Ebay "you will no longer receive payments to your PayPal account"???

[Blazing Lazers]

eBay already lost me over the Managed Payments by fixing what wasn't broken. The double-whammy of the lowered 1099 thresholds and the potential tax difficulties just further cement that decision. Just reading through this thread and several like it on other Forums gives a rough estimate of a few dozen sellers that they've already lost, and whose items eBay buyers will miss out on. Just from me, a working JagCD player, both RCA Nuon players, a skew of CDi rarities, miscellaneous Nintendo rarities, rare system variants, quite a few NOS controllers and sealed games for various systems, and a lot of non-game stuff. At least several thousand in sales that won't be listed, and many times that amount in future sales that will never happen. Multiply that by many more now former eBay sellers and they'll no doubt be seeing bad internal metrics, if they aren't already. 

 

One thing to consider as a buyer is that a lot of sellers who did opt in to Managed Payments might not be aware of the coming tax changes. Those will lead to an even bigger seller exodus next year, and they will inevitably spike prices on the listings of sellers who do remain after they take effect. Now is the last best time to be buying uncommon and rare stuff on eBay. Availability will be dropping and prices will be spiking because of all this!

[Pipercub]

Quote

You could do what I did, block em, reversing their own policies on them.  Setup an online account, one that issues a debit card, get it authorized on account (as it won't on a card, even debit), then when clear, add the debit and remove the bank access.  Now you're in control.  They pull games, you pull card.

 

I hear ya, I more or less did that myself to block a scammer they let through, and I am a fan of feigned compliance. However, I think it sends a stronger message to watch the stats crash right away and I just don't like companies that are outwardly hostile to the customer. Ebay may just join Facebook, twitter, google, and others in my digital trashcan.

Edited June 6, 2021 by Pipercub

[taxman]

10 hours ago, Pipercub said:

The way I see it is if anyone buys a reticulated frammis in 1984, or 2004, and then sells it to anyone in 2021 that it is 100% out of the arena of government. Sales taxes were already collected at time of sale, the government's already dubious entitlement to a cut of that item is long since passed.

 

I grew up in the world before the internet and can return to offline ways of buying and selling, but what a shame, we created a way of easily connecting buyers and sellers often dealing in antique and harder to find items (a global yard sale if you will) and it gets taxed and regulated into irrelevance. And what wasn't wrecked by the government the companies themselves seem all too willing to drive away the remaining customers. I look forward to the news paypal has gone under and hope that we can unify around a single decentralized alternative.

Just to clarify I was trying to clear up any misconceptions as to how they designed the system to work. I am in no way in support of this as I am just as upset as the next person on here about all the extra hassle involved with taxing us.

[+OLD CS1]

My primary opposition to eBay at this point is, as @Blazing Lazers says above, is fixing what is not broken.  PayPal is not perfect, but at this point in my minuscule selling career it is convenient and works in a way I could not imagine any better.  I have immediate access to money paid for items via my PayPal debit card or immediate bank transfer.

 

I have dealt with some crap situations between both eBay and PayPal, but these are once-in-many-years things.  Yes, they are included in my list of grievances and why I am done selling on eBay, nonetheless.

 

I like @Tanooki's approach with the buffer account, but at the same time this is a game I just do not want to play.  I want eBay to know that I and many other sellers are quitting because of this.  I do not know why, other than wanting a more direct piece of the pie, eBay would drop PayPal as a payment option.

 

The 1099 requirement is not a creation of eBay, so far as I know.  This is new law passed as a package in one of the recent "stimulus" bills.  Omnibus bills are a problem of their own, and this right here is one of them.  This move is unfriendly to sellers who want to make sure items get new homes and a little dosh for the deal, buyers who want these items, the communities to which such items may belong, and the environment as more items will be placed into the trash.

 

On the upside, this might help businesses like Goodwill and other thrift stores which outlet on eBay as more people take stuff to them rather than electronic waste recycling.

