Today eBay announced via FAQ that starting in late October, the only acceptable payment methods to use when purchasing items on the auction site will be:
– PayPal
– Credit or debit card payment to seller
– ProPay, or
– Payment upon pickup
That basically means no checks or money orders. They claim they’re doing this to provide users with a more “secure checkout experience”. Ironically, I know some people that won’t even use eBay or PayPal because they don’t want to provide credit/debit card information for security purposes. Valleywag suggests an ulterior motive anyhow:
Now you must used one of the approved electronic methods, especially PayPal and certainly not Google Checkout or Checkout by Amazon. Makes business sense: Mail transactions are probably a sink on customer service resources, as payments don’t arrive or bounce when they do. And eBay earns no vigorish from check or money order transactions as it does with PayPal, marginally increasing per-transaction profit…
As Valleywag subtly points out, there are some exceptions to eBay’s payment policy rule. Items like automobiles, heavy machinery, real estate, and “mature audiences” items will be excluded from the new requirements.
Most sellers are probably fine with the new rules so they can receive faster payments. eBay suggests that buyers will be more confident in their purchases this way as well. In the long run, it’s going to piss some people off, but it’s also going to make some people feel better. You can’t please everyone, and the people that have a problem will have to get over it. That is unless, there is enough uproar to make eBay backtrack on its decision like with the whole PayPal-only in Australia thing.
