Look what I found! Remember this payment method? It was the best!
Summary: msmaggie060 shared memories of finding old cash and money orders from eBay sales, stirring nostalgia for manual payment methods. ricarmic and reallynicestamps echoed these sentiments, expressing frustrations with modern online payment issues compared to traditional methods. hansatrade reminisced about the times, sharing images and experiences. Meanwhile, recped and others noted the nuances and challenges of handling payments back then, such as money order issues and exchange rates. Some participants discussed how cash-in-mail methods made sense in those days, albeit with certain drawbacks such as delays and potential scams, appreciating the ease brought by platforms like Billpoint later.
Found these when cleaning out my desk. This is how we sellers used to get paid back when I started selling on eBay. Loved getting the cash and money orders, never had a single payment problem either.
Exchange is not bad just now so I may as well take them to my bank and convert to Cdn $. Don't know why I forgot about them for so long.
33nhl
·3 years agoYes indeed the good old days and many were not in rush to get the item they had purchased, now they expect to get item with in a few days, as if a seller has there own mailing system, but it was all changed for the $$$$ so ebay can collect more, and thus our big brother can collect $$$ as well. Just look at past 2 years many high end sellers with great feedback have been banned cause Ebay enforced by big brother to request from sellers to provide where and how they aquired the items they are selling, thus big brother will chase down the person the seller purchased from so the original seller will pay income tax on it aswell as the seller on Ebay, thats double triple taxing welcome to the real world order. Maybe not in most of our time but the new born generation will have a cashless system all be on credit and if they dont behave they be cut off the grid, just like we see sometimes in movies, that after years become reality.
marnotom!
·3 years agoI remember my wife and I once received a cash payment from a German buyer. What made this particular payment so particularly astounding was that she had managed to track down Canadian currency and paid us C$20 for a US$20 sale in four crisp blue Wilfrids, believing that the Canadian dollar and the US dollar were on par. Of course, that certainly wasn't the case in the late 90s.
reallynicestamps
·3 years agoToday the mid-market rate is 72.7c to the USD.
We don't get that at the bank of course, that's for multi-million interbank deals.
https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=1&From=CAD&To=USD
fergua3
·3 years agoyup but it's not as juicy as it was around 2000, 2001. The CAD dollar was depressed for ages, years in fact, and anyone selling in USD made a big premium for a long, long time. I remember being disappointed one day when i 'only' got an extra 40 cents on the dollar. From there CAD kept going up and up, slowly, until peaking at a higher level than the USD for a few months. That was awful, actually losing money by selling in USD.
The CAD now is starting to get pretty juicy again, but it's only been like that for a few weeks. Hovering around .75 has been the norm for the last few months.
msmaggie060
OP3 years agoI got $59.90 Cdn when I exchanged my $45.00 US at my bank yesterday. My 10 GBP gave me $16.35 Cdn. Not bad at all, especially since it was found money.
reallynicestamps
·3 years agoI used to cash the green MOs at the shop, then they went into the shop's commercial deposit, which was not looked at by the tellers since having 50 or more cheques and MOs was not unusual. (Not eBay, our customers used cash and cheques a lot more than cards in the 20th century.)
The pink international MOs I would cash at the PO counter and there was my week's mad money.
Getting cash in the mail made me nervous. And personal checks led to long delays.
And of course the Western Union* scam.
I was really happy when Billpoint arrived.
*Which had nothing to do with Western Union.
hansatrade
·3 years agoGood, old times ....... this picture is dated 2008. Preparing an after weekend shipment ..... 😢
msmaggie060
OP3 years agoYes, the good old days! I remember when I couldn't get out of the house to go to the post office (I had one day handling) because every time I tried, I would get another order and have to stop and pkg it up to take with me.
fergua3
·3 years agoi remember the good ole days of MO's and Cash coming in the mail too. Back then the exchange rate was about an extra 50% on USD (CAD was around .68US). WOW. I hated the green money orders as i could never cash them. I made it very clear to send payment as a pink postal money order, not the green, but still got green ones from time to time. When i got them i contacted the buyer, explained i need the pink kind, not the green and asked them to please resend payment....i mailed back their green one in their package. Never once had a problem with a buyer. Although big delays in getting paid.
I used to be amazed that people would send large amounts of cash in the mail...but it happened. That i held onto for my trips down to Buffalo. 🙂
When Billpoint came in i did like it.......paid much faster and easier and it worked well. At least i liked it until i got my first chargeback INR. I didn't even know that was possible at the time...
recped
·3 years agoI remember waiting by the front door mailslot to watch the shower of envelopes (overseas mostly) come through the slot knowing that almost every one would be followed by a shower of cash on my desk. Those were good times.
I also remember spending most of an afternoon (twice a week) sending out payment reminder notices, following up on previous buyer promises about payment, chasing people who sent payment but shorted me, emailing buyers to inform them that where it says "no cheques" actually means NO CHEQUES and then hounding them about the M.O. they promised to send "tomorrow". Those were NOT good times!
ricarmic
·3 years agoYes I remember it well, always nice to have a wad of US bills for trips to the US!
I've had WAYYYYY more problems with then new "improved" online payment world than I've had from 45 years now accepting cheques, MOs* and cash. If I had to guess, I've had more online payment problems in 1 year than I've had of the "old way" stuff in 45 years....something to be said for that.
*Except perhaps the "greenies" MOs from the US that couldn't be cashed here. Yet EVERY one of those situations was fixed and I got paid in the end.
msmaggie060
OP3 years agoI used to get the green MOs but never seemed to have a problem with them. I just took them to my bank and deposited them, never had any returned and my bank always accepted them. Guess I was just lucky! Most buyers sent me the green ones instead of the International ones.
ricarmic
·3 years agoYes me too, it depended on what teller you got and or if you stuffed them in the middle of a bunch or not!
hansatrade
·3 years agoI found the image I used in all my listings - about 15 years ago, or so .... 😀