Managed Payments Is A Step Backwards

[cruzmiester]

The acceptance of the new Managed Payments scheme without much (as in loud enough) complaining by eBay sellers is proof eBay has become a monolithic monopoly that can pretty much dictate ANY terms and sellers have no choice but to accept them. I’m still wondering how they can charge commissions on services they have nothing to do with, like shipping. Why not give the shipping companies a commission of your eBay sales?  Managed Payments policy is a step backwards regarding your online safety.  I have no idea why eBay  insists on looking backwards and slowing service, while other  companies (good or bad) are thinking in terms of same day delivery, probably because they have become a defacto monopoly.  If you don’t think “your” data will be scraped from eBay some day , I include a partial list of major companies that were hacked in 2021, and all these companies said the same thing eBay say, that “they have processes and procedures in place to protect your data”:

Ubiquiti Inc.

Parler

Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn

Mimecast

Pixlr

MeetMindful

Bonobos

VIPGames

U.S. Cellular

“Compilation of Many Breaches” (COMB)

Nebraska Medicine

California DMV

Kroger

T-Mobile

Microsoft Exchange

SITA

MultiCare

California State Controller’s Office (SCO)

Hobby Lobby

Cancer Treatment Centers of America

Facebook

LinkedIn

ClubHouse

ParkMobile

GEICO

Reverb

Experian

CaptureRX

Bailey & Galyen

Health Plan of San Joaquin

Bose

Volkswagen & Audi

Carter’s

Wegmans

I'm not affiliated with anyone, I'm just tired of eBay's bullying 

[reallynicestamps · Accepted solution]

If you don't feel safe selling online, don't sell online.

[marnotom!]

eBay is now on its third electronic-payments faciltation system.  The first was Billpoint, the second was PayPal, and you know what the third one is.  If you use a Marketplace Facilitator like eBay to host your online sales, you're agreeing to their terms, conditions and systems the Facilitator has in place.  eBay isn't a charitable organization.  It's a business.  Whatever terms, conditions and systems are put in place are there to benefit eBay.  Of course, they have to benefit users of the site to some extent as well, otherwise nobody's going to use the site.  It does seem that there are lots of users that are okay with this sort of arrangement and have made it work to their best advantage.

[cruzmiester]

I don't, I haven't updated my account.... thanks for the sage advice!

[cruzmiester]

OK..... thanks for the business lesson! In Canada we have 3 major cell/internet companies that have carved out seperate territories for themselves, that's why we pay  one of the highest cell phone rates in the world.... it's also their right to do so. In Europe you got 1 person villages (attempt at humour) with high speed internet, in Canada you go 1 hour outside a mojor metropolitain area you need to be content with dial up or satalite, also their right. (some confused giberish about monopolies).

But you are correct, Thank You eBay for allowing sellers to make a "little" money 🙂 

[vme02]

I personally don't think any of these companies have been hacked and data stolen. It's more like they sold the data and told everyone they were hacked, that way when it comes out that the data came from their site, they just blame it on the hack. Of course eBay will sell all your info and for those you who gave up your SIN, good luck, at the end of the year you'll receive a T4-slip whether or not you were a business or just selling your personal items. It will all be registered as income, good luck explaining to CRA that it wasn't income. Time to leave eBay and find something else or get some people together and start something new.

[hlmacdon]

This should be a regulatory issue, and marketplaces should be divorced from managing payments altogether. It only further cements their monpolistic position which allows them to dictate the terms of agreement, which are decidely stacked in their favor, and incentivizes questionable behavior. An example of this is how in house payments allow them to wholesale transfer the costs of fraud back onto the user. This quote just illustrates the problem, taken in the context of ebay responding to requests from sellers for the ability to respond to chargeback cases and provide additional response information, something that is standard with every payment processor:

 "Ultimately, these types of changes need to be prioritized with other projects, coded, then implemented which all takes varying amounts of time. I don't know if the payments team has changes like the ones you've mentioned on their roadmap, but the feedback has definitely been shared with them."

Nice PR spin. No IT resources so we just eat all the costs of fraud? Text fields are hard to implement? Through a marketplace payment processor you have zero input in risk management or payment verification, something you would be controlling if you were processing payments.

All fine and well to say their playground their rules, but the government needs to be regulating the playground.

[cruzmiester]

well put!👍

[marnotom!]

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@hlmacdon wrote:

This should be a regulatory issue, and marketplaces should be divorced from managing payments altogether. It only further cements their monpolistic position which allows them to dictate the terms of agreement, which are decidely stacked in their favor, and incentivizes questionable behavior.

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The big wedge to this as I see it is if these "independent" payment systems have policies that are at odds with that of the Marketplace Facilitator.  PayPal's Buyer Protection Policy, for example, has been at odds with eBay's Money Back Guarantee for some time, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was one thing that created friction between the two entities.

The main reason online payment facilitators like PayPal and Marketplace Facilitators such as eBay have these buyer protection policies in place is an attempt to head off charge disputes/chargebacks, which are expensive and time-consuming to process.  Billpoint's "buyer protection" was actually to encourage buyers to file chargebacks, which probably was a naive bit of policy-making back in 1998 and likely encouraged a lot of sellers to start using PayPal when it became available.

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@hlmacdon wrote:

This quote just illustrates the problem, taken in the context of ebay responding to requests from sellers for the ability to respond to chargeback cases and provide additional response information, something that is standard with every payment processor:

 "Ultimately, these types of changes need to be prioritized with other projects, coded, then implemented which all takes varying amounts of time. I don't know if the payments team has changes like the ones you've mentioned on their roadmap, but the feedback has definitely been shared with them."

Nice PR spin. No IT resources so we just eat all the costs of fraud? Text fields are hard to implement? Through a marketplace payment processor you have zero input in risk management or payment verification, something you would be controlling if you were processing payments.

All fine and well to say their playground their rules, but the government needs to be regulating the playground.

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Keep in mind that if you use a Marketplace Facilitator and an online payments facilitator for your sales rather than hosting your own website and using your own merchant account, one of those facilitators is going to be considered the merchant of record (depending on how the Marketplace is set up).  Any sort of "seller protection" schemes are going to be designed to cover the assets of the merchant of record first, the seller second.