Would you give me your Credit Card number?

Posted by whateverebay

November 20, 2008

Would you give me your Credit Card number? Of course not!

When you open a sellers account on sites such as eBay and Overstock, I highly encourage you to use a Credit Card and Checking Account that you carry no balance other than what you need to covers those fees.

This happened to the previous company I was with. Around August 2007, eBay was making several changes. Invoicing became a huge deal for us. I contacted eBay Support and our Account Manager.

Our eBay fees was usually paid using Paypal. However, during the summer accounting decided it would be best to pay eBay with the Company Credit Card. The Company Credit Card was attached to the Companies main checking account. Well, to make this story short. eBay billed the Credit Card on file for a total of $36,000 on two separate occasions. Not only was eBay only due $15,000+/- but they would not reverse the charges. After many calls back and forth with our Account Manager, we were informed to allow 30 days for the reversal to show in our statement. Hmm….

The owner decided to wait and allow them to reverse the charges. 35 days later, NOTHING….. so, the bank was called and the bank took care of it for us. NOT eBay. I must say that I was surprise that eBay would not reverse the charges. Anyone that deals with a Merchant Account knows that the reversal is instant and in a matter of minutes the transaction can be reversed and it can take a few days to appear back on the account and up to two billing cycles to appear on the statement.

Finally, 8 ½ months later, eBay emailed us to notify us that they would look into the matter.

TOO LATE… They did not even acknowledge that we had to get the bank involved.

*****

Again, I highly recommend that you have your accounts safeguarded. Do not give them access to your main accounts. If you have Overdraft protection, BECAREFUL. Use a different bank if needed to for the purpose of paying your Seller Fees.