Broke my E-Bay cherry (rant included)

OK, so I finally sucked it up and tried out Ebay.

For starters, here’s the inspiration. I have The Straight Dope and specifically Dex to thank for it. I’ve never been much of a reader, but since I’ve been mostly unemployed and up late alot I’ve taken to reading before bed. I don’t really dig the so called “classics”, but I’ve ripped through the Harry Potter series, LotR, Hitchhikers Guide and a few other nuggets. Having run out of books, I decided Sherlock Holmes would be the next thing to get cultured up on. I was inspired by this Staff Report. I took the recommendation on that Annotated Sherlock Holmes book, but I discovered it was out of print and unavailable from the usual suspects. Ebay seemed the logical next step to find a used one.

I went on and immediately found a copy of the book, hardcover, and still in its original shrinkwrap. Yay! I was the only bidder for the first couple days at $20, then with about 18 hours to go someone bid $24.76…a fishy amount considering that I had $25 as my highest proxy bid. Nevertheless, I remained the high bidder when I checked with 5 minutes left. Interesting in itself since I literally ran back from the L after dinner Friday night to check it to make sure it got it. Lucky I did too, since when I reloaded the page with 1 minute and 57 seconds left someone out bid me. I frantically upped my bid again. Then I checked again and he’d out bid me by another dollar with 27 seconds left. In a last gasp, I typed as fast as I could my last bid and slipped in just under the wire as the winner! I was pretty geeked actually, I can see how people get caught up in buying crap they don’t even want. I walked away with a $40 book for $29 +shipping, not bad I’d say.

Here’s where the rub is. I notice the seller is located nearby, in a suburb of Chicago. I contact him and ask about alternate methods of picking it up and dodging the unusually high $6 shipping change. Seems a bit much since we probably live 25 minutes apart. He’s a power seller, so he pretty much says that he’d rather not deal with it. This isn’t such a problem, and he directs me to PayPal. I hadn’t used it before but I expected it to be pretty strightforward. Not So!

I read up on Ebay’s site and see that PayPal is free for me to use, and it should get me the book right away. I try and sign up for PayPal, things seem to go along nicely and after I’ve set up the account I’m ready to buy. I notice that they are now telling me that I need to be Verified to have my sending limit raised above $0.00. How convienent for them. Looking over the verification process I see that I need to confirm my email address, check. Then I have to acquire a “Member Number”…ok…and to get this I’ll need to be charged $1.95. Those slimy bastards…but, hell, it’s only two bucks. I give them my bank card, they charge me and I find out that I need to retrieve my Member Number off my bank statement where the charge is made…FUCK!! I’m not due to get my statement until 28 days from now and I used a Bank Card which doesn’t have online access. They specifically tell you not to call your bank for this number because it’d create complaints…sounds really shady to me, frankly. I am supposed to complete this transaction within 10 days…5 days from today. I’m so annoyed at PayPal. I plan on cancelling the account and just sending the guy a check.

So, is this the typical PayPal experience? Is no one really pissed about this hidden charge? Dopers, why haven’t I seen you guys ranting about this more?

Umm, I experienced no paypal charges whatsoever when purchasing from E-bay, and no hassle about “member numbers.” Account verification was only needed, IIRC, if you want to use your paypal account like a bank checking account. If you just wanted to send money, you add a credit card and tell it how much you want to send, and voila.

Just a reminder, Ebay uses Proxy Bidding, so you don’t have to worry about being outbid. Bid the most you would be willing to pay for the item and let Ebay worry about the rest. If someone does outbid you, oh well, you wouldn’t have been willing to pay that much anyway.

First, like Alereon says, you shouldn’t need to verify your account details with PayPal if you just use a credit card.

Also, I don’t worry about last-minute bids. If I find something I like, I figure out the maximum I’d be willing to pay for it, bid that, and let it be. If someone outbids me, well, they’re paying more than I’m willing to anyway, so fine. It sucks that I won’t get the item, but I won’t get ripped off, either.

I only use Credit Card accounts with Paypal because of security concerns & better insurance.

I ignore their bank account verify requests, therefore my account says ‘unverified’, but its no big deal, none of my customers care.

Well, as an eBay seller, I can tell you that I’ve been ripped off by unverified customers, so it’s not a bad idea to verify your account.

That being said, however, I’ve verified TWO bank accounts with Paypal, and both times was able to access my account online in 2-3 days to get the small amounts they deposited in my account that I needed for verification. Don’t you have online access to your bank account?

I think you can also do an eCheck without verifying the account. In that case the seller has to wait a few days for the eCheck to clear, but it’s not that big a deal.

And last, if you use a credit card, you can avoid all this aggravation. Or you can ask your seller if you can just send a money order, which most sellers will accept.

I registered on PayPal some years back, used it once to give $5 to a friend, and then promptly forgot about it until a few weeks ago when I broke my eBay cherry as well.

As an unverified user, I am able to send up to $2000 before becoming verified. I don’t know if this is a holdover from being a long-term registrant, though.

Omni, I’d suggest that you go over the fine print on the PayPal account again and see if you can’t just work around it as people have described. I think it’s a fairly straightforward workaround.

Not to be a pain in the ass, but I’ve looked around the site and couldn’t figure it out. I don’t even know why I’m being asked to be verified. I get the impression that being verified isn’t a typical problem for a simple $29 transaction?

WTF?

OK, so I added another credit card and for some reason this one didn’t require me to be verified to use it. For some reason the requirement is only on that Bank Card…how annoying. Transaction complete.

What the hell is Verification anyways? Some scam?

Verification insures that if there’s some problem with payment, Paypal still has a means to get money from you automatically, via your bank account. It also makes it more difficult to create throwaway Paypal accounts.