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The Almighty Buck Businesses

eBay Is Dumping PayPal For Dutch Rival Adyen (cnn.com) 143

schwit1 shares a report from CNN: EBay, one of the world's biggest online marketplaces, announced Wednesday that it's dropping PayPal as its main partner for processing payments in favor of Dutch company Adyen. In 2002, eBay paid $1.5 billion to buy PayPal, an online payments company whose founders include Silicon Valley heavyweights Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. It proved to be a very successful investment. When eBay spun off PayPal in 2015 -- something investors and analysts had urged it to do -- the payments company's market value was close to $50 billion. It's now above $100 billion. Based in Amsterdam, Adyen already works with other big tech companies including Uber and Netflix. It says it handles more than 200 different payment methods and over 150 currencies. The shift will start gradually in North America later this year and eBay expects most marketplace customers around the world to be using the new system in 2021.
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eBay Is Dumping PayPal For Dutch Rival Adyen

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  • errrr no (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01, 2018 @06:02PM (#56051135)

    I'd want to switch to some payment service I've never heard of and don't trust...... why?

    • Re:errrr no (Score:5, Informative)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Thursday February 01, 2018 @06:19PM (#56051243) Journal
      AC the "why" is in the payments from gift cards, other payment systems.
      Why accept CC when lots of people may want or can only use a gift card. The ability to work with a network of gift cards globally open up the gift card, bank payments, e-commerce payment systems and the CC market.
      More nations, more banks, more gift cards, new payment systems.
    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by beelsebob ( 529313 )

      The why is simple - the flow for paying with PayPal is terrible. It involves logging in multiple times to multiple different services, being bounced off eBays web page, to pay pal's web page, all kinds of crazy shit going on. This lets ebay just have a sane payments form like every other eCommerce site ever.

      • What’s so terrible about paying with PayPal compared to any other method that doesn’t involve trusting the merchant enough to receive your credit card details?
        • Atrocious customer service? Paypal is great until it isn't - and when it isn't, it's an absolute abomination - it's far, far too hard to do things like remove an old card from your account, or unlock a card after they've decided it's 'locked' or any number of other things. I've never used them to collect money for me, but I'm told it's a risky business with them randomly freezing accounts and whatnot with little option to appeal or even work with them to solve the issue at hand.

          As for 'trusting the merchan

          • Yeah, I've heard the horror stories, especially from merchants getting locked out of their funds. By all accounts their support is terrible. But the service is pretty convenient for making quick payments. It's increasingly being accepted here my online merchants, and I frequently use it to order out for food or buy stuff online. It beats looking up and entering my CC details, or even using the ubiquitous direct debit system all banks here use for online payments (iDeal).
      • Re:errrr no (Score:5, Insightful)

        by I'm New Around Here ( 1154723 ) on Thursday February 01, 2018 @06:58PM (#56051549)

        I buy stuff on eBay. I click on the button to pay. I get a page that has my information on it. I either click pay, or choose which card/account I want to use for that item, and then click pay.

        It is no harder than any other site with a shopping cart.

        • Re:errrr no (Score:5, Insightful)

          by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Thursday February 01, 2018 @11:43PM (#56052861)

          The horror stories surrounding paypal are legion (search for Paypal warning - there could be some old slashdot posts around too). I still hold my breath when doing a transaction with them. They found ways to hold up sellers' money countless times and it would often just disappear. I even felt guilty using Paypal just knowing their sordid past.

          This is a smart move by ebay and you can bet there are boatloads of people who are ready to jump ship.

          There really seems to be a lot of karma in this, and don't forget that everyone's hero Elon Musk made his money from "horrible" Paypal.

        • Then try it if you don't want to have a paypal account.
          Recently i bought something off a site that only had paypal as paying option, i no longer have an account (nor do i wish to).
          However, the link i got only let me pay if i'd create an account... after realizing there was this "sign-up" mention in the url, i tried removing that part/replacing it with something obvious, and only then i could just pay with my CC without first having to create an account.
          Not sure why/how often that shit happens, but when payp

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Well, to be clear, I do have a Paypal account, just for buying or selling stuff on Ebay. I don't think I've used it for anything else. Had it before they merged, consolidated when they merged, and haven't noticed any change since they split. As I said, I buy something, click the payment button, and click once or twice to finalize it with my Paypal account, usually pulling money from my bank account or debit card.

            I don't keep money in Paypal. When I sell items, usually Magic the Gathering cards, once the sal

        • Oh you buy stuff. No wonder you're okay with Paypal. It's just not as fun if you get paid, or refund something, or collect donations, or have your account frozen because it is March and the moon is currently in Pisces indicating bad Paypal luck for all Capricorns this month.

