BrickLink Discussion Forum

In Suggestions, chetzler writes:

I'm curious if BL will continue to offer the multitude other off-sites methods.
Anyone looked at what is still available? There's a bunch I've never
even heard of, and seriously, is a Western Union transfer a better option than
PayPal off-site?

Our Paypal account works for both Bricklink and our main company - there is absolutely
no way ever that we would allow Bricklink access to funds in that account or
details of transactions in that account - it is really none of their business.
I am sure that other people who have Paypal accounts and use them for Bricklink
also use those for other things and would not want any involvement with Bricklink
in their account.

This does not appear to be well thought through and even though it says you may
revoke the permissions you have given by signing up to this agreement what does
that mean - do you still have a paypal account for use on Bricklink or not? Is
it online or offline?

Are they going to go through 11,000 stores and remove the Paypal option from
their payment methods when the April date comes around? Stores will wake up to
a 'cannot receive orders as you have no payment methods available' (imagine
the tickets from that !!!!!) or are people going to set up other payment methods
but give Paypal offsite instructions in their invoices. How can they possibly
police this?

The mind boggles .....

All the clamour and yet no response from Bricklink. It is like they are saying
take-it or leave it (which is never a good idea in the best of environments.)

Such a real shame ........

Author:

chetzler

Posted:

Mar 19, 2018 02:05

Subject:

Re: Save Offsite Paypal!

Viewed:

66 times

Topic:

Author:

calsbricks

Posted:

Mar 19, 2018 01:48

Subject:

Re: Save Offsite Paypal!

Viewed:

62 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, PurpleDave writes:

Bricklink famously ground to a halt, twice, because it got hacked. The site
may have been restored to working condition, but a lot of us want nothing to
do with risking exposure of our financial accounts to anyone who may be lurking
behind the scenes. Sellers don't want to give Bricklink the level of control
required to accept payments through Bricklink. Bricklink has announced that
in about a month, they plan to scuttle offsite Paypal as a payment option, without
even taking any input from their core membership. The reason stated was that
new, usually one-time buyers, can't figure out where the payment button is
when they select offsite Paypal as a payment option, so they plan to basically
cut off any buyers and sellers who refuse to use any other form of payment, and
who especially want nothing to do with any onsite Paypal options.

Make offsite Paypal an opt-in payment option. Sellers obviously have to select
up front which payment options they will accept. Make all _buyers_ voluntarily
choose to see offsite Paypal as a payment option when checking out. If a seller
does not accept any other payment options, have them flagged as "does not ship
to you", just like if they were from another country and didn't have your
country enabled for shipping options. If a new buyer signs up, they should be
required to read an explanation of how offsite Paypal works, and confirm that
they want to be able to choose that as a payment option before they even see
it appear in lists.

But seriously, don't chase away a bunch of your regular customers in the
hope that you might be able to "grow your business" on the bank accounts of people
who just get sent here to buy a replacement part that LEGO Consumer Affairs can't
provide, or who are looking for just one retired set, and will never log in again
after they receive their shipment.

Couldn't agree more. If they really are having so many tickets about the
Pay button, refer those tickets to the store(s). I am sure there are far more
tickets coming in over issues with other matters on the site than this. For a
payment method which has worked flawlessly for nearly 7 years (5000 orders received
and 1000 placed) it does not seem logical nor to their benefit to stop it. It
could, however be money driven - if you use Paypal onsite Bricklink must be getting
something out of it where as offsite is outside of their earning capability'.
But then so is every other payment method.

Author:

alahaka

Posted:

Mar 19, 2018 01:45

Subject:

Re: Save Offsite Paypal!

Viewed:

60 times

Topic:

So whatever simpler arrangement I had set up with BrickLink and PayPal --
onsite payment or instant payment or whatever it was called other than Instant
Checkout -- is now gone, courtesy of my stupidity in trusting BrickLink to
have a confirmation step before removing it.

Now that that arrangement has been disconnected, it is no longer an option and
I'll have to revert to offsite payments short of signing up for the more
risky PayPal Marketplace agreement. Purposely tricky on BrickLink's part
in my view; obviously by design.

