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eBay's Plan to Force PayPal Rejected Down Under
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:13 AM
from the monopoly-schmonopoly dept.
from the monopoly-schmonopoly dept.
Jm_aus writes "eBay's plan to force all users to use PayPal only has been rejected by Australia's competition regulator, the ACCC. This followed 650 submissions from eBay users as well as from Australian banks, other payment services, the Australian Reserve Bank, and (anonymously) Google, which aired a lot of dirty laundry about PayPal's unresponsiveness and failure to sign up to the local banking code of conduct. Apparently the public benefits from eBay's 'Bad Buyer Experience' elimination program are likely to be 'minimal.' There is a period for appeals."
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Technology: Aussie Reserve Bank Eyeing eBay's PayPal Policy 63 comments
Bulldust writes "Regular readers will recollect the recent story that eBay is forcing Australian users over to PayPal or COD as the only forms of payment in June 2008: eBay Australia Makes PayPal Mandatory. It now appears that the Australian Reserve Bank will consider throwing its weight behind users, should the eBay policy be deemed to breach trade practice and competition laws."
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Right, because PayPal's better... (Score:5, Interesting)
As a buyer, I really want to use my credit card directly. PayPal, last time I used it, only covered a $200 return or so. I went straight through to my credit card company (which is linked to my PayPal account) and did a chargeback through them. PayPal sent me a nastigram saying if you keep that up, we'll cut you off.
Yeah, thanks but no thanks EBay.
You're in luck mate! (Score:5, Funny)
Just fill out the form at gday.ebay.mate/safecredit.asp and we'll get you started faster than a kangaroo can steal your vegemite sandwich.
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Re:Right, because PayPal's better... (Score:5, Informative)
I started a petition to get the law changed: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/3partyccs/ [pm.gov.uk]
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Re:Right, because PayPal's better... (Score:5, Interesting)
I did my homework, and that's why they have my credit card on the back end (which, thankfully, can tell them to get stuffed). You're right about linking to any account that keeps cash on hand in it. PayPal also has a long history of locking cash in its customer accounts. Really, they're just terrible to everybody involved. I don't believe I've bought anything with my account since that time.
From a seller's point of view: The EBay style of charging the seller commission, then charging the seller a percentage of PayPal too kinda gets me. Sure, they're treating them like the separate company they used to be, but come on. I suppose you get what you get for having something less than a true credit card merchant account (which costs).
As an aside rant, I'm sad that nobody does a cash discount anymore. I'd happily pay you on a 2% reduction to save you the 3% or whatever my CC company charges. Well, really to save myself 2%, but you'd profit as a vendor!
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Re:Right, because PayPal's better... (Score:5, Informative)
It's even disallowed to require the transaction to be over a certain value to accept payment via credit cards.
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Re:Right, because PayPal's better... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Right, because PayPal's better... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's against the terms of the merchant agreement to require a lower limit.
What you might be thinking of is the similar "Minimum $3 charge if using credit card". Your quote implies that if you buy a $1 item, you can't pay by credit card. My quote says if you want to buy a $1 item, you will be charged $3 for it instead if you use a credit card.
It's a very subtle thing - it implies a cash discount (buy item for $1 via cash, or $3 via credit card), but it also isn't (if you buy 3 $1 items, it's $3).
What I want to know is if merchant accounts don't allow cash discounts, why don't they go after the tons of people who advertise prices, then say "price is after 3% cash discount"?
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Re:Right, because PayPal's better... (Score:4, Interesting)
In response to the Anonymous Coward, they are allowed to give cash discounts, but it has to be clearly stated to the customer before hand. A couple of the local computer stores here do this, but they have labels all over the store saying "All prices are 2% cash or debit discounted"
Source:
For the US (I'm in Canada, but I can't find the doc on visa.ca). See Page 9/10:
http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/card_acceptance_guide.pdf [visa.com]
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Re:Right, because PayPal's better... (Score:5, Insightful)
To give an example of their total fee structure: after selling a small item for $30, you're only going to see around $24.50 for it after fees, and then you still have to pay to ship it.
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Re:Right, because PayPal's better... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's also the fact that there are services equivalent to PayPal that charge 1.5%+$0.30, so its service simply can't compete on value. That's precisely why eBay are now choosing to force sellers to offer it - in order to prevent them from using more economical options.
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Re:Right, because PayPal's better... (Score:4, Informative)
Really I don't object to them charging a percentage on transactions - it's still cheaper than a full merchant account. What I very much do object to is them charging twice what Google Checkout does for an equivalent transaction. What I object to even more is being forced as a seller to use PayPal - incidentally does anyone know who in the UK I should make a complaint about this to? It reeks of anticompetitive behaviour, as the Australians have realised.
eBay actually has Google Checkout listed as 'Not permitted' on their Accepted Payments [ebay.co.uk] page, and anyone who has ever tried to email eBay's support team to question this will know how hard it is to get an answer (they normally just spout irrelevant canned responses until you give up) but I did finally get an email from eBay explaining that I am allowed to use it but that I must offer it alongside PayPal and outside of the eBay checkout process.
