philkerri - There are quite a few people that should be 'In Trade" but are not. Have reported them multiple times and TM do nothing which anoys the hell out of me. They have gotton away with not paying fees for years.

Philkerri I think I know who you mean and good on him. I was talking with him the other day and he is furious, he sells on behalf and does a massive job singlehanded with all the different types of stuff he sells and TM go and hack into the marginal commissions he makes? I sold an item yesterday for $2250 and they put it through Ping, which option I'd never selected and never would for items like this.Ultimately I cleared only $2000 for the $2250 sale - more than 10% as well as any fees so I contacted the buyer and advised I'd return his Ping payment if he agreed. Perhaps stupidly, Trademe also refunded their $132 success fee which I was quite OK with paying. There's no way to get in touch so no alternative. No doubt they're monitoring this discussion so maybe they'll contact me. I'll make it clear though - I do not want to use Ping unless voluntarily. . 

flas2004 It might be a different seller as the one I'm referring to just sells books.

I see a few smaller In Trade sellers are also stating they do not accept Ping in the listing description, and good on them. How Trade Me think they can dictate how third party's pay each other and then clip the ticket is beyond me.

An example:

"Please do NOT pay by ping (Trademe won't let me turn ping off!) Cash or internet banking are fine, please read my payment instructions. Select cash so I will email you my bank details "

Text on one big seller's auctions reads "

CONDITIONS OF AUCTION' Auction must be paid for with in 3 days of auction closing

PAYMENT BY BANK DEPOSIT ONLY. I DO NOT ACCEPT CASH OR PING

ACCOUNT DETAILS WILL BE SENT AT CLOSE OF AUCTION" I agree. 

I had a similar note. TradeMe informed me they would take action unless I removed it. I did so last night. For over 200 auctions. It was as fun as it sounds.

Anyways since this fee came in I’ve increased efforts to sell elsewhere and it is paying dividends.

Among other things I’m loading listings to an ecommerce site; and as I do so I increase the cost of the listing on TradeMe so it is more expensive. I sell vintage audio gear. Any customer who sees a listing on TradeMe and does a Google search to find reviews etc might well find my own site where it’s listed with the exact same listing text and photos for a cheaper price. So TM is a catalyst for a sale outside of TM.

Makes me snigger whenever that happens :-)

flash2004. That seller's items are all large items and bulk lots that couldn't be shipped. So pick-up only $1 reserve. Still you would have to wonder what would happen if a buyer DID pay with Ping........

That's at the moment, he sells up hairdressers, bicycle shops, all manner of defunct businesses and even individual b=perfume bottles which he sends out as well as vehicles, giggers, and other huge stuff. I bought a $100k machine off him once. Sure as hell wasn't paying for that with Ping. I have no idea how he finds the time to do all that single handed. 

I don't think trade me realizes that sales are going to be down, due to less sales in that buyers can't pay by internet banking. Have they thought of that????? So that will be less fees rort for them as no one will be buying. Unbelievable in this day and age that you can't pay by internet banking! Not everyone has a credit card.

Well done Trademe, you've priced your own customers out of the market. Traditionally you'd head to TM to get a better deal - I always have - than the stores but now probably not with their extra listing fees and Ping fees tacked on and needing to be recovered by sellers. An item on here cost including rural postage $153.64 and direct from a retailer's website $133.38 close to $20 more expensive on here. Some of that could be just one seller taking more of a margin than another but they're both major retailers so usually very much closer.  Extra listing fees mean unless you promote and pay a fee for each relist using my products your photo doesn't appear in most views and you can't sell if you're invisible 

I'm out of TM and these parasites. However when i try to close my account the useless AI just goes round and round in a loop so they make it very difficult to do so. Now they are telling me that an actual person will have to contact me to talk it through. I am sick of these guys. 

