Is Interac e-transfer a valid form of payment?

[020-64]

I've been using standard PayPal for my sales. A potential buyer has asked me to accept an interac e-transfer. It seems like a reasonable thing to do so I poked through my account settings and was not able to find how to set it up. 

Is this a valid form of EBay payment? if so, how do you handle it?

I understand Ebay owns PayPal so it is in their interest to keep everything in the family...

[cumos55]

Paypal has been a separate company from eBay for several years now.

eBay no longer "owns" Paypal

[cumos55]

Go to the link... Help & Contact... at the top left area of this page.\

Do a search for ... Payment Options.

And your answer will be there......

[ricarmic]

If you accept payment other than paypal, once you have received payment, you simply mark the item as payment received in ebayland (through my ebay or directly through the item) and everything is normal after that.

Personally I would not be fond of an etransfer, but I'm "old"....

[femmefan1946]

There was a scandal early this winter about e-transfers being "stolen"  between the legitimate sender and the legitimate receiver.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/etransfer-fraud-banks-blame-customers-1.5286926

I just find they take too dang long for one-off transactions.  Perhaps for monthly payments.

[pjcdn2005]

E-transfers are fast and probably one of the safest transfers for a seller because there is no dispute process that I’m aware of.,  

[femmefan1946]

My concerns are that it takes a long time to set up the transfer for a single payment for a single transaction.

And that the payment can be stolen between the buyer and the seller with no way to recover the money by either party.

Which would probably open a window for a dishonest seller to claim non-payment.

[pjcdn2005]

E-transfer isn’t a recognized form of payment by eBay.  I don’t know if things have changed but in the past we were told that a seller couldn’t ask for cash or other forms of payment but if a buyer suggested that they pay another way it was up to us if we were willing to do that. 
 I’ll ask tyler@ebay  if that is still the case.   

Is the buyer in Canada?  If not,I’ve heard that international transfers are very expensive. 

[pjcdn2005]

All you need to send by etransfer is the other persons email address that is associated with their bank account.. it takes a few seconds to do.   I’ve never heard of a payment being stolen and haven’t  heard that it was even possible.  Do you know of someone who had that problem?

[tyler@ebay]

Thanks for the tag @pjcdn2005!

Hi @020-64 - specifics on the accepted payment methods we allow are here. 

At a high level, PayPal is the primary method for receiving payments at this point in time. You can also offer payment upon pickup (but that must be paired with an electronic payment method).

Depending on the category the item is in though, you may be able to offer bank to bank transfers and other payment methods (see the link above and expand the 'approved categories' section). 

Thanks! 

[retroman_studios]

Actually, Interact transfer can be reversed, in the case of a customer account being compromised and fraudulent use. But that is I believe up to each financial institution.

I have read reports of this happening.

[femmefan1946]

@pjcdn2005

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/etransfer-fraud-banks-blame-customers-1.5286926

[travis7s]

The big lesson from that article is make sure you set your security question to something only you and the recipient will know. Its would be the same if I set my paypal password to "password", and then wonder why my money is gone. The banks *should* force you to use a proper secure code much like they require with passwords these days but alas...

To the OP though, I've never used E-transfer for an eBay sale but I have used it a lot for local sales. Its very quick and easy to do and I've never had an issue yet.

[pjcdn2005]

Thank you, that was an  interesting read,I had no idea that ever happens.

It would be horrible to gave to deal with something like that.  

But regarding accepting an etransfer as payment, it is the buyer taking the risk as the seller wouldn’t ship until the money was in their account.

[reallynicestamps]

My gardener prefers e-transfer payments, and he has performed the service before he is paid.

He wants e-transfer, he gets a cheque.

I am old and grouchy.

[luv4orphans]

Its out there. Payments are intercepted by trackers from your email accounts.