I won't even go into PayPal's dubious dispute processes and lack of safeguards - they are well documented elsewhere, but again the argument of "don't use them" is rendered moot by eBay's policies.
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Can somebody explain? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can somebody explain? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Can somebody explain? (Score:5, Informative)
2. The french have actually charged eBay with both on a number of occasions.
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Re:Can somebody explain? (Score:5, Informative)
Because PayPal is not a bank. It doesn't offer loans, it doesn't pay interest, it doesn't have a required holdings (no loans = 100% cash on hand), etc, etc.
PayPal is as much of a bank as Chuck E. Cheese is a bank for handing out those game tokens and tickets. It's just a convenient way for you to give money to eBay before you spend it on an actual good (the appeal of which I have yet to understand.)
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And furthermore... (Score:5, Funny)
*ahem*
"Like fuck you will"
That was an extract from the actual brief, word for word, honest
Paypal sucks blah blah (Score:3, Interesting)
And the only way to be able to do that is to sign up for an account where they take a percentage of all of my transactions.
How does that commercial go? "It's my money and I want it now!"
But seriously, I'm tired of paypal, I just wish it would go the way of the dinosaurs because it's such a frustrating site to use to transfer funds.
What about those of us who SUED PAYPAL and WON (Score:5, Informative)
They still sided with him. However, I knew this was a possibility and I moved the money out of paypal, and blocked them from charging me back through my bank who happily sided with me.
About 6 months later I joined the lawsuit, and provided all of the evidence to them for exhibits. If you didn't know we won... and won big. Not happy with the default settlement offering I filed for the full settlement and received my check a few months later. I framed it... and I will NEVER do business with Paypal again.
I don't care if Ebay bought them. They do not follow banking guidelines, they consistently have proven themselves untrustworthy and generally don't abide by the law OR their own policies.
If Ebay goes to Paypal only, I think they'll soon realize the size of the mistake they will make when other auction sites blow past them at 90mph!
Ebay is Dead to Me, Paypal is Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, I never liked Paypal. As far as I could tell its sole purpose was to make it easier for sellers to scam buyers, since the only protection given to buyers is something on the order of $100. I know some people who bought Apple laptops on eBay, never received them, but were unable to get all of their ~$2000 back. If it happened to me, I'd do what another poster said today and stop the payment to Paypal from my credit card, but if it were me I wouldn't have made the purchase in the first place.
Verfied Accounts (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Verfied Accounts (Score:4, Interesting)
Once you add bank to an existing account, it opts to directly withdraw from the bank rather than credit card, you CAN'T make the credit card default.
In Australia, this means I get charged bank fees for using my regular bank account, (maximum 5 transactions a month free, than small but annoying fees)
The credit card obviously has no fees - they are happy with the interest you pay as a dipshit consumer in debt (which I'm not)
Paypal have done this so that people can't do ccard chargebacks as easily.
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Paypal tried to steal $1200 from my wife (Score:5, Informative)
The previous time I posted this on
In fairness to Paypal, our experience was shortly after it was purchased by EBay, so probably EBay cleaned it up some since then.
Never been burnt, yet *knock on Woody Allen* (Score:4, Interesting)
I moved back in 2003. That prompted me to move to a new bank as well. I was fortunate enough to have put my old bank account into Paypal when I verified my account. When I moved I sure as hell didn't update the info. It remained that way until this Spring when I accidentally forgot to change the payment method from PayPal's default of a bank account to a CC. They realized that my account was closed at that time and unverified my PP account. I had to give them my new bank account info. I hated to do it but I had to complete the purchase. I'm seriously considering signing up for a new account somewhere, using it for 6 months and then closing it just so I can get back to the way it was.
It's amazing that I've never actually gotten burnt considering how much I've used PP. The vast majority of the equipment I buy is networking gear. I'm pretty careful who I buy from. If I have any feeling that it's not a good seller I move on. I won't buy from anyone on the West coast (too much counterfeit Cisco hardware comes from China into the West coast). I'll even read all the seller's reviews and go back through their past auctions and the buyers to see if it looks legit. I guess being careful pays off. I'm definitely not a PP or eBay shill. I lost a fair bit of money in eBay stock and I think the wannabe bank PayPal should rot in litigation hell, but I never have been burnt.
So, what is the alternative? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe an alternative to eBay is needed. Amazon is okay for books and music, but what about other stuff? eBay actually seems like quite a good way to sell some stuff, if it just wasn't for PayPal.
Re:elimination program? (Score:5, Interesting)
If my personal experience is any indication, it's the process whereby upon reporting being victimised by an eBay "power seller" eBay threatens to find you guilty of being a "bad buyer" and threatens to place sanctions on your eBay and Paypal accounts unless you pay up. The workaround I found was to change all my eBay user info to the crooked seller's email address and a fictitious physical address and I canceled my paypal account.
It probably helped that I did this within an hour of eBay finding in favor of the dishonest seller (item was a Chinese counterfeit and did not function properly, also they attempted to charge for two items when I only bought one item). This was about three months ago, I've not heard anything about the matter since. Obviously, eBay lost me as a customer.
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