Do You Read Payment Instructions?

[Archive]

Posted By: Brad Green

I have been selling cards on eBay for several years. Until a few months ago, I also had only a personal PayPal account. I had to deny several PayPal payments because they were made from credit cards or debit cards. I did not even use the PayPal logo at the bottom of my auctions because it had credit card pictures in it. (At least one person found this misleading...) I was content to continue using eBay and PayPal with my personal account, until one day when one of my auctions was cancelled by eBay because it violated PayPal rules. (I deleted the cancellation email because I was so furious...) Basically, the email stated that my auction was cancelled because I put restrictions on how someone could pay via PayPal. If I accepted PayPal payments, then I must be able to accept credit card payments as well. I bit the bullet and upgraded to a commercial account. I think someone turned me in to eBay. I haven't actually found this rule listed on eBay, but it's probably listed there somewhere.

And no, people don't always read the payment instructions. As someone told me after I denied their payment, "Money is money." That is just not true with PayPal personal accounts.