[TeddyBear89]

13 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

My primary opposition to eBay at this point is, as @Blazing Lazers says above, is fixing what is not broken.  PayPal is not perfect, but at this point in my minuscule selling career it is convenient and works in a way I could not imagine any better.  I have immediate access to money paid for items via my PayPal debit card or immediate bank transfer.

 

I have dealt with some crap situations between both eBay and PayPal, but these are once-in-many-years things.  Yes, they are included in my list of grievances and why I am done selling on eBay, nonetheless.

 

I like @Tanooki's approach with the buffer account, but at the same time this is a game I just do not want to play.  I want eBay to know that I and many other sellers are quitting because of this.  I do not know why, other than wanting a more direct piece of the pie, eBay would drop PayPal as a payment option.

 

The 1099 requirement is not a creation of eBay, so far as I know.  This is new law passed as a package in one of the recent "stimulus" bills.  Omnibus bills are a problem of their own, and this right here is one of them.  This move is unfriendly to sellers who want to make sure items get new homes and a little dosh for the deal, buyers who want these items, the communities to which such items may belong, and the environment as more items will be placed into the trash.

 

On the upside, this might help businesses like Goodwill and other thrift stores which outlet on eBay as more people take stuff to them rather than electronic waste recycling.

This.

 

100% agreement.  eBay really mucked it up for those of us that were casual sellers. 

[Tanooki]

The current congress mucked it up for those who are casual sellers, anywhere, at any time, where money is transferred in any trackable digital format.  eBay had nothing to do with the 2022 $600/yr and pay 15% self employment tax, that lays entirely on the so called March virus/stimulus recovery bill.  eBay supposedly is trying to grease some lobbyist wheels and I would probably figure others too, to try and get that knocked out or adjusted to be more fair.  I hope they win, they got 6mo to fix this or a LOT of people are going to suffer trying to sell old goods they'd rather pass along than put into the trash making more waste.

 

I may be a semi(for me compared to before) aggressive casual seller now, but I used to be quite a bit more passive.  I'm wearing myself out in my free time stripping anything I don't care to keep, processing it, pricing it, and stuffing it up on there to get it done by 1/1/22 short of going over the 20K cap that exists now.

[Mayhem]

Got the dreaded email so I have to migrate by July 1st...

[glazball]

One thing I keep seeing mentioned is that sellers no longer have "immediate access" to money from a sale.  Surely, we've all had to deal with at least 1 shady/scammy/shitty seller on eBay over the years.  I think these changes (re: linked bank account) are going in the wrong direction, but to play devil's advocate:  Is it really that big of a problem that you don't get money immediately?  In the interest of protecting buyers from scammers and flaky sellers, surely it's ok if eBay holds the seller's money for a short time to make sure the transaction went as expected?  The only other solution I can think of is that eBay would require all sellers to put up some kind of deposit to sell there, which seems even worse.

[+5-11under]

I haven't sold anything via eBay.

The main reason is potential to be scammed. Maybe I'm paranoid and the risk is very low, but maybe not?

I wouldn't be worried about delay in payment, or having a bank account linked, as long as the risk of being scammed was very low. From my vantage point, it seems like scamming is relatively easy, with oftentimes little or no recourse in ability to have issues/payments resolved correctly.

[Tanooki]

Scamming is fairly common on there, at least the attempts are, and to the point even ebay is starting to get fed up with it I found recently.

 

I had someone try and call me a liar and basically stupid over a minty nice SNES Zelda cart I even unscrewed to show the authenticity.  I basically keeping this short after trying to explain it was real and being dismissed again, had to pull a reverse uno card on the jerk.  I opened a bad buyers case on him while at the same time calling ebay to point out what was going on.  The combination got instant action on their end, they kept my case, closed his, my money was freed up after being locked for about 30-45min.  The ebay rep said they're looking into doing more to bust scammers as it's wasting their time, and currently do this with some authentication services on certain goods, not allowing stock images, etc and are looking to extend it to more product styles.  After that, I blocked the jerk from bidding further, he writes passive aggressively one last time saying it wasn't worth arguing, he won't push it further, and that he'll just relax and deal with an authentic game and maybe not exterior (claimed the plastic mold was wrong, wrong color, sticker too shiny.)

