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eBay Australia Makes PayPal Mandatory
An anonymous reader writes "Australian press are reporting that eBay is using Australia as a guinea pig to trial a new policy where all other modes of payment are barred except for PayPal. If successful, eBay will roll it out to other markets."
Well, I guess its definitely time to look for an alternative, and pull my highly rated account from ebay :(
I refuse to use paypal due to having bad experiences with it in the past.
In Australia i'd say paypal for paying for ebay auctions is hardly use AT ALL since in Australia its far easier and quicker and cheaper to pay using direct deposit with netbanking. That is THE standard pay to pay here. Why use a middle man? And now to be FORCED to use one? I don't think so.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Nope. If it were a bank, the merchant would pay for the loss or the bank will bear it.
As banking laws go, once the money is in your account, nobody (except by court order) can debit your account except you.
Nobody.
Similarly, they can't suddenly block access to your account without informing you in writing.
PayPal OTOH can debit your account and drain it fully and then refuse to explain why plus put you in call waiting.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
When Paypal europe moved to Luxembourg last year, due to EU regulations it had to become subject to banking rules. More information here: http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=16927 I don't think it's a bank outside europe though.
I have found some good reviews of the following, and they all look cheaper than ebay.
http://www.specialistauctions.com/
http://www.52marketplace.com/
http://www.cqout.com/
http://www.ebid.net/
http://www.tazbar.com/
http://www.oneway-uk.com/
http://www.avabid.com/
I have only had a quick look at each, http://www.ebid.net/ seems to have the most comprehensive items list from a buyer's point of view
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml?itemId=815327&Go.x=9&Go.y=6 I suggest every australian does this and complains
Not true in the US.
:(
Here's a US Treasury Dept. link from a comment I recently modded Informative:
http://www.ustreas.gov/education/faq/currency/legal-tender.shtml
I cannot find the comment now, Slashdot's search function is too under-powered
As I discovered to my cost recently, if you accept PayPal payment you are effectively also accepting Credit Card payments (via PayPal). Unless your sale qualifies for seller protection (mine arbitrarily didn't, and unless you check it's not easy to realise you're not covered), then you are totally open to something called 'chargeback'.
Chargeback is basically fraud protection - if someone's credit card is stolen they can recover any lost money. But where do you think this money comes from ? From the credit card issuing company ? From PayPal ? Nope - the fraudulent transactions are reversed, so the person who originally received payment ends up footing the loss. That's maybe all well and good when you are talking about large companies and small levels of fraud, but now with eBay we are talking about literally millions of small time sellers, and probably hundreds of thousands of fraudulent transactions.
What this means is that if you accept PayPal payment, unless you are very careful about being 'protected' (and even then, who knows how far that protection covers you) you will be totally liable for any credit card fraud that transpires when someone purchases from you. The chargeback can (and does) occur MONTHS after the original transaction.
I strongly advise everyone NOT to accept PayPal payments at all. If eBay is forcing PayPal onto sellers, then I recommend ditching eBay - the risk of fraud is too big. You might as well leave your items on the street with an honesty box.
my god you people miss the mark by a long shot. the merchant is the CC company providing the funds.
... but the *merchant* is ALWAYS you.
No. Sorry. You are the one way off the mark.
As someone who has owned a business I can assure you, the merchant is the *business owner*. The other party is typically called a "bank", "merchant bank", "merchant account provider", "acquiring bank", or "acquirer"
Now, from the "merchant account providers" point of view...
"In the Visa and Mastercard rules, the merchant's processing bank [merchant account provider] is 100% responsible for all the transactions that the merchant performs. This can leave the provider open to millions of dollars of potential losses if the merchant operates in an illegal or risky manner and generates many chargebacks. The providers pass this cost on to the merchant, but if the merchant is fraudulent or simply does not have the money, the provider must pay all the costs to make the card holder whole."
Which is probably what you are talking about. So, Yes, its absolutely true that THEY (the merchant account providers) are liable for any fraudulent charges, and THEY must cover it. If you, as a cardholder phone Visa and ask who pays if your card is stolen, they'll just tell you 'not you'. If you persist they'll tell you that (according to PCI DSS [Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard]) the cost is borne by the bank providing the merchant account ["merchant account provider"].
However, as it says in the above quote, while they are responsible, they *invariably* try to recoup that cost, plus fees, plus fines, from the merchant (that would be YOU). They only get stuck holding the bag and taking a loss, if they CAN'T get the money from you...and that only happens if you're insolvent, or you've fled the country, or something equally drastic. If you are an upstanding reputable business in good standing, they WILL pass that cost on to you, and you WILL pay.
So as far as your card issuer or VISA is concerned yes, the liability rests with the merchant account provider. But you're daft if you don't think they in turn pass that liability to you via your 'merchant account' agreement/contract, and collect on it vigorously.
Look it up.