Direct Deposit

[aj111003]

Hi everyone, hope you are all having a lovely day!

Just wanted to get some advice from sellers who offer buyers the extra option to pay via direct deposit. I have offered this option previously and luckly enough have had no problems (plus saved p/pal fees which was a bonus), but I have heard of one case where a seller has experienced problems such as being short paid by the buyer, so its made me think is it really a good option to be offering?

Wanted to get the general feeling what sellers think, the pros/cons and would appreciate you sharing any personal experiences that you may have had. Thanks alot.

[auction_assassin]

So the buyer didn't pay the full amount required, so the seller dont post until they do!  Whats the problem?
You think you have to send it cause they give you some of they money for it?

You dont walk into a shop and pay for something via eftpos and only pay for some of it and the person behind the counter say's, hey no problem, here is you item you didn't fully pay for!

[dylan11235813]

The only good thing is the saving in fees which is not all the much compared to all the rest.

The worst part is having to check my account every day to see if someone has payed and also hope that they don't screw up my acount details and then complain about paying for something but not receiving.

Most of my regular customers will use direct deposit which is good because I end up saving a few dollars for large orders.

I have never had any issues as yet with a payment by direct deposit and only really offer the option for people that don't use paypal. About 1 / 50 use direct deposit.

[2106greencat]

Sellers love direct deposit - and seriously the only person who may be hurt is a buyer if they come across a shonky seller who takes the money and runs. As far as 'not being paid enough for an item' as AA said, why would any seller send until the full amount was received. I offer paypal and DD, I am a good honest seller, but from a buyers point of view I would prefer paypal every day of the week, JMO

[foxette-in-sox]

In over 700 selling transactions,only ever had one buyer short change me by a whole 50c & I believe it was an honest mistake.

As Dylan said,it can be a pain having to check your bank account especially if buyer doesn't go through checkout as you don't know that they're going to pay with bank deposit.

I had weeks where nearly 100% of buyers paid with bank deposit & other weeks where no one did.

I would always offer it as many people still use it for whatever reason.

[aj111003]

Thanks guys for the feedback so far! Yes I wouldn't send an item out either if I was short paid! I was just wondering if this was a common problem with direct deposit. 

[the3coopers]

I wouldn't send an item out either if I was short paid! I was just wondering if this was a common problem with direct deposit. 

There are quite a few problems with Direct Deposit. Most annoying is probably that you have to check your account all the time, which is a major pain. You have no other way of knowing whether payments have come in or not.

I reckon the worst is reconciling payments. People use "eBay" or some other useless payment reference, and older people do over-the-counter transfers where the teller can't or won't add a reference at all. If you sell 2 things in one day at the same price, then this causes you to have to hold both orders until you contact each person and see which one has paid.

Then we have the reliability of the transaction. People often mistype the BSB and ACCT numbers, and/or stuff it up and/or get confused as to who they've paid. This is really common, made worse if the seller uses spaces and dashes in the Acct number, so when the buyer copy/pastes the number is wrong so the payment goes nowhere.

Oh, and the delay - some times it takes 3 or 4 days for the payment to clear, and all this time the buyer is stewing about "where is my item". Your postage DSR stars will often cop a flogging due to this, even though it's not your fault.

The ultimate problem is the combination of these, where you have 2 sales for the same amount, 2 people who say that they have paid, but you only have one (unidentifiable) payment. That is the sort of situation that will cop you a neg.

[aj111003]

Thanks Coops for the advice! Completely forgot about the people who still might do over-the-counter transfers as well.

[digital*ghost]

Wanted to get the general feeling what sellers think, the pros/cons and would appreciate you sharing any personal experiences that you may have had. Thanks alot.

Direct deposit can be a total pain in the you-know-what. Or rather, some of the buyers that try to get away with things that they can't when using PayPal can be.

I only offer it because there are still a few members out there that don't use PayPal at all, but if I had a higher volume of sales I would probably consider removing it as an option.

I have had people pay less than the amount owing by several dollars (and definitely on purpose), which makes things a little more complicated than no full payment = no sending until full payment received, just because if they don't then you have to get their details and refund, and in the meantime you have a transaction in limbo - annoying if they take another week to pay the rest, because you can't really open a UPI (technically you can, and you wouldn't necessarily be in the wrong because they haven't paid in full).

I have also - on more than one occasion - had people use bank deposit as a stalling for time tactic by saying payment has been sent when it actually hasn't, then say the payment bounced back and so on. I only give the benefit of the doubt once, but that can drag a transaction out and make things a bit more frustrating than they should be.

It's maybe 1 in every 50 or so direct deposit payments that cause any problems at all, so it's bearable, but direct deposit is definitely not my favourite payment method as a seller.

[digital*ghost]

I have had people pay less than the amount owing by several dollars (and definitely on purpose)

Just thought I'd add... On the flip side, I have also had a couple of very lovely buyers that valued the items they bought from me even more than I did, and used direct deposit to pay more than the sale price, so for every person who tries something shady, there's at least one that more than makes up for it. 🙂