      • The why is simple - the flow for paying with PayPal is terrible. It involves logging in multiple times to multiple different services, being bounced off eBays web page, to pay pal's web page, all kinds of crazy shit going on. This lets ebay just have a sane payments form like every other eCommerce site ever.

        The "crazy" flow is the whole point.

        Instead of trusting every retailer on the internet with your "secret numbers" (plus the super secret number on the back of the card! lol), you just bounce to PayPal, and log in there with your - wait for it - PayPal secrets, on PayPal's own site. Then bounce back to the retailer to complete the transaction.

        All you've authorized is the one transaction you are doing right now, and the retailer never gets your secrets that would allow them to charge your account anytime th

        • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          Yes the very notion of a credit card is pretty ridiculous, it's a pull method of payment instead of push, and its the reason why cards are not accepted or issued in many parts of the world with high crime rates.

          But then why do you need the paypal middleman? The merchant could simply supply you with their (Receive-only) bank account number, and you can transfer directly from your own bank. The only reason services like paypal exist are because bank transfers are typically stupidly overpriced, often far too s

          • This is basically how Apple Pay works and how credit cards with chips work for in-person payments. The merchant provides the amount and the recipient. The card (or iOS device) provides an HMAC that authorises this single payment. The code is sent to the bank, who then authorises the transaction. I believe that Google Pay works the same way since the rewrite (though Apple's version stores the keys in memory that is readable only by the secure element and does the EMV handshake on the secure element, wher
          • The only reason services like paypal exist are because bank transfers are typically stupidly overpriced, often far too slow and the banks tend to make them too convoluted to perform.

            Yes, in North America (and maybe some other parts of the world, I don't know). In Europe, bank transfers are easy, and in fact, a lot of commerce is done this way...the merchant gives you the bank account number and you pay into it. Merchant doesn't have any of your data (except your name and address, which you fill in when you do the bank transfer - but you could fake that with pretty much no consequence).

            Granted, it's not instant like a credit card, it usually takes a day or two for the money to show up o

        • Only if Paypal transferred you payment less commission to the vendor on time. Not 60 days later. When we used Paypal years ago, we had to deposit an amount above the selling price. The payment was made with the remainder on deposit for the subsequent purchase. That meant that they had that amount on deposit. We could not determine how to retrieve that overpayment. I don't know if that is still the case. It was about $10 dollars.

      • you could fix that with a bit of low-fi tech. And besides, I pay with Paypal periodically (I also Sell Sea Shells on the Sea Shore, but I digress) and while it might be ugly tech it works and it's not hard for the user.
      • I don't understand your experience.

        When I buy something on eBay or anywere else using Paypal, I just click 'buy with Paypal'. I log in once, click 'confirm payment' or whatever it's called, and then it takes me back to the shopping page.

        Seems pretty easy to me. Used it for at least three dozen transactions in the past year.

    • I'd want to switch to some payment service I've never heard of and don't trust...... why?

      Everything at some point in your life is something you've never heard of, including Paypal.

      Now the real question is do you want to research, learn about and subsequently trust a large company headquartered in a state with strict banking laws, that offers multiple banking services including credit cards, debit cards, and online payments, and is subject to some pretty sane laws....

      or... do you stick with Paypal, a US company for all intents and purposes except for legal intents and purposes where it instead d

    • by Pascoea ( 968200 )
      Wait a sec. I though we were supposed to hate on Paypal around here. I am on Slashdot, right?
  • I'm just guessing here, but E-Bay will have a hard time flushing PayPal any time soon. I'm pretty sure PayPal and their customers from E-Bay will have something to say about this.

    • by nwf ( 25607 )

      I'm a customer, and I hate PayPal. It's worthless. Any idiot can accept credit and debit cards directly for lower fees than PayPal. With Square Cash and Apple Pay Cash, there's no reason to use PayPal to send people cash. Their policies are anti-consumer and they randomly take people's money citing some policy you are violating.

      I verified my account by linking it to a savings account, which I then closed. Good luck taking my money. Even better luck when I can completely cancel my account and pay for stuff l

  • Good news (Score:5, Informative)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday February 01, 2018 @06:09PM (#56051187) Homepage Journal

    PayPal is just awful. High fees, crap service, tax dodging and the dispute resolution is a joke.

    These new guys can't be any worse.... Can they?

    • by mark-t ( 151149 )
      "Better the devil you know....." springs to mind immediately.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        No one really knows PayPal. Their ToS are some of the longest and most unreadable in the world, and change often.

    • Re:Good news (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Thursday February 01, 2018 @06:49PM (#56051451)

      I've never had an issue with PayPal's service... The fees are a bit higher than simple credit card processors, but not that bad considering you don't have to do any of the setup work to take credit cards with PayPal. Sure, if you are a retailer processing lots of credit card purchases you'd be better of with somebody else, but if you do one or two transactions now and then, PayPal is fine.

