I agree about how you feel on payment options but the bottom line is that it IS a privately-owned business. As such, they make the rules(kinda like this website, the owner makes the rules-there is no first amendment protections here). Their position is "if you don't like it, move on" and that is their right. Try another auction site, craigslist or whatever.
I also don't like the feedback changes. It's useless now.
BTW: when you get to the 'decide how you'd like to be paid' section there is an "add or remove options" button. click that, make your selection.
I think you are missing my MAIN point.
Ebay is an auction site that makes their money on listing and final sales fees for providing the auction service. The sale and purchase is between the seller and buyer as is the payment arrangements and shipping type/cost. Once Ebay has fullfilled their role of listing the item they should have nothing to do with the seller/buyer choices of payment or shipping. Their ownership of payPal and forcing the use of it and blocking listing and other forms of payment is against the free enterprise laws of our country.
This would be no different than if you took a car to Barrett-Jackson and when you signed up to sell it they said "oh, BTW, if the buyer needs to ship the car home with a carrier you HAVE to use the one we own, no others allowed."
I am telling you, I tried all available options when I relisted the subject item in this post and NOTHING would allow me from listing it without showing PayPal as the marked payment choice. This is not my first rodeo, I have been using Ebay since 2000 and PayPal since it first became available.
EDIT:
I have gone back to edit the listing to show "payment upon pick up" which it allows, however, it STILL requires a form of electronic payment. Why? If you are asking for payment upon pick up there should be no reason for accepting electronic payment. Also, I tried to switch to Propay but since I have no account there it would not allow it, at least that is what I assume as it would not accept it. The bottom line is that they require the seller to accept some form of electronic payment that cost the SELLER money to do so rather than being able to accept a M.O. that cost the seller nothing.
Ebay has things pretty well covered so that sellers CAN NOT add fees that will cover these additional expense they incure for accepting payment that cost them money. The only place that really allows for it is by adding a handling fee with shipping, but it can not be shown as a percentage. I know from experience and from watching the sites on the Net that people go ballistic when a seller other than a retailer wants to add a handling fee. However, this is what they are pushing people towards.
