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  • dyintorace

    Aug. 29, 2008 10:33 a.m. dyintorace HalfDork

    I'm the first to admit that I'm a noob when it comes to selling items via ebay and transacting via Paypal.

    Having gotten that out of the way, I need some advice/insight. Yesterday, I had 4 auctions conclude successfully, each the sale of Challenge parts of course. I received notification immediately that the first person has paid via Paypal. However, it appears they paid via credit card or debit card, because when I go into Paypal to accept the payment, it tells me that I have to upgrade from a personal account to a premier account if I want the money.

    I call Paypal and get "Jeff" in India (based on the heavy accent). He tells me that my only option is to upgrade and that I can downgrade only once, which I've already done, so that's out. And, if I upgrade, I then have the pleasure of giving Paypal 2.9% plus $0.30 for each transaction. I would really prefer not to do that.

    Do any of you experienced ebay'ers have any suggestions? It would seem that ebay/Paypal has me between a rock and a hard place at this point.

    Thanks, Tucker

  • Aug. 29, 2008 10:48 a.m. petegossett Dork

    Yep. Paypal & eBay suck....but you're either stuck with them, or choose not to use them.

  • Jensenman

    Aug. 29, 2008 1:57 p.m. Jensenman UltimaDork

    Yep, that's it. Either give them their pound of flesh or go through the aggravation of checks etc.

    Piece of advice: if you plan to start doing a lot of eBaying, don't let it get deposited to your checking account. Use a savings account and clear it immediately after you get paid. Why? If you read PayPal's rules, if someone contests an invoice for whatever reason, PayPal can debit your receiving account until it's cleared up. If you are using your checking account, have written a bunch of checks for bills and then PayPal decides to debit your account because someone started whining you could have checks bouncing all over the place!

  • ignorant

    Aug. 29, 2008 2:23 p.m. ignorant UberDork

    paypal is bad.. I do not use unless have to.. I have been screwed by them and their seller protecting rules before.

  • P71

    Aug. 29, 2008 2:26 p.m. P71 Reader

    And starting October 1st evilBay will only allow sellers and buyers to use PayPal. No more checks or money orders at all.

    So, who's going to make the new eBay? There's a hell of a market there...

  • P71

    Aug. 29, 2008 2:27 p.m. P71 Reader

    www.paypalsucks.com

  • dyintorace

    Aug. 29, 2008 3:36 p.m. dyintorace HalfDork

    Jensenman wrote:

    Yep, that's it. Either give them their pound of flesh or go through the aggravation of checks etc.

    Piece of advice: if you plan to start doing a lot of eBaying, don't let it get deposited to your checking account. Use a savings account and clear it immediately after you get paid. Why? If you read PayPal's rules, if someone contests an invoice for whatever reason, PayPal can debit your receiving account until it's cleared up. If you are using your checking account, have written a bunch of checks for bills and then PayPal decides to debit your account because someone started whining you could have checks bouncing all over the place!

    So premier account it is.

    And thanks for the word of advice! I don't plan on doing too much ebaying, other than Challenge stuff, but nonetheless, will take your recommended course of action.

    On the plus side, between ebay and CL, I've recouped $488 in Challenge budget this week! Woo hoo.

  • dyintorace

    Aug. 29, 2008 3:36 p.m. dyintorace HalfDork

    And I just noticed I'm a Half Dork now. I feel teary eyed.

  • Woodyhfd

    Aug. 29, 2008 7:33 p.m. Woodyhfd HalfDork

    I suspect that eventually, PayPal will become the new Bank of America.

  • Josh

    Aug. 29, 2008 8:02 p.m. Josh Reader

    Woodyhfd wrote:

    I suspect that eventually, PayPal will become the new Bank of America.

    Well, they've already got the "not giving two E36 M3s about their customers" part down.

  • Woodyhfd

    Aug. 30, 2008 7:32 a.m. Woodyhfd HalfDork

    Josh wrote:

    Woodyhfd wrote:

    I suspect that eventually, PayPal will become the new Bank of America.

    Well, they've already got the "not giving two E36 M3s about their customers" part down.

    My point is that there are probably a lot of people (especially young ones) that have PayPal accounts before they have bank accounts. They may get a PayPal credit card as their first line of credit and never deal with a local bank.

  • Rigmaster

    Aug. 30, 2008 4:02 p.m. Rigmaster New Reader

    If you haven't done so already- you can open up another "personal" paypal account to accept payments without fees (for now, and no Debit/credit card payments). It's spelled out in the Paypal terms + conditions as being within the rules of Paypaldom.

    I agree that Paypal/Ebay have you by the short hairs here- I used to try to get buyers to pay to my "premier" account only if they had to use debit/credit cards, and to pay to my personal account for all other payments, but it just became too much of a cluster, and it turned out that most of the buyers were too lazy/stupid/ignorant to figure out how it worked (it's not that hard, really).

    So now I just receive all Ebay payments to my premier account and let Paypal/Ebay take another slice of what should be MY money. It pisses me off, and I have really cut back on the amount of stuff I sell on Ebay.

    This thing about Ebay not allowing folks to pay with check or MO is complete BS. I did not believe it when I first heard about it, but it's true...

  • cwh

    Aug. 30, 2008 5:33 p.m. cwh Dork

    I have a local supplier that uses PayPal for all his credit card sales. I watch my company bank account like a hawk, as I get wire transfers in regularly. When I saw a PayPal debit on the account, I went nuts, went immediately to my bank (BofA, haha), and found out that it was a legit sale. I asked him why he does this, he told me he loves it. 2.9% for all cards, no problems at all. It will be interesting to see what he says when some of these problems crop up.

 

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