Comments on: 2008 – The year to scrap PayPal echeques

By: Dee

Dee — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:52:45 +0000

Actually the reason for the rising number of eCheques is that PayPal changed their transaction risk model and now converts instant payments to eCheques to slow the velocity of payments. It gives PayPal more time to prevent fraudulent payments and also increases their float time so they earn more overnight interest.

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:55:23 +0000

So, S Gordon, would you like to give us some of the reasons you like them then?

By: S Gordon

S Gordon — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:48:50 +0000

Just because some numpties don’t pay attention to their Credit
Card limits or expiry dates that’s no reason to get rid of Echeques.
Some traders don’t like them, well who cares. I understand them and use the all the time.

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:41:42 +0000

Totally agree with the Echeque fiasco IT SUCKS!!! Ive not been selling long (Im on ebay uk) but i am really doing my upmost to build a good reputation & offer first rate customer service but the 4 or 5 payments ive had this way have been a real pain for both sides. Not yet had one clear in less than 7 days! Now as i promise & always do try to dispatch things quickly i Normally get emails from buyers after 5-6 days saying they havent recieved their item (even after sending a msg trying to explain the echeque clearance time). In Fact At this very moment i have an upset customer who paid using this method 9 days ago & it still hasnt cleared!!! so i havent yet dispatched (well paypal tell me not to). She is a new ebayer & has now left feedback on ebay saying she is disappointed. Thankfully for me it wasnt a dreaded red neg but i guess from her point of view it could have been? But ive obviously had my DSR dispatch rating effected by this & it is through no fault of my own. I feel as a new seller im in a very precarious position. ive only had around 25 transactions on ebay so far so i feel that all it would really take is a couple of negs by disgruntled echeque payers & i would be dead in the water as a seller, or to use another water based metaphor ‘Up the swanee without a paddle’ so to speak, Through no fault of my own!
Yeah it stinks BIG TIME.

By: richjenn13

richjenn13 — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:46:31 +0000

Yep,
I too had one forced on me and I too had no idea that the poor seller was waiting over a week for the funds. The receipt I got made no mention of this .
What the **** is going on?

By: Zach

Zach — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:24:05 +0000

I hate echeques, i understand that they are secure and safe but.. the waiting time in the UK is appaulling.. ’7-9 working days’??? This is stupid, i too believe 2008 should be the year of change for paypal, where echeques should be stopped. Too many unhappy buyers, too much time…

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:48:24 +0000

Because echeques go through the direct debit system, which takes a loooooong time to clear: everyone in that bit of the system sits on the money for a while to make themselves a little bit extra.

By: Jan

Jan — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:31:24 +0000

If according to Paypal an eCheque is just like writing a cheque why does it take twice or even three times longer for funds to clear.
My bank only take three days to clear a cheque.

By: What is a PayPal echeque? : TameBay

What is a PayPal echeque? : TameBay — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:16:35 +0000

[...] Jan asked today, on TameBay “What is an echeque?” and I guess it’s time to explain. According to Paypal an echeque is “an electronic funds transfer that withdraws money directly from your bank account. It’s just like writing a cheque, only it is done electronically.” [...]

By: Jan

Jan — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:43:57 +0000

On the 5th January 08 I received an email from Paypal telling me a buyer had paid by eCheque and that it would take up to 4 days to clear. On checking the transaction in my Paypal account I found it quoting 3 to 4 days clearance.
I checked my Paypal account again this morning (4 working days having past) expecting the payment to have now cleared. I was shocked to find the transaction had now changed from ‘Pending’ to ‘Uncleared’ and it now quoting 7 to 9 days for clearance with an expect clearance date of the 15th January.
Checking on the Paypal help pages about eCheques it states eCheques are like ordinary cheques only easier and quicker to clear…this is absolute nonsense.

What are eCheques anyway and why and how do people paying through Paypal come to be paying by that method.
I remember a couple of years back I paid for an Ebay item through Paypal in the usual manner only to find out from the seller that the transaction had gone through as an eCheque payment. I never made that choice nor was I given any choice of payment type when making the payment….So how do eCheques come about.

Jan

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:29:47 +0000

You’re perfectly correct Sue – I do!

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:18:32 +0000

Chris, do you mean
Blocking echeques with PayPal isnâ€™t supposed to make any difference to buyers paying with echeques for ~~PayPal~~ eBay payments.
?

Also can we have more information re. Dan paying with tap-dancing?