[taxman]

I sell on ebay, but rarely do I sell video games. I am thinking that if I get to the point of selling off parts of my collection, that AA group on Facebook might be a good option.

[Mayhem]

19 hours ago, glazball said:

Is it really that big of a problem that you don't get money immediately?

It is, if the shipping is quite high (I've had £100+ ship costs on some items I've sold, mostly due to size and value) and you need the money to be able to ship in the first place.

[glazball]

Yea I hadn't considered the cost of international shipping.  Still, maybe it's best that a seller budgets ahead of time for shipping costs if he is selling a heavy or expensive item that will (or might) go overseas.

 

I rarely sell anything on eBay but I have thought about eventually selling some games.  eBay is certainly looking worse and worse for that, I don't use Facebook and I'm not eager to try to sell locally...  so hopefully our beloved AA forums will be around if/when that day comes!  Otherwise I guess I'll have to be buried with all my Atari and Nintender tapes.

[+OLD CS1]

On 6/9/2021 at 1:07 PM, glazball said:

Is it really that big of a problem that you don't get money immediately?

Yes.

[Tanooki]

Yeah it is, because they can just choose to hold it technically as long as they like, though they're supposed to post it after a business day or few.

 

Postage is the big one second to them just finding some other random reason not to fork it over(or all of it.)  The post up there about 100GBP in shipping charges, that sucks, as you eat the shipping before you get paid, but if you don't have it in the account, you're screwed.  I had someone think it was cute to try and lie about a game I sold them, took me doing a reverse uno card scenario on them with a two pronged broadside last week to clear it up, and get the scammer in trouble too.  My funds got tied up (for about an hour) but they were, and had I needed to ship something, if that was all I had then I'd have had no money to make the label.  Then what?  You get stuck because if you can't buy postage and 'refuse' to ship it then they'll tie it up over that too.

[taxman]

I use ebay shipping and they just deduct the cost from my pending funds so that hasn't been an issue for me.

[+OLD CS1]

On 6/9/2021 at 9:40 PM, taxman said:

I sell on ebay, but rarely do I sell video games. I am thinking that if I get to the point of selling off parts of my collection, that AA group on Facebook might be a good option.

Why not just AA?

[taxman]

10 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

Why not just AA?

Seems like a lot of activity over there. I never sold anything on it, but I have bought there.

[Blazing Lazers]

As an update, I've seen this topic getting a lot more attention in other online communities. I had no intention of getting with the Mangled Payments system, but the potential of the looming 1099 $600 threshold AND the 15% self-employment tax hit made me decide to go ahead and try to get everything I could sold off before next year. It is a waaaaaaaay worse system than how it was with PayPal. Depending on what day of the week an item sells, it's taken me 6-7 days to actually have the remainder after eBay fees in my linked checking account. I've had items sold, shipped, delivered, and received Positive Feedback before getting the money for them, yet eBay still expects me to ship ASAP. So just as a heads-up for those who sell on eBay, yes, you should have an eBay-only account setup for receiving payments; and yes, you should have plenty of of money set aside in advance of any sales to be able to cover shipping expenses; and yes, there indeed delays of varying lengths in getting your money. 

 

Now, as to those tax reporting thresholds, recent history gives reason for hope that they will be done away with, as pretty much the same thing happened a decade ago:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/obama-signs-1099-repeal-into-law-marking-first-repeal-of-national-health-care-law-provision/2011/04/14/AFRhYjeD_blog.html

 

...just imagine how unhappy millions of online sellers might be if not! 

