A Look at Bank Transfers for eBay Payments

When I first signed up for a seller's account on eBay, I rememberbeing given the option of submitting a credit card number or mychecking account information. I'm used to paying for thingsonline with a credit card, but the thought of giving eBay accessto my checking account gave me pause.

Of course, I write checksfor everything from gas to groceries, and I often tuck a checkinto a birthday card for a relative. Yet I'm still suspicious ofdisclosing to just anyone my personal bank account number and thebank's routing number at the bottom of a check. Like mypasswords, my Social Security Number, my age, and my unlistedphone number, I'm afraid that personally identifying informationcan fall too easily into the hands of those who might exploit itat my expense.

So it seems strange that eBay, in its list of accepted paymentmethods(<http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/accepted-payments-policy.html >) includes bank-to-bank transfers. In this kind of payment (alsoknown as bank wire transfers or bank cash transfers), the fundsare debited directly from a buyer's checking account andtransferred to the seller's checking account: Do not pass Go, donot give PayPal a chance to collect its fee. PayPal might beeBay's preferred payment method, but as sellers know, it's hardlyfree. Is it worth considering direct checking account transfersas a payment method, and if so, how can you do it safely?It doesn't seem like checking account transfers should be lesssafe than any other payment method.

After all, when I pay forthings online, I usually use my debit card, which was issued tome by my bank - it debits my checking account. Some of the othermethods included in eBay's "approved" list are not always safeand reliable, like C.O.D. (Cash on Delivery) or cash. eBayspecifies that these are okay for in-person transactions, butoccasionally you get a buyer who asks to use one of thesemethods. Experienced eBay buyers and sellers agree that WesternUnion wire transfers are risky (in fact, eBay bans sellers fromstating that they accept wire transfer services like WesternUnion).

Nobody I know uses C.O.D. (Cash on Delivery), although Ionce received an envelope from one of my customers that wasstuffed full of bills and coins.So what's the problem with bank-to-bank transfers? They seem tobe more popular in Europe than they are in the U.S. AndrewTitcombe, who sells records, CDs, DVDs, books, and other musicmemorabilia on eBay UK under the User IDs crucialmusic andcrucialvinylalbums, says, "I accept bank transfers from peoplewith 20-plus positive feedbacks - but only if I am specificallyasked."He doesn't advertise bank wire transfers in his terms of sale, inother words, which gives him the option of saying no.

One sellerI respect, Kimberly King (User ID: HigherGroundz) wouldn'thesitate to give the thumbs-down: "I would be wary of havinganyone have my bank account info - seems a bit risky. Whathappens if there is a dispute over something - would they freezeyour whole account? Frightening!"Here's another thing that's scary: my own bank charges $12 for meto receive an incoming wire transfer, unless an account holderhas $75,000 or more on deposit.Aaron Rosen, a personal banker in my home town of Chicago, sayshe understands why the U.S. might be lagging behind Europe whenit comes to bank transfer payments in particular and auctionpayments in general: "The success of online payment processingsites like PayPal is directly correlated to the failure oftraditional banking institutions to accommodate rapid paymentsand transfers between individual accounts.

As a matter of course,financial institutions in the US have always been more stodgy andtraditional, more regulated and more cumbersome when it comes toease of use and convenience than their European and East Asiancounterparts."Many U.S. financial institutions are now offering onlineprocessing of outgoing wire transfers, but the degree to whichfraud has been perpetrated against the general public by a smallband of online criminals is staggering. For this reason alone,Rosen does not recommend taking payments via wire transfer. "Theproblem with bank transfers is one of security - both thesecurity of a person who relays their personal financialinformation to a remitter of a payment, and our national securitywith regard to the monitoring of bank transfers," he says.Maybe the solution to this problem is just as easy as setting updifferent email accounts for different purposes.

Andrew Titcombekeeps only a small amount of money in a special checking accountdedicated to receiving eBay payments. "I am not willing to quotemy bank details on an eBay listing, and I never offer the serviceas such. However, my policy is to always try to accommodate abuyer. So in response to a request, I'm prepared to give out thebank account number from my No 2 account (not the main account).Most of these requests come from Germany, with the odd one fromFrance. I am still uneasy with this method and prefer thesecurity of PayPal, even though it is more expensive," he says.---Greg Holden, who lives in Chicago, is the author of several booksabout eBay, including "How to Do Everything with Your eBayBusiness," second edition, and "Secrets of the eBayMillionaires," both published by Osborne-McGraw Hill.

Find outmore on Greg's Web site (<http://www.gregholden.com >), whichincludes a blog related to his book "Internet Babylon: Secrets,Scandals and Shocks on the Information Superhighway," publishedby Apress.

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