By: Louise

Louise — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:10:21 +0000

I email buyers when they pay with an echeque to inform of the (up to) 10 days clearance time and to offer alternative payment methods if that’s too long. In the run up to Christmas 3 buyers decided to cancel their whole orders as the other methods were either unknown (Nochex), too complicated (using the send money tab as ebay often disable the facility to pay by paypal again via ebay platform) or too slow (cheque/postal order). So not only did I lose sales, Paypal and ebay lost the fees. A rather small amount, but over time will build up. Paypal and ebay shouldn’t be scaring customers away! One of the customers who cancelled even said she would never use paypal again as not one payment had ever gone right since she opened the account.

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:40:17 +0000

Blocking echeques with PayPal isn’t supposed to make any difference to buyers paying with echeques for PayPal payments. However when I did block them for a time buyers were reporting unusual errors when they attempted to pay me. These errors were apparently random until I realised they only came from the buyers attempting to pay via echeque. Turning the echeque payment block off resulted in no further buyers with unusual error messages hence the deduction that there’s a problem hitherto unidentified.

By: Jade

Jade — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 07:48:46 +0000

Hi all, I blocked echeques a week or two ago, because my 3 experiences with them were a huge pain in the ass. But I am concerned after reading Chris’ comments above about the hassles blocking can cause. Would you mind expanding on these problems at all?

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:45:07 +0000

Sadly Dan, until PayPal at least get their emails corrected what chance has the average buyer or seller got of understanding what’s going on with echeques?

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:35:03 +0000

Chris,

Ref: accidentally paying by echeque and not realising.

I paid (without realising) by echeque cos my card had expired and my balance didn’t cover the expense.

I asked my seller to cancel the echeque so I could pay with a card. Hell, pay with anything but echeque…. beads, shells, tap-dancing, shiny shillings. But the powerseller in question was pretty much ignorant about what an echeque was. Despite my best efforts to explain what he could do, I was stuck. (btw: I reckon I do explaining patiently pretty well.)

Not everyone is as wise as you, or as well-informed, as the good readers of Tamebay. ;o) More’s the pity.

What does this mean? PAYPAL. LET YOUR PAYERS HOW THEY’RE PAYING AND, moreover, WHAT THAT MEANS!

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:54:13 +0000

What was most annoying about this for me was that there was no way of cancelling the echeque and paying the seller by credit or debit card instantly.

…and on that topic as a seller it’s always worth emailing your buyers and offering to cancel the echeque and allow them to repay via a more expedient method.

Just remember to warn them the echeque payment may still clear their bank and end up in their PayPal account.

By: Andy Toogood

Andy Toogood — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:03:57 +0000

I’m just sorry I’ve got here so late – everyone’s had their moan and bitch already so my adding anything now seems pretty feeble…
Just to add that I also fell into the trap of paying with an echeque in Dec when my credit card on file had expired but there was no email from PayPal – I got the one above as per Chris’ message – the seller emailed saying ‘sorry, you’ve paid by echeque and you won’t have your prezzies till after Christmas.
What was most annoying about this for me was that there was no way of cancelling the echeque and paying the seller by credit or debit card instantly.

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:36:19 +0000

So we all agree we don’t like em then?

Someone tell eBay/PayPal!

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:33:09 +0000

I don’t like them but I don’t think Paypal will get rid of them. Paypal like to push how easy it is to use and they want to get as many people as possible to use it. If they got rid of echeques I guess there would be 2 options – either make people (buyers) wait until cash was cleared into their account (which would not be popular with buyers) or reclaim the money from the seller if something went wrong – surely a worse option for the seller than echeques!

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:29:52 +0000

Oh, and one more thing to add connected with Mairi’s comment: why do failed/cancelled/otherwise borked echeques not merit an email to the seller? That really is feeble programming.

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:28:00 +0000

There’s *also* the echeque that just appears because the payment is outside your “normal spending pattern” – like paying the deposit on a car with PayPal, while your husband is at the guy’s house in England trying to collect the thing. Boy, was *that* embarrassing

Fortunately the seller was a newbie who was bowled over by someone with 10k feedback buying off him, and it cleared fine, and everything worked out… but it was still a nightmare of *PayPal’s* making.

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:22:53 +0000

“Last month I learnt that eCheques could be blocked in the Payment Receiving Preferences in my Paypal profile.
That shouldn’t work for eBay sales in the UK, but where it does it also appears to have undesirable side effects such as buyers being sent a confusing message that the seller’s account information has been changed during the transaction. Blocking echeques causes more problems than it solves (unbelievable but true )

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:10:10 +0000

For most of last year, I got into the habit of forwarding the eCheque notification email back to buyers with a note saying I would let them know when the payment had cleared and I was dispatching their purchase.

As this email stated 3-4 days, I often got messages on day 5 asking if I had posted yet.

Last month I learnt that eCheques could be blocked in the Payment Receiving Preferences in my Paypal profile. Occasionaly buyers get a message saying I can not accept their payment, so it now gives me a chance to explain about eCheques, and arrange a suitable alternative payment method.