eBay Auto-Pay On Auctions Prevents Sending Cards To eBay Vault
eBay's attempt to address unpaid items with immediate payment for auctions and offers has unintended consequences, preventing buyers from submitting eligible trading cards to the eBay Vault.
The option to send a card directly to the eBay Vault is typically shown to the buyer in the checkout process if the card meets the minimum price and other criteria to qualify for the service.
Auction listings may have a starting price under the minimum, but if they end up selling for $250 and meet all other criteria, they should qualify as well, according to the Vault terms and conditions.
Buyers report previously in that situation, they were able to select Ship To Vault during the checkout process after winning the auction.
However,with auto-pay required, the payment and shipping information has to be entered before placing a bid and shipping to the Vault is not an option.
Now that essentially all auctions are set to auto-pay, it it impossible to click the submit to eBay Vault option at checkout. Is there a workaround or an address I can use to have eligible purchases go directly to the eBay vault?
As a NYC resident, I pay a ~9% sales tax + a 13% selling fee to eBay when items don't go the Vault. If this does not get resolved, I think my experiment of trying to be a part-time baseball card dealer is over. eBay Vault was the only way I was able to make this business somewhat feasible as a NYC resident.
Several experienced eBay community members suggested the buyer could ask the seller to turn off the auto-payment required setting, but eBay doesn't make it obvious which sellers require immediate payment on auctions and some sellers may not even realize they have it turned on since eBay automatically opted all sellers in.
You can ask the sellers to turn off the auto-pay requirement for auctions in their buyer requirements page.
Many sellers aren't aware that this is automatically set to "on" as the default, so they need to turn it off if they don't want it. However, some sellers may not be willing to do that, if they are afraid of non-paying bidders.
I think you would have to remove your approved payment method from your eBay account first. then place a bid and see if you are asked to provide an automatic payment method before it will accept the bid. You might have to keep removing it after each purchase, so keep checking if you decide to do this.
That's a long and convoluted process and many buyers may simply choose not to bid at all rather than try to find a workaround.
The eBay Vault launched in June 2022, but has seen slow adoption due to lack of transparency on eventual fees and problems with the supposedly "professional" listing service not listing items correctly.
Liz Morton
Earlier this year, eBay expanded eligibility for the Vault to include direct submissions, but not integrating Vault submission into the auto-pay functionality is a short sighted step backward that is sure to reduce adoption even more.
Has auto-pay required for auctions prevented you from shipping trading cards to the eBay Vault? Let us know in the comments below!
