Why was bank deposit option removed
May I understand the reasoning behind not taking banks as an option to transfer funds in to the website, this is making it extremely difficult for us to convince clients from outside PeoplePerHour to start using PPH for payments and given the fact that the cost of other methods of payment are extremely expensive its becoming really hard to take on the cut from our little income too. While I understand that regulations require you to not accept funds for any other purpose than for jobs, why is it that the bank deposit option was taken away.
Companies like transferwise also allow money to be moved at very minimal costs between countries and initiall you were encouraging them too, adding such payment methods will make it feasible for us to bring more business on here.
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Official comment
Hi to you both,
As detailed in our blogs and emails, we are now unable to hold funds in accounts due to a change in UK Legislation as part of the Brexit renegotiation and, therefore we can no longer accept money transfer to an account that isn't into an escrow deposit.
I hope this makes sense.
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I have asked this question several times but the stereotyped support responses refer vaguely to 'changes in legislation' without providing any specific detail.
I have never heard of any legislation which dictates the method whereby a buyer may pay a seller.
If the absence of a clear response, one can only speculate.
I believe that the issue arose due to legislation changes relating to the use of credit cards.
Although there was a FREE bank-transfer option for payment, PPH were making a tidy profit from credit card users because they were 'passing on' payment processing charges but, in the passing-on, these charges increased from around 3% to 10% + 60p.
For a long time, there has been proposed legislation which would allow sellers to change 'no more' for credit card use than they would for direct payment.
In the absence of clarification form PPH, I believe that they responded to this by simply dropping the bank-transfer alternative - so everybody now pays by credit card and is not charged extra for so doing.
As I now understand it, the new legislation actually prohibits any charge for the use of credit cards so PPH Terms & Conditions recently renamed 'Payment Processing Charges' to 'Buyer Charges', despite the fact that the User Guide still states that there are no buyer charges for the basic service.This raises a few legal questions which I have covered in a separate post
https://support.peopleperhour.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360001127808-Legal-Positions
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Kelly
Perhaps I am being a bit thick but I don't see how the inability to hold client funds for an excessive period has any bearing on the payment method.
If you can't hold funds, you can't hold them irrespective of how those funds were transferred.
If you are so sure that there is legislation which dictates the payment method, why has nobody at PPH been able to provide details, despite numerous requests?
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I think PeoplePerHour needs to be an open organisation if you want to be a dominant force in the economy of the next generation decisions cannot be taken so unilaterally, I am worried that after investing so many years in this platform, due to a few irrational decisions made along the way, we have to restart all our efforts in a new platform. Please provide true and fair information to everyone, it is the order of the day, if you hide behind complex T&Cs all the time, market forces will find its way out.
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Agile is right.
There are dozens of complaints on this community with many people stating that they won't use PPH again.
But the PPH support people continue to churn-out meaningless responses and failing to recognise the urgency of their situation.
I was gobsmacked to learn (above) that the withdrawal of payment by bank transfer was something to,do with Brexit negotiations which, one would presume, won't result in legislation changes until concluded.
Next, we will be hearing that these changes were due to ISIS, Climate Change, the Devil or those nasty Russians who have been feeding innocent PPH support people with nerve agents.I have already noticed a severe drop-off in jobs relevant to my skills and am also beginning to wonder if there is any future for PPH.
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Losing the bank transfer payment option is a serious problem, and I am also amazed to find that it is apparently part of "Brexit negotiations". I think it much more likely that PPH didn't want to remove the charge on credit card payments that the actual real legislation would prohibit.
PPH are pushing away the better commercial buyers by preventing them from being able to pay by one of the most commonly used methods. I'm finding that the quality of projects on offer now through PPH is very poor indeed. For example, yesterday lunchtime I received two emails asking me to bid on projects. From the subject line they looked promising but once I logged in there was a $40 project that was effectively for somebody's hobby and another for £10 where I didn't even finish reading the description.
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Simon
Once again, you make some very good points.
With all of the PPH hassles, high charges and chasing for payment, it just isn't worth bidding on very small jobs.Also, the substantial commercial buyers are simply not geared-up to pay by credit card, to make advanced payments or to settle invoices within 7 days.
While those sort of arrangements might be suitable for buyers with no 'track record' , these only work for all buyers in the PPH 'alternate reality'.
In the real world, we have to accommodate the needs of the client and they are likely to go elsewhere if we do not.Also, in the real world, buyers get an invoice which shows the total charge.
Just this week, I had a buyer's Account Department asking me to re-issue an invoice because the sum demanded had been 10% higher than the original invoice.
I daresay that they will find an invoice for the extra charge if they dig around in the PPH website, but why should they have to?
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