Trademe drops success fees but adds payment fees

Forums › Off topic › Trademe drops success fees but adds payment fees

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mattwnz

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#3470338 14-Mar-2026 21:50

Benoire:

Saw something on bank transfer - they're updating the terms and conditions and policies that will outlaw the use of bank transfers and including it in the success email that is sent out. I suspect they'll have some form of system to monitor this and potentially ban accounts for breaching the ToCs.

many will have had it setup for years in their automated emails that get sent out when an auction completes . Maybe they should wipe people automated emails or write a script to automatically remove bank details from them. If they allow cash then surely they should allow bank transfer after sale as not everyone has a credit card and not everyone wants to carry cash especially for large amounts Which is also unsafe to do

mattwnz

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#3470514 15-Mar-2026 15:52

saf:

Time will tell, but offering a single, surcharged payment method has been a clear line in the sand of non-compliance by any business.

Yeah obviously most buyers aren’t able to pay actual physical cash unless they are picking up, and not safe to send cash via mail. So if they want to avoid the surcharge I would have thought it was in their best interests to still offer an alternative payment method that doesn’t incur a surcharge. Eg Direct bank payment. I wonder what the com com think of it

spacedog

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+1 received by user: 62

#3470813 16-Mar-2026 12:00

You know, the more I think about this, the more it makes me angry and hate TradeMe.

Frankly, I've long disliked TradeMe, but just like Uber and other disruptive technologies in New Zealand, they outcompete everyone and start acting like a monoply and they've been heading that way for a long time already. Do I use it? Yes, a lot. Would I use something else if I could? Damn straight (I use FB marketplace to purchase, but selling is annoying as you get a lot of really dumb questions and flaky people).

TradeMe management and platform moderation was already on thin ice with me for refusing to police all the auctioneers who sell stuff, say it's located in New Zealanand or Auckland, but then in the description it says 10-15 business days delivery from China. I've reported those auctions and auctioneers probably over 100 times in the last 10 years and TradeMe has done nothing to police them. It's a huge waste of my time as a purchaser. So what do I do now? I often just go straight to Temu or AliExpress.

Sadly, we are not exactly the 'free-market' we think we are. There are just so many practical monopolies in NZ not for any real fault of our government, we are just victims of poor scales of economy.

For my part, I think I'll just setup a gmail canned response function that after each successful auction that emails the person and politely requests they do not use ping, they select cash and then give them my bank details. I won't be able to stop them, but I can at least try.

Does anyone know if this violates NZ commerce or anti-trust laws? Forcing users into a proprietary fee system when they have a dominant market position feels like they are getting awfully close to violating Tying and Bundling rules as part of the Misuse of Market Power section of the Commerce Act.

I wish we had more legal watchdog groups/organizations here, but that is also where we suffer as a small market economy.

richms

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#3470824 16-Mar-2026 12:23

For a long time the location was set on an account basis, not per listing. This was not something they were looking to solve even 20 years ago when I and a friend were selling on trademe and the pickup would be from whoevers house the stock was at on opposite sides of Auckland. This got us several negatives when the listing said manukau but the item they won was at my place on the shore, so we gave up on pickup not long before giving up altogether on the site.

I have been told that they have sorted this out now, but as I do not do selling on there anymore I have not looked into it.

Richard rich.ms

LurkingKiwi

34 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 19

#3471022 17-Mar-2026 00:34

We’re officially removing the 7.9% Success Fee for casual listings.

Note the "casual listings". The new policy doesn't apply to anybody "in trade", even if they only sell a few items per year, unlike the "casuals" with thousands of trades.

Those in trade still have to pay the success fee percentage on (the item cost plus shipping) AIUI

NglButiLoveTechnolog

130 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#3473700 25-Mar-2026 18:11

mattwnz:

Benoire:

Saw something on bank transfer - they're updating the terms and conditions and policies that will outlaw the use of bank transfers and including it in the success email that is sent out. I suspect they'll have some form of system to monitor this and potentially ban accounts for breaching the ToCs.

many will have had it setup for years in their automated emails that get sent out when an auction completes . Maybe they should wipe people automated emails or write a script to automatically remove bank details from them. If they allow cash then surely they should allow bank transfer after sale as not everyone has a credit card and not everyone wants to carry cash especially for large amounts Which is also unsafe to do

it seems payment instructions no longer get sent out to buyers/auction winners anymore.. weird cause the payment instructions feature is still there.

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Twincamr2

108 posts

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#3477411 2-Apr-2026 23:36

So... After more than two decades of good experiences selling and buying stuff on TradeMe, I've just been scammed twice in about two weeks. I was sold fake products passed of as genuine. I was foolish to ignore the sellers' low trade scores.

I guess the new lower fee structure has brought some of the scammers over from Marketplace.

At least now I'll get to see how well the Ping 'buyer protection' works. 🙄

Anyway, be vigilant out there, folks.

coffeebaron

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#3477640 3-Apr-2026 14:31

Just select cash as the payment method, then negotiate the actual payment off record after the auction.

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RunningMan

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#3477642 3-Apr-2026 14:44

coffeebaron:

Just select cash as the payment method, then negotiate the actual payment off record after the auction.

Why? It doesn't cost you anything to use Ping, and it's pretty much instant.

EDIT: If I were selling and someone selected one option then tried to renegotiate I'd be pretty unhappy with them. The transaction should be as you agreed when you clicked the buy button.

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