The PayPal Marketplace includes all this stuff below. Sounds more like PayPal's
and BrickLink's account than mine. No thank you.

- Allow PayPal to connect your account with BrickLink Corporation.
- In order for PayPal to work properly on your site, you authorize BrickLink
Corporation. to: Use PayPal to process my customers' payments; Initiate steps
to authorize and capture my customers' payments; Initiate a refund for a
specific transaction; Deposit the PayPal funds I’ve received through BrickLink
Corporation. directly into the bank account I have linked to my BrickLink Corporation
account; Automatically deduct their fee from each PayPal transaction prior to
the remaining balance settling to your PayPal account. The amount of this fee,
is subject to your agreement with BrickLink Corporation; Hold and release funds
on my behalf in accordance with BrickLink Corporation's policy; Search through
and access corresponding transaction data.
- You can revoke these permissions at any time from within your PayPal account
settings.

I didn't close out the PayPal Marketplace process, so I don't know what
else it may entail. Again it appears I'm just handing control of my account
to BrickLink and PayPal, along with whatever personal data and funds are placed
at risk.

Sad to see the site going in these Take-it-or-leave-it directions.

I was getting used to my previous PayPal arrangement which as noted before didn't
appear to be much of a risk. Time to rework my invoice layout again. Bummer.

Author:

alahaka

Posted:

Mar 19, 2018 01:25

Subject:

Re: Save Offsite Paypal!

Viewed:

68 times

Topic:

I agree that flexible payment options should remain for both buyers and sellers
with regard to BrickLink. This among other considerations allows for a community-driven
village of small, large, national, and international selections and transactions
-- i.e. a more pleasant community. (For buyers with regard to sellers, I
acknowledge that I prefer PayPal.)

That said, the connection to PayPal I had (I just tried to look up its BrickLink
terminology and screwed up my connection ... so much for a confirmation step
to save changes ... we can't have that ... now the PayPal Marketplace is
my only option of two ... seconds ago I had three) ... ... anyway the connection
I had did not require much if anything beyond my email address, so I'm not
sure what the added risk is.

On to research whatever I just screwed up. For BrickLink administrators, confirming
changes is not a new concept. Arrgh.

Author:

Dalika

Posted:

Mar 18, 2018 23:05

Subject:

Re: Save Offsite Paypal!

Viewed:

73 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, PurpleDave writes:

Yes, please. I really hope they continue to offer Off-site as a payment option.
I really don't want to close my store next month. That said, I will not be
linking my PayPal account with BrickLink. Fingers crossed here, for sure.

D

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 18, 2018 21:52

Subject:

Save Offsite Paypal!

Viewed:

321 times

Topic:

Status:

Implemented

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 18, 2018 21:36

Subject:

Re: Have all members pay BL $1 to buy and/or sell

Viewed:

74 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Brickwilbo writes:

Enable instant checkout in your store.

Enable instant checkout, and it won't stop anyone from selecting any other
payment option offered. Restrict payment to instant checkout, and you lose all
the customers that don't trust Bricklink to be secure enough to make exposing
their payment info to whoever might be watching.

Author:

PurpleDave

Posted:

Mar 18, 2018 21:34

Subject:

Re: Have all members pay BL $1 to buy and/or sell

Viewed:

63 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, calebfishn writes:

Your suggestion will not screen out "false" buyers. But it will discourage and
dissuade all the first time people who come to Bricklink to look around. I get
very few orders that are not paid, and the ones that don't pay, are in my
opinion people who are experimenting with the order system.

Some people probably are dealing with people intentionally jerking their chain
when it comes to false orders. Either they said something here that ticked someone
off, or they did something in relation to a previous sale that had the same effect.
Creating fake accounts just to place false orders would be a way to pester someone.
You couldn't really take credit for it (not if you have a valid account
that you wanted to keep clean, at least, though if you'd already been banned
I guess it wouldn't really matter), so the victim would never know _why_
they kept getting bogus orders. But if someone is the sort to go through that
effort for such petty vengeance, I doubt logic and reason really factor into
their decisions.

Author:

calebfishn

Posted:

Mar 18, 2018 19:16

Subject:

Re: Seller checkout approval for <X new buyers

Viewed:

29 times

Topic: