Questions From Readers

Q: I am new to selling on eBay and I wanted
to know if I should accept personal checks as
payment for my auctions? What do you think?

Thanks,
Terry G.

A: A timely question in light of eBay's recent
policy change in not allowing payments via
paper check or money order - unless requested
by the customer.

The danger in accepting personal checks comes
from having the check bounce after you have
mailed out the item.

The best way to get around this problem is to
clearly state in your item description - on
sites other than eBay - that you will not ship
the item until the check clears, usually 7-10
days. This works well for most sellers.

eBay's new policy will however, no longer
allow the posting of this type of payment in
ads placed on their site. You can read more
about this in the next article.

Accepting checks can be risky. I have read
about sellers receiving fake checks and
getting calls from investigators about a
month later saying the check was from a
stolen account.

Another option is ask your buyer to send a
money order. Then you can usually be assured
it's good and send the item once received.
You may want to at least deposit the money
order to make sure it's authentic also.

eBay's new payment policy can hinder those
businesses that deal with many international
customers who can't use PayPal. PayPal is
not available and will not work from most
areas in the Middle-East, Africa and many
Eastern European countries.

Many of my shoppers on eBay have complained
that they do not like to use PayPal, so hopefully
you have a merchant account, other than PayPal.
But, you can't say in your eBay ad what company
that might be, such as Google Checkout.

I suggest simply stating in your eBay description
that online credit card purchases can be made via
my merchant account, by invoice sent to your email.