More Ebay Changes: No More Checks/Money Orders & More

Given how unsafe paypal and how much it costs and how much money I have lost using paypal I try not to use it whereever possible.

Well ebay purchased paypal years ago. Now they are just working even harder to double dip so to speak. I love to use paypal as a buyer but hate it as a seller. It just cost me more money on top of paying the ebay fees. I much preferred to get a money order. Checks I told the buyer up front had to clear before I would ship. Never had a problem but I'm only the every so often type seller. Since the changes I've not sold anything. Not sure if I even will.

For those touting how easy paypal is from both a buying and selling point, wait until the first time you are scammed. I just happened to be browsing this forum today while figuring out if I made a mistake with a coin related auction, but I've sold other things in the past and got screwed pretty bad. The worst was a Lego Train set. I sold it for 350.00 complete and mailed it with a delivery confirmation number. The buyer did a charge back to his credit card and although my paypal account was dry, they went in and took it out of my checking account. I was out the purchase price plus shipping, and sadly when this happened 8 years ago 350.00 was enough to put my checking balance in the red so I had those charges to deal with. After months of fighting with paypal and the seller I finally gave up. Even though I supplied proof of mailing, the buyer stated that I mailed him a brick rather than the actual train set, and paypal chose to side with the buyer (obviously because the charge back had already occured). It happened a couple times over sports cards as well, where someone mysteriously never received it despite me mailing with delivery confirmation. In instances in which they just filed a claim through paypal, paypal always sided with me, but any time they did a charge back to their credit card I was SOL.

I asked my favorite coin seller on ebay what he'd heard about the no-paper situation; he replied that he hadn't heard much about it, that he'd heard rumors that it would apply only to overseas transactions, and that he'd continue to accept checks and money orders. Considering that he has 100% positive feedback and a six-figure transaction record, I believe I'll go with what he says for the time being. I can't find any reference to any ban on paper payment by trolling the site, so I wonder if ebay has backed off?

The moves are business oriented. They all favor sellers with high volume and/or many items. Buy-it-now gets breaks. Long term listings get breaks. How many power sellers with 10,000+ sales want to mess around with checks and MO's? Those sellers who sell a couple items a month are high-maintenance (read COSTLY). As far as e-bay is concerned, small sellers can take their rating of 128 (100%) and go find another place that suits them better - and good luck on finding one!

As far as checks go, I keep seeing tons of threads where everyone recommends buying using PayPal with a Credit Card. That gives the buyer the most protection. But apparently, on this thread, that is a bad thing.

Two sides to every story.

wait.... no more 99c listings for auctions?