International Bank Transfers

[mellie2206]

Hello Guys,

Recently I sold an item on Ebay.de and received payment buy bank transfer. The total amount with shipping came to 457.49Euros.

When the money came through to my account I only received 422.49Euro a difference of 35Euro.

Now if Paypal was used I know as a seller I would cover  the transfer fee, but in the case of a international bank to bank transfer surely it would be the buyers responsibility to pay the transfer fee at his end?

What is people feeling on this?

Best regards

[chezzy]

Are you sure the buyer didn't pay any fees their end too? I thought it was possible that for International bank transfer there could be a fee to send and then a fee for it to clear your end? Hopefully someone else can clarify?

[bookmanx500]

Banks charge a fee to receive International Money Transfers  (Commonwealth charges upto $11.00).  The buyer would not be aware of this, but would have paid a fee at his end.

Barrie

[mellie2206]

NAB has charged $12 for receiving the deposit which is fine and I was aware that was going to happen.

If the buyer had paid the fees for the transaction at there end in Germany I would have expected to see 457.49Euro in my account here in Australia (less NAB fees) not 422.49Euro.

Regards

[thebraff]

A few years ago I bought something from eBay Germany and it was payment via Bank Transfer.  It cost me from memory $30 to send it.  The seller then was jumping up and down, claiming non payment, going the full hog about me cheating him out of about 15 to 20 euro.  He put in a non payment claim etc even though I had all the paperwork for all the money I had paid.

That was before I knew about these help pages.  It would have cost me another $30 to send him the extra euro so we ended up sending it via cash in the mail and hoping that he would send us the item.

It was a long time before we bought from Germany again, but we double check that the sellers have Paypal.  Now they all seem to have it unlike back in 2007 when we had the trouble.

It always amazed me why the seller would assume that I would know that his bank was going to charge him money to receive our payment and that I would know the amount so that I could have added it to my original payment.

I am still very dirty about that transaction.

[phorum_junkie*]

If you sold through the German site then the buyer was quite right to send your payment in Euros, if you sold it through the Au site the buyer should have paid you in $Au.

Some banks charge a fee even if an Au $ payment is received from an overseas bank, some don't.

[***super_nova***]

Few years ago I was trying to do bank transfer to UK for about 20pounds, and  got a message it will cost me $20 and that the seller will also pay 'substantial' fee.  I ended up sending them notes in a card. 🙂   So it is quite possible that your bank charged you for accepting the payment; I have a vague feeling that the charge depends on the amount sent.

[lemmayj]

It's also quite possible that the payment was passed through more than one bank en route to you, and each of the intermediary banks took a fee....:-(

What to do now is a very grey area, unfortunately...

Ebay state that you can't charge a surcharge for use of ordinary forms of payment, including acceptance of cheques, money orders, electronic transfers or credit cards or PayPal fees.

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/policies/listing-surcharges.html

Is international bank transfer an ordinary method of payment???  (Probably yes, given you listed on ebay.de.) 

The trouble is, if you refuse to post without further payment you'll have to pay more money to refund the payment: the only winners here are the banks with their bank fees. And you'd have the same problem with the underbidder, German buyers do regard bank transfer as the most normal method of payment. Just remember that you probably got a much higher auction price because you listed on .de rather than .au.  🙂

In your position, I'd probably post without the extra payment and learn from the experience for future listings...