So the money-grubbing continues. The site is a mess! Half the new-look site, half the old site, half of it doesn't work, they've removed so many handy features that made selling easy for me, removed features that gave me information as a buyer, then start with fees on shipping, that has nothing to do with them, and now, out the blue, this is the first time I've heard of it, no emails, no warning, NOTHING, I go to relist an item and I'm told Internet Banking is no longer available. Yes, I know people get ripped off, but half of them don't use damn common sense when buying, and then squeal when it all goes wrong. How about TM look at a buyers history. If they've proven themselves trustworthy, then they get to use Internet Banking as a payment option. If they have a chequered feedback history, then maybe they go on probation, and after a specified time of behaving better, they get the feature back. But to punish a whole country of largely good traders, who trade with integrity and make a blanket ban (likely with little in the way of stats to back it up) for everybody, is ludicrous. I'm just selling our old stuff, things I've been given, and tech I don't use anymore, so I'm not affected so much by not being 'in trade' but I'll be thinking carefully about whether I keep putting stuff on Trademe and look for other avenues. Once there was a time that TM just couldn't be toppled, and others did try, but I reckon if someone had a go now with a similar site, TM would be firmly in a lot of people's rear view mirror. Mine included. The loyalty has gone, the care has gone, the passion has gone. And I'll be gone if another viable option presents itself. Trademe take note. DO NOT assume you still have the loyalty of TM users of years ago. Rethink this ridiculous decision. Not everyone has cards, and not everyone can afford all your fees. Stop counting the folding stuff and think about the far-reach consequences for TM users!!!!

speedspy2900 my thoughts exactly, they're opening to door for a competitor and watch both buyers and sellers rush through it. 

"How about TM look at a buyers history. If they've proven themselves trustworthy, then they get to use Internet Banking as a payment option"

How about Trade Me stay out of how people wish to pay one another full stop.

And stop clipping the ticket on third party postage arrangements.

We've removed all listings in favour of promoting our website's webstore. TM was hardly moving anything for us over the last year or more anyway so no loss.

This discussion was done to death months ago. No point in covering old ground now.

Doing it to death months ago obviously didn't work, so we'll do it again very much. I think it was instrumental in TM issuing a very complex survey and I hope they take heed of the suggestions. 

Edited in line with Community guidelines 

harm_less Same here. Only logged in this evening because I got an alert about fresh posts on this thread. I have been concentrating on other avenues. I have even found my personal TMe account see less traffic in the last six month's. They have just pushed the cooperate greed a bit too far imho.

@flash2004, Who got the survey then? Show of hands folks, cos I didn't.

Oops....I said buyer....should have said 'seller'.......one of the best features for me is the feedback, not from the buyer, but from the seller. People show you who they are.....when they do, believe them. I read how a seller responds to a buyers feedback....that tells me more about them than any number of stars! Even if you have Ping, you behave like a  and I won't deal with you. 

Trademe please.....reconsider.....then reconsider again....then...think again.....and put the Internet Banking option back!

Edited in line with Community guidelines

No email

no warning

no survey

From what I've seen plenty of sellers are blatantly stating in their listing to not pay via Ping and how to move on from there.

Not aware of a survey.

Given the disrespect shown traders by TradeMe, I hope this thread keeps going forever. 
Only today did I learn the insistence on denoting who was in-trade had nothing to do with any pressure from Govt else Marketplace would be forced into the same thing - they don't. 
I want rehash the massive disadvantages and zero advantages of saying we are in-trade but it's clear, to me at least, it had nothing to do with customer service or protection but was designed to segment accounts into those they could pressure and those they could not. 

Survey - nothing here. 

Payment - yes, people are circumventing Ping, do you blame them? They are circumventing postage too which saves them probably around $2 on the average item. Multiply Ping savings and postage savings on say 100 items a week and you're into some pretty big amounts which for many would be the difference between staying profitable or working for not much at all. Ironically after years of people not commenting, the last couple of months saw three people ask why postage is so high and why don't I send it via (insert some courier I don't want to deal with here). 

Its solely to increase their skim of our cash in my opinion