Low cost alternatives to using PayPal while selling on eBay

February 23, 2016 2:07 PM

What have you used to process credit cards and bank transfers that is low cost, easy to use and allows US sellers to have the proceeds directly deposited in their accounts as opposed to PayPal account (which is another feature that bothers me)?

I have been using PayPal since 2009 and actively selling on eBay since 2010. I haven't had major issues doing both until a buyer brought a case against me last month in PayPal citing that he never received a watch I sent him to an address in Hong Kong that he provided. PayPal sided in favor of the buyer because they claimed I should have never sent the item to an address beside the one 'confirmed' in PayPal. They took the $1,600 from the sale (despite the watch not being returned to me) and now they placed a hold on another sale I made in eBay. I don't want to work with them anymore. I find their practices untrustworthy, complex and manipulative.

posted by arizona80 to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

don't use venmo.
posted by andrewcooke at 2:27 PM on February 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'll tell you that as a fairly frequent eBay buyer (and an infrequent seller), I will only buy from sellers who accept PayPal. I realize they suck, but at least from the buyer perspective they suck enough less than the alternatives that they're all I will use.
posted by primethyme at 2:38 PM on February 23, 2016 [12 favorites]

Sorry to tell you this, but you're the one who screwed up here. Why didn't you use the eBay international shipping relay program thing? Why did you send it to an address not connected to the account of the user who won the item? And with a $1600 item? A seller asking you to do things like this is a big red flag, which is why eBay and PayPal are constantly warning you not to do things like that.

And seconding that a seller who doesn't take PayPal also sends my scam flags up.
posted by cmoj at 3:13 PM on February 23, 2016 [10 favorites]

High dollar, international, collectable sales are always going to have a high rate of fraud and payment systems are always going to be set up to pass the cost of fraud onto the merchants. You might need to look into brokers that will act as the intermediary shipper when making deals like this and build the cost into your pricing model.
posted by Candleman at 4:30 PM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]