayPal), and that simple step limits any damage in the event something was to happen. In the end it's the same information that you're providing PayPal if you ever pull money out of the account and the same information is available on any cheques you write (does anyone do that anymore) or any electronic or pre-authorized bill payments you use anyhow. Best policy as always is to keep an eye on your account and act on anything that looks fishy. I actually had someone attempt to set up a digital currency account using one of my email accounts recently, but I was able to act on that within an hour and nothing came of it.

As far as the tax thing, as a Canadian I have not needed to enter my SSN. I'll see what comes of it at the end of the year, but as far as I'm concerned the CRA will have an uphill battle if they try to go after non-business sellers claiming that it's income. If they want to do that they had better ask Kijiji, Craigslist, and Marketplace to also issue receipts, since they're all online garage sales of some sort or another. Better also issue a form for the lady down the street to fill out after she's held her garage sale on the front lawn as well.

[J Tiers]

Tom.... the one difference is that apparently you authorize WITHDRAWALS as well as deposits to your account. With most any bank, your authority is required to do that. Anyone can often deposit a check. My wife deposits to my account, even without my signature, etc.

[Tom S]

@JTiers that is correct. As an example, on my latest sale a deposit was made to my account of the sale amount plus the shipping charge minus the 12.35% + $0.30 selling fees. Then I authorized a withdrawal because I purchased my shipping label through eBay, which gave me a discount on the shipping rate and automatically passed all the tracking info to eBay. I could also have selected not to purchase shipping through eBay or could have purchased it and payed for it using a different method. So it's not like they're going in and swiping money from your account, everything is managed and has a paper trail.

[JoeLee]

yeah, and the annual sales number on which its triggered is going from thousands to hundreds this year or next. That means the IRS could easily cross check your tax return. Which means keeping track of the cost and receipts of everything you ever bought and then sold. Got to pay for all this folly somehow. Who needs the brain damage? Better to go back to cash and carry local classifieds.

they keep hounding me for a bank account. Have to set up a zero charge virtual bank account, can't be bother yet and hope they lose a ton of business the sobs. Why do they care where I want to take a payment? I mean the last I thing I'm doing is giving a company like them carte blanche to come and withdraw from my bank account without my approval. Are they kidding? As if they are trustworthy or good to deal with....cripes you can't get a human on the phone when something goes wrong

You re exactly right. I quit ebay after they started charging sales tax, quit selling too. Never was a big seller but with the horror stories I've read on the ebay chat boards about sellers getting screwed by buyers I said I'm done.

They ruined a good thing. I honestly can't see how they survive loosing sellers and buyers like they do.

JL..........

[Doc Nickel]

It's quite simple. Ebay took their slice of the sale, and then PayPal took their slice. Ebay is a publicly-owned corporation, and beholden to shareholders. Shareholders get angry when dividends drop, and CEOs start getting voted out and such.

Simply put, since Ebay is no longer growing by leaps and bounds like it used to, they saw that extra 3% that PayPal was taking, and wanted it for itself.

As for things like sales tax and 1099 forms, those are US Federal Government requirements. Congressmen saw how much their states were losing to internet sales (which had no sales tax) and so implemented one. The IRS, similarly, was seeing how much revenue was lost to at the time largely untraceable internet sales (and electronic payments for work or labor) and started demanding 1099s for anyone that made more than a pittance doing so.

Almost my entire business is online, and if I want to play the game, I have to play it by their rules. It's not as freewheeling as it was when I started, 20 years ago, but the fact is, nothing is. Tried getting a job flipping burgers at McDonalds? They want your SSN, birthdate, medical history, work history and in many places, you have to take a freakin' drug test. That's just the nature of the world these days.

I don't like it any more than the rest of you, but there's also nothing I can do about it.

Doc.

[rcaffin]

I sold something on ebay about 6 months ago. The goods arrived and the buyer was happy.
Because it was my 1st sale, the buyer's payment went into escrow at the start. I can understand that.
But they have never released the money to me! Four times I have got through the interface to ask for the money, Each time an automated system says 'yes, you will be paid within 24 hours.' I still have not seen the money.
I have not sold anything on ebay since.

Snarl
Roger

[Mcgyver]

It's quite simple. Ebay took their slice of the sale, and then PayPal took their slice. Ebay is a publicly-owned corporation, and beholden to shareholders. Shareholders get angry when dividends drop, and CEOs start getting voted out and such.

Simply put, since Ebay is no longer growing by leaps and bounds like it used to, they saw that extra 3% that PayPal was taking, and wanted it for itself.

Not really, ppal is just now another (I'll call them) payment processor. Ebay takes their fee had has no knowledge of, nor would cared what fees your payment processor charged you - be it your bank or ppal. Where they made a good call is in offering choice and creating competition (many processors can vie for your business). People could opt out of ppal for a low cost bank if they wanted. Where they messed up is in denying choice - - you now can't have ppal as one of your payment receipt options. They could easily let ppal be an option and ppal fees are between the customer and ppal (who would have to compete with other procesors, like say a bank)

A separate bank account is an obvious solution, but its extra time and attention required for a problem ebay manufactured and force on me. It should be my call if I want to worry about a few points and put time into avoiding it. I don't currently given the usage and that the status quo worked. Banks are a royal pain. And can you be certain the bank won't put the account in overdraft then come after you? Try asking them to put it in writing that they won't. It happens all the time and people are shocked. Banks don't care about you and when you give some corp permission to access your account at will, weird things can happen.

As for tax, of course its the government that imposes the reporting. It would not serve ebay's interests to do so otherwise. However the threshold that required ebay to report used to be a few thousand. That made sense, i.e. if its a side business a few thousand should capture it. However trying to capture as income people selling used sh1t they bought decades ago is just asinine. Think of the lifetime record keeping from all the households across the nation it would require and the resources and overhead required on the government side....and for what? A pittance. It'll cost more to manage than it brings in. In a non-oppressive western democracy, there is supposed to be an element of taxation fairness.

You really think the government deserves a share of that $100 table lamp sale, unless you can prove you paid $200 for at an estate sale 35 ago? And if you did have that receipt, and everything you do in life now is a taxable event, shouldn't that $100 loss be deductible from other income? Or deduct some of the realty taxes, heat and security you provided to inventory the item for the past 30 years. Or if we're all just walking talking economic taxable events, how about deducting some % your food bill; after all, some of your energy went into polishing the lamp. There's taxing legitimate income, and there's outright stupidity.

The idiocy of the tax man aside, the point is, its another reason ebay will be less appealing