 

[Tanooki]

I saw that post, you're on VGS or facebook, it's spreading.

 

I hope that's right, even if it's amended to something more reasonable like 10k (instead of 20) a year which is fair to someone just looking for a little spare change vs a hidden 2nd job tax free.  Or with the managed payments, ebay gets with the IRS and does instant deductions of taxes like they do for state, that would help preserve the refund too.

 

I'm hammering out a LOT of stuff this year dangerously walking the caps this go which I am not enjoying as it's tiring.  I've turned to more trades, even cashing out at a loss level value for credit at local locations in a few cases on sub $9~ (pre fee) items on ebay because it's less of a hassle.  I'm down to 70-80 items left I want to get rid of as far as I can tell, maybe more if I can't seem to bundle trade off my PCE games (25.)  There's just too many annoying things including ebay shenanigans(I've never had these many day payout delays some have) from them or the buyers excuses/attitude, the added fees, now the taxation on owned items making your money basically triple taxed now.  I'm just over it.

 

Next year I'll have a larger shift to play vs pay.  Kid on a budget like mentality.  Only get so many items a month/year, play them more, focus on them more, because due to the cap you're stuck with it, unless you're fine taking a solid loss in a local cash sale, or doing a trade if luck works out.

[eightbit]

Since everything has gone down with ebay I completely stopped selling there. I am not going to wait for funds and cover shipping first, I am not going to report some self employment tax, I am not going to have ebay manage the funds and have my bank account on file in order to do so. 

 

I use ebay now to buy things...thats all. If I am to sell anything going forward it will be here or locally via Facebook or Craigslist. 

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, eightbit said:

I am not going to report some self employment tax

This is what gets me.  How in the blue rat shits can selling over $600 worth of stuff qualify as self-employed?  I would concede to the requirement to collect sales tax, and eBay does that, but self employment tax is a no-go.

 

BTW, it does not stop there.  PayPal will be issuing 1099s, as well.  Which is going to be a real pain in the ass for people who split bills, like my rent.

[+batari]

As I understand it, the $600 limit was not focused on online sales like the previous 20k/200 transactions limit was. It was intended to target gig workers as many don't pay any taxes. They are supposed to, of course, but without 1099s it seems they can get away without paying anything. I understand why the IRS wants them to pay taxes, because income from gig work is almost entirely taxable, while eBay sales may not be.

 

The current $20k/200 transaction law was not set up to handle the gig economy. That seems to mean gig workers could work for many places simultaneously, and as long as they were under $20k from any one source, no taxes. So for that reason I get why the rules are changing.

 

But, I have to agree that changing the threshold from $20k to $600 is extreme. Sure that will make the gig workers pay up, but that is going to affect things that the new laws weren't meant to affect. I can see why some are fighting that ruling. However, I doubt it will be repealed because the IRS does still want gig workers to pay their taxes.

[taxman]

I use ebay shipping so when someone makes a purchase from me, I am able to pay for the shipping from the pending funds rather than having to come out of pocket first.

[Tanooki]

16 hours ago, batari said:

 I have to agree that changing the threshold from $20k to $600 is extreme. Sure that will make the gig workers pay up, but that is going to affect things that the new laws weren't meant to affect. I can see why some are fighting that ruling. However, I doubt it will be repealed because the IRS does still want gig workers to pay their taxes.

Yeah and they should, but then make a new law,  not ruin an existing.  Make it if you work for what is considered a gig operation, to then make that $600.  You can only dodge so many payouts of $600/yr through a limited amount of tracked sources.  Screwing effectively hobbyists to yard salers which effectively this does it downright asinine, criminally asinine.

 

Like @taxman that's what I use paypal for, 20-25% off postage whether it's ebay or anything else, it makes sense.  This screws that up.  I may just end up folding my paypal account entirely and just using my debit card tied to the account(online banking only) I made for ebay to get those parasites away from my actual house budget primary bank account.