Trade Me Ping, holding payments

Forums › Off topic › Trade Me Ping, holding payments

ageorge

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#268650 30-Mar-2020 16:30

Trademe has been trying ever since they introduced Ping to get me (as a small business seller) to use the payment system they own, which I do not agree with.

My bank is a perfectly good method, and my feedback is very high so there is no doubt of my trading credibility.

A few days ago TradeMe sent out an email to everyone subquote:

• At this time, we’re not allowing withdrawals from Ping. For casual sellers and essential businesses, this is a temporary change for a few days. For other professional sellers, this is to help us ensure buyer’s payments are kept safe until we can be sure that sellers can deliver items.

This passed me by until I got a buyer/sold item and find they have had to pay by Ping and I will not get paid for indeterminate days and I have to pay TradeMe a premium for the privilege of TradeMe Ping.

TradeMe could have said; if you wish to continue trading, we offer the Ping service for free during the Lockdown period, then revert you back to your current method. Otherwise you can withdraw your items until trading returns to normal (or similar)

RNZ News item: 'Coronavirus: Trade Me cracks down on profiteering on emergency items'

My goodness, cracking down on Traders again, yet making more from forced Ping does not seem to be exactly consistent.

To use the virus as an excuse to impose their payments system may seem to some to be trivial, but to me, its just another move by a company that considers itself to be above reproach.

I've experienced Trademe acting poorly in the past in several other ways, but this is absolute bottom of the barrel stuff IMHO.

I wrote to them first, but as expected, they insist they are correct.

Regards, Al.

Alistair Grant George

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#2450155 30-Mar-2020 16:30

Hmmmm. Here we go.

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hsvhel

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#2450173 30-Mar-2020 17:02

hold off trading for the time if its an option to you?

We have heaps from cleaning out the last few days that will have to wait

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ageorge

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#2450187 30-Mar-2020 17:21

hsvhel:

hold off trading for the time if its an option to you?

Yes did that a few days back.

antonknee

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#2450213 30-Mar-2020 18:04

I can see why they’re doing this - but I’m not sure I agree with them doing it.

I also tend to not like or use Ping if I can avoid it.

Would further say TradeMe probably shouldn’t really even be operating during lockdown - what essential items are available on TradeMe you can’t get elsewhere?

BlinkyBill

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#2450223 30-Mar-2020 18:19

You should link to Trademe commentary that suggests you have to use Ping.

What you have posted says that IF you use ping, you can’t withdraw funds. That is quite different.

ageorge

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#2450236 30-Mar-2020 18:44

BlinkyBill:

You should link to Trademe commentary that suggests you have to use Ping.

What you have posted says that IF you use ping, you can’t withdraw funds. That is quite different.

This was the notice:

• As a professional seller, you can still sell items onsite using Buy Now only. However, at this time you will be unable to deliver items to buyers until couriers can deliver for non-essential businesses again. Because of this, Ping will be the only payment option available and we’ll hold funds until it is safe to complete orders again. At that time, you’ll then receive funds from Ping and can organise delivery of items to buyers. If you don’t have Ping enabled on your listings, we have added this for you. Ping fees apply.

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BlinkyBill

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#2450280 30-Mar-2020 19:57

Thanks, that clarifies.

hio77

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#2450286 30-Mar-2020 20:14

as a consumer, this seemed like a great idea. but looking at it from a Business point of view, it really does seem like a backhand for vendors that choose not to use it.

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ageorge

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#2451919 1-Apr-2020 08:05

Lets do some maths based on 2018 revenue figures (thats what their accountant would do)

General sales $70M

Car sales $70M

Property $38M

Jobs $28M

Round it down to $150M as Jobs and Property will not be doing too well, however I guess sales are probably up due to people being bored.

We expect a month at least of forced Ping trading. Thats $150M/12 = $12.5M/month, which TradeMe withhold, and realizing at least 2.5%/month or $312,500 interest and acrued Ping charges of 1.95% of $243,750.

A grand total of at least $500,000 per month. Now if thats not taking the mickey, I dont know what is.

I repeat, to be honorable, TradeMe should have offered traders either option: free ping or stop trading, at the very least. This method they have used is draconian and IMHO taking advantage of the current virus situation.

Alistair.

