eBay Auto-Pay On Auctions Prevents Sending Cards To eBay Vault

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


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eBay's attempt to address unpaid items with immediate payment for auctions and offers has unintended consequences, preventing buyers from submitting eligible trading cards to the eBay Vault.

The option to send a card directly to the eBay Vault is typically shown to the buyer in the checkout process if the card meets the minimum price and other criteria to qualify for the service.

Auction listings may have a starting price under the minimum, but if they end up selling for $250 and meet all other criteria, they should qualify as well, according to the Vault terms and conditions.

Buyers report previously in that situation, they were able to select Ship To Vault during the checkout process after winning the auction.

However,with auto-pay required, the payment and shipping information has to be entered before placing a bid and shipping to the Vault is not an option.

No Longer Able to Submit Eligible Purchases to eBay Vault
Now that essentially all auctions are set to auto-pay, it it impossible to click the submit to eBay Vault option at checkout. Is there a workaround or an address I can use to have eligible purchases go directly to the eBay vault? As a NYC resident, I pay a ~9% sales tax + a 13% selling fee to eBay…

Now that essentially all auctions are set to auto-pay, it it impossible to click the submit to eBay Vault option at checkout. Is there a workaround or an address I can use to have eligible purchases go directly to the eBay vault?

As a NYC resident, I pay a ~9% sales tax + a 13% selling fee to eBay when items don't go the Vault. If this does not get resolved, I think my experiment of trying to be a part-time baseball card dealer is over. eBay Vault was the only way I was able to make this business somewhat feasible as a NYC resident.

Several experienced eBay community members suggested the buyer could ask the seller to turn off the auto-payment required setting, but eBay doesn't make it obvious which sellers require immediate payment on auctions and some sellers may not even realize they have it turned on since eBay automatically opted all sellers in.

You can ask the sellers to turn off the auto-pay requirement for auctions in their buyer requirements page.

Many sellers aren't aware that this is automatically set to "on" as the default, so they need to turn it off if they don't want it. However, some sellers may not be willing to do that, if they are afraid of non-paying bidders.

I think you would have to remove your approved payment method from your eBay account first. then place a bid and see if you are asked to provide an automatic payment method before it will accept the bid. You might have to keep removing it after each purchase, so keep checking if you decide to do this.

That's a long and convoluted process and many buyers may simply choose not to bid at all rather than try to find a workaround.

The eBay Vault launched in June 2022, but has seen slow adoption due to lack of transparency on eventual fees and problems with the supposedly "professional" listing service not listing items correctly.

eBay Vault Problems - Incorrect Title & Missing Info Hurts Resale Value
The eBay Vault is supposed to include professional photo & listing services - are they living up to the promise?

Earlier this year, eBay expanded eligibility for the Vault to include direct submissions, but not integrating Vault submission into the auto-pay functionality is a short sighted step backward that is sure to reduce adoption even more.

Has auto-pay required for auctions prevented you from shipping trading cards to the eBay Vault? Let us know in the comments below!

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Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.


Recent Comments
Avatar Placeholderterry553 hours ago
Sales down 40% from last year, this is gonna be a small business killer
Avatar PlaceholderJaeLynnYesterday
I've had this happen a few times, and it confused me. One seller alleged that they had to use Amazon's services to make sure I got my item in time. I recently bought something simple, and the seller made a mistake. They'd sent me 3 different messages, one of them too early, telling me they hoped my item arrived in perfect condition. The next day, the item was marked as shipped, and I got an official Ebay shipping email. The seller was using direct messages to give me item updates. If I wanted Amazon, I'd have used them myself! lol
Avatar PlaceholderlessthanthreerecordsYesterday
Happening to me too. On my active listings page (with the full list) it looks fine, but when I click on them, many have the random characters. I reported it, and that's when one glitch led to another! As I was typing the message after clicking the "?", letters were repeatedly not coming up (usually one or two at the end of a word). I was finally able to get the message entered, but how tedious!