      I find the dispute resolution part of PayPal works just fine, but you have to follow the process for shipping and insurance and demand the other party does too.

      I do probably 10-20 transactions a year, both buying and selling on E-Bay and other places using PayPal and I've never had an issue with PayPal as a service, though I've had issues with buyers and sellers who where trying to use PayPal and didn't know what they where doing.

      I haven't a clue what you mean by Tax Dodging....

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        For example, a common issue with dispute resolution is return postage. PayPal makes it difficult to give a greater than 100% refund, as legally required when the product is faulty.

        Another issue is that you can only ever open one dispute per transaction. So say the item is broken, they send you a new one and the dispute is automatically closed by the tracking number saying you have it. If breaks too or is fake or has any issue at all you can't start a new dispute. Thus the only option is to always request a

        • by mysidia ( 191772 )

          For example, a common issue with dispute resolution is return postage. PayPal makes it difficult to give a greater than 100% refund, as legally required when the product is faulty.

          Well, returning 100% is a full refund. "Give a refund greater than 100%" is nonsensical.

          The warranty policy regarding return postage by most manufacturers and online retailers is -- customer is responsible for all postage in both directions for returns and exchanges. In rare cases, a retailer will offer the customer a p

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            In Europe the principal is that the buyer should not be out of pocket if the item is faulty, therefore the seller pays return postage. In practice on cheap items the seller usually says throw it away.

        • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          They place far too much reliance on the tracking information too...
          If the tracking says "delivered" then they won't ever refund you. I've had a package where the tracking said it was delivered but i had no trace of it, and noone had ever come to my door on the stated days (based on cctv evidence as well as being physically home at the time).

          Turns out the guy tried to deliver it to the house next door, which at the time was empty. I only found out about it several months later when someone moved in and notic

      • I've never had an issue with PayPal's service...

        I have. Heck at one point my bank specifically refused to work with Paypal because of their legal skirting of banking laws. When paying for a product it works well, just don't ever use it to receive money. It has varied between not transferring my money into my bank, to sitting on my funds for 3 months for no reason when I raised an ebay dispute for an item that never arrived from a dodgy seller that suddenly accumulated a lot of negative feedback.

        The irony of that not going well is that they are widely kno

    • by LubosD ( 909058 )

      Yes, they could. I once received some money into my account at AlertPay. I didn't need the money at that time, so I left them there.

      I came looking for them later and the account was empty. I learned that they introduced a new provision in their TOS that says "if you don't access your money for some time, we'll take all of them away". So I ended up with zilch.

      So yes, it could always get worse.

  • by dohzer ( 867770 )

    Wait... so eBay owns PayPal, but is going to stop using it? Huh?

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01, 2018 @06:30PM (#56051321)

      eBay and PayPal separated about 3 years ago. They are completely unrelated companies now. The only business between them was a (public) 5-year operating agreement to keep Paypal as the primary option. That expires June of 2020. The agreement allows a small percentage of transactions to be processed outside Paypal in 2018 and 2019 (obviously to allow time for development of an alternative).

      Source: eBay employee, but not of privileged information. The above was all made public during the public earnings call this week.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Comments like this are what happens when people don't even RTFS, let alone RTFA.

    • I know who didn't read the summary.
  • by Parker Lewis ( 999165 ) on Thursday February 01, 2018 @06:29PM (#56051315)
    Then eBay will buy Adyen for $1.5 billion and sell it later for $50 billion.
    • And eBay will buy both.

      • And eBay will buy both.

        Will they pay using PayPal or Ayden?

        I've had no problem with PayPal, EXCEPT when they demanded access to my bank account because I'd successfully bought more then $10,000 of stuff through them. They actually told me that because I'd bought that much stuff and paid for it on-time and without issues using a credit card, I must prove my credit worthiness to them by giving them direct access to my bank account, which they must prove works by actually charging me something.

        Fortunately I had an old almost unuse

        • Just don't use Bitcoin (BTC).

          I read where they are embedding microphones and video cameras into each coin and stuff.

          It makes sense, you know.

          Bitcoin is digital, audio and video is digital, computers and even eBay is digital, so yeah.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Why not use both and give users a choice? A big reason the ebay/paypal sucks so hard is that you have no choices. You used to be able to do personal checks and money orders (not that I'm saying we should go back to that, but it was a lot cheaper and simpler most of the time for small time buyers and sellers). I would love to see ebay offer both choices to buys and sellers rather than just repeating the same mistake with a different partner.