BlinkyBill

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#2452011 1-Apr-2020 09:38

Surely sales will be way down, because only essential items can be couriered? My account has no ‘buy now’ option and no ‘book a courier’ option. I’m a private seller with only a few items up.

sleemanj

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#2452287 1-Apr-2020 13:52

ageorge:

Lets do some maths based on 2018 revenue figures (thats what their accountant would do)

General sales $70M

Car sales $70M

Property $38M

Jobs $28M

Round it down to $150M as Jobs and Property will not be doing too well, however I guess sales are probably up due to people being bored.

People do not pay the price for Cars, or Property, or Jobs (!) by Ping, or to trade me, these are flat fees paid by the seller, this should not be included in your estimations.

The only value you should consider here is General Sales revenue which will include all promotional fees, HVL listing fees, selling fees, and I assume BAC. These are all their's anyway.

You would need to work backwards from this to estimate the actual payments made by buyers to sellers (now by ping, previously by any means) that generated these, and without knowing the proportion of promo, hvl and bac, you've got no real idea on that.

But let's be generous and say it's 75% of that, you wind up a figure of about 58 million a month in total sold general marketplace listings in good times.

These are not good times, let's be generous and say they get 25% of normal sales that actually don't end up getting refunded because the buyer didn't know it would be a month or more, we are down to 14 million a month, subtract the actual fees they were entitled to, being 1 million of that and we are at 13 million a month for the held ping funds, let us be really really generous and say they get 2.5% on that operating account (have you looked at interest rates lately, this is generous), 27 thousand dollars give or take interest a month.

Not necessarily to be sneezed at, but it's not exactly a lot of money.

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ageorge

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#2452321 1-Apr-2020 14:45

sleemanj:

People do not pay the price for Cars, or Property, or Jobs (!) by Ping, or to trade me, these are flat fees paid by the seller, this should not be included in your estimations.

The only value you should consider here is General Sales revenue which will include all promotional fees, HVL listing fees, selling fees, and I assume BAC. These are all their's anyway.

You would need to work backwards from this to estimate the actual payments made by buyers to sellers (now by ping, previously by any means) that generated these, and without knowing the proportion of promo, hvl and bac, you've got no real idea on that.

But let's be generous and say it's 75% of that, you wind up a figure of about 58 million a month in total sold general marketplace listings in good times.

These are not good times, let's be generous and say they get 25% of normal sales that actually don't end up getting refunded because the buyer didn't know it would be a month or more, we are down to 14 million a month, subtract the actual fees they were entitled to, being 1 million of that and we are at 13 million a month for the held ping funds, let us be really really generous and say they get 2.5% on that operating account (have you looked at interest rates lately, this is generous), 27 thousand dollars give or take interest a month.

Not necessarily to be sneezed at, but it's not exactly a lot of money.

I disagree; 2.5% was over a year on the amount, and those were 2018 figures 2019 was more. Look at First Credit Union (not a bank but a reliable likeabank) can get 2.5% so Im sure with larger sums could be more.

We cant deal in exact figures but in my book there is a substantial amount that they would not receive without imposing ping and withholding funds.

sitrack

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#2472810 28-Apr-2020 14:23

I agreed as I am also shocked at how they just changed all my trades to Ping payment, and they have hold up at least $500 on my sales during the period. This has been a month now and still no sign on releasing my money. My items are essential and they get courier out straight away, but I don't get pay. Trademe is making interest out of my sale and all other traders. We need to complaint to Fair-Go or the government as they are making money out of the pandemic from his customers, which are us lot.

RunningMan

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#2472827 28-Apr-2020 15:15

@sitrack, this ended on 9 April. https://www.trademe.co.nz/community/announcements/post/1792/covid-19-update-changes-to-our-services If there is an issue with your Ping balance, you need to contact TradeMe and sort it out because the hold ended weeks ago.

ageorge

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#2472835 28-Apr-2020 15:42

RunningMan:

@sitrack, this ended on 9 April. https://www.trademe.co.nz/community/announcements/post/1792/covid-19-update-changes-to-our-services If there is an issue with your Ping balance, you need to contact TradeMe and sort it out because the hold ended weeks ago.

Agreed, Im not impressed with the new Trademe but at least they have restored payments to bank dc, and yours should be paid by now.

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