  • by muphin ( 842524 ) on Thursday February 01, 2018 @06:32PM (#56051341) Homepage
    Ironically, they accept paypal too :p - https://www.adyen.com/pricing/... [adyen.com]
    • now you know why...

    • Ironically, they accept paypal too :p - https://www.adyen.com/pricing/... [adyen.com]

      Good - I hate trusting random sites with my payment details.

    • by Trogre ( 513942 )

      So they're a payment aggregator, yes?

    • Ironically, they accept paypal too :p - https://www.adyen.com/pricing/... [adyen.com]

      Nothing ironic about it. Adyen is attempting to be a universal money movement service. Paypal is Paypal and you're blessed if it works with your bank, or you may as well get a credit card.

  • PayPal was the primary reason I didn't use eBay for over 15 years. As well as all the other reasons.
  • they own PayPal, don't they? What possible benefit could this have?
    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Thursday February 01, 2018 @06:58PM (#56051541)

      Have you tried reading the summary? It has interesting information.

      • I read the article too. All it says is Ebay split the company off at the behest of their shareholders. That doesn't preclude them from using them as a payment service. Maybe I'm just being dense (I'm pretty tired) but I still haven't heard an definitive 'why'.
        • by mentil ( 1748130 )

          I recall hearing rumors of antitrust investigations into eBay requiring the usage of PayPal. I imagine it had a lot to do with that.

        • Maybe I'm just being dense (I'm pretty tired) but I still haven't heard an definitive 'why'.

          What can you do with Paypal? Receive money from credit cards or a few banks which partner with them.
          What can you do with Adyen? Receive money from basically anything and anywhere including many esoteric local payment methods in many countries.

          This may come as a shock to Americans but in much of Europe credit cards are something of an oddity.

  • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Thursday February 01, 2018 @07:23PM (#56051729)

    Does this new company do any of the scumbag things PayPal is able to get away with but that banks generally can't legally do? Like freezing your account or taking money out of it for no reason?

  • by davecb ( 6526 ) <davecb@spamcop.net> on Thursday February 01, 2018 @07:33PM (#56051799) Homepage Journal
    North American companies used to quote my customers about 3%. EU ones quoted andout 1/2%, but wouldn't or couldn't do business in the US and Canada.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Good thing ebay listened to all those genius analysts back in 2015 when they told them to spin off paypal for $50B. If they hadn't listened, and kept hold of paypal instead they'd be able to spin it off today for $100B. Who would ever have wanted to double the value of something you're holding over a 3 year timespan? /sarcasm
    • by j-beda ( 85386 )

      Good thing ebay listened to all those genius analysts back in 2015 when they told them to spin off paypal for $50B. If they hadn't listened, and kept hold of paypal instead they'd be able to spin it off today for $100B. Who would ever have wanted to double the value of something you're holding over a 3 year timespan? /sarcasm

      But would it have sold for $100B if it had spent the last 3 years as a division of eBay? It is hard to say. The market might have only valued it at $50B.

      Did eBay sell all of their stock 3 years ago? Maybe they retained a large fraction of that stock which has now doubled in value.

    • Good thing ebay listened to all those genius analysts back in 2015 when they told them to spin off paypal for $50B. If they hadn't listened, and kept hold of paypal instead they'd be able to spin it off today for $100B. Who would ever have wanted to double the value of something you're holding over a 3 year timespan? /sarcasm

      Those analysts knew eBay wouldn't be able to get a hundred bil for Paypal - they don't even use blockchain!

  • Not many places use it, but it's good and convenient and secure. And this is not a platform war from me - if Android has similar then that too please.

    Would much rather go to a ubiquitous payment method everywhere than "I pay this way online, that way in person" etc.
  • PayPay is not the problem. eBay's fees are obscenely high and complicated, while Paypal's are only mildly usurious.
  • ....stick with Paypal thanks. It's never been a problem.
  • My email from eBay on this does not say they are "dumping" PayPal. They have signed an agreement with Adyen and will continue to offer PayPal as an option:

    "We have signed an agreement with Adyen, a leading global payments processor, to become our primary payments processing partner. PayPal, a long-time eBay partner, will be a payments option at checkout for eBay buyers."

  • I'm Canadian and i used to use ebay quite regularly somewhere around 10 years ago.. At some point - it became glaringly obvious that nothing on ebay was worth it anymore. I could buy 99% of what I searched for cheaper on Amazon or other e-commerce sites - brand new to boot. So I'm always blown away when i occasionally check the site for hard to find products and still find them because the realization hits me... People are still using ebay. Blows my mind. Maybee it's different in the states.. But in Canada
  • Ebay sucks anyway. The site has become a cesspool of scammers looking to buy something at a smokin' deal and then resell it for a few dollars more. Pro tip: never try to sell something that can be bought new.

Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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