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eBay Australia Delays PayPal Change Indefinitely
Daehenoc points out news that eBay Australia has postponed their ban on all forms of payment other than PayPal. The ban had already been delayed once, but eBay Australia has now decided to simply wait for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to determine whether or not the move is acceptable. We discussed the beginnings of this story back in April.
Bid $10 000
Buy it now $50 000
Cardboard box cartel? I've now heard it all... Crazy Aussies ;)
ACCC action has nothing to do with ebay stopping the trial, it's more likely the very public backlash they are feeling.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Although officially eBay does not allow Google Checkout, you can simply put that you "accept credit cards" with some credit card logos on your auction and then send people an invoice when they win.
Unfortunately a lot of people assume that everyone on eBay takes PayPal and are shocked to discover that you don't, but PayPal is such a terrible system for both buyers and sellers I don't use it any more.
In the UK PayPal make it impossible to deal with them. Any dispute always comes down to who can get a "police report" (crime incident report) which is impossible to obtain because the transaction is covered by civil law. In the event you can lie you way into getting one from the police, you automatically win - and if they refuse you automatically loose. If you are a buyer you can't ask your credit card company for help either because they only cover the transaction you make with PayPal, not the transaction made with the seller.
Worst of all is the customer "service" which is split into two groups. The first group are useless time wasters whose job is to make you go away. If you email them you always get a standard copy-paste response, which is usually not even related to your question. Basically it seems like they deliberately avoid the question. If you call them they know nothing, can't do anything and can't help. The second group will never ever talk to you, but is responsible for making all decisions and controls everything. These are the people you need to deal with, but they are impossible to reach.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
No, it's something to do with the ACCC trying to stop Australians getting ripped off. I'm glad someone finally stood up to Paypal and their bullshit.
Don't laugh, my mother was roughed up by cardboard box goons only last week! The scariest part was when they used the double corrugated bats - she's lucky to still be alive..
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
The detail with the cartel is the ACCC can take no personal action against the perpetrator but they would like to so it as not seen as being a complete success. Rules are being changed so that they can do so in the future.
That PayPal sucks?
I'm not trolling here either. The serious problems that PayPal has are widely known. From buyers to merchants, everybody has a horror story that has prevented them from doing business in confidence. There is even a well known anti-PayPal website out there.
A few months back when eBay started making those changes I canceled my account and told them reason why I was canceling the account. Apparently, I was not the only one. eBay used to be a place where the "common" man could go to sell his used items. Sure, it turned out to be a nifty place for people to setup shop as professional sellers, but it did not start out that way.
Since eBay made it mandatory that you accept PayPal, regardless of what type of seller you were, it forced people to make a decision. I think there has been QUITE A LOT of those decisions made and possibly eBay is taking notice of it's user base diminishing quite rapidly, from casual sellers to professional merchants.
Heck, I have not even visited eBay's website since that last announcement. I used to check it for prices and good deals, and now I just use Google Shopping instead.
Cardboard box cartel?
;)
Yep!
Crazy Aussies
That we are.
One of the perpetrators is currently facing criminal charges for lying to the investigation.
But I take your point, pricks should have been sent to jail for the crime not for the technicality they committed while in the process.
Only problem I had with Paypal it took forever to transfer money from my bank account... well 2 whole weeks.
The first thing I would say is that whether they're good or whether they're bad, it is absolutely unacceptable for one company with almost 100% of the market (eBay) to force you to use a specific service.
In my opinion PayPal's dispute resolution process is dubious at best and the customer service is nothing short of abysmal. A more concrete reason to dislike being forced to use them, however, is simply that they are considerably more expensive than other equivalent services.
I don't really think they are that worried about the ACCC - when the ACCC released there draft ruling all they did was delay the changes a little, they were still going to be put in place in blatent defiance of the ACCC draft ruling and before the actual ruling was due to be released.
What I don't think they bargained for was the media coverage on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Telegragh which framed the issue as if eBay were scamming their own customers - the stories were quite blunt and less than flattering of eBay Australia.
I think they cared a lot more about all the negative press and the SMH was throwing down the gauntlet pressuring the ACCC to become engaged prior to release of the final ruling - that's something no company wants. Angry media representatives do more damage that your average government pen pusher.
Two Parts Swash, One Part Buckle
I know what you mean, as a seller it's really wonderful to be charged a listing fee, a gallery picture fee, a final value fee, a 2.4% paypal fee and then another $2 to get your money out of paypal.
Not to mention you have to also use registered post otherwise you'll automatically lose any dispute and paypal will sweep your account for price+postage regardless of the validity of the buyers dispute - A favourite of dodgy buyers here is to claim it the item was not received, if you have an express post tracking id showing it delivered paypal will still find in favour of the buyer as they only accept registered post tracking.
Result: You lose your item and the auction value + postage fees, even though you can prove it was delivered!
Two Parts Swash, One Part Buckle
Well, they favour the buyer over legitimate sellers...
But there are plenty of ways that an unscrupulous seller can use the system to his advantage.
Did you realise you can register your paypal account in one country, while selling goods in another? When a buyer wants to return something, they have to pay the cost of international shipping plus tracking service to wherever your paypal account is registered, regardless of where you are located or where the items were shipped from.
Assuming you live in the UK, get yourself a mailbox somewhere far away like australia and register a paypal account there, then start selling items worth under about 50GBP on ebay...
When someone wins an item, ship him a brick or something of similar weight... Ofcourse he will complain, and file a claim with paypal... Paypal will agree to refund him, but only after he has shipped the item back to your paypal registered address and used a shipping service with online tracking. The trick is to make the cost of shipping the item back more than what they paid in the first place, that way it becomes pointless for them to do it and paypal will just close their dispute.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
How is it every single petrol station, no matter which company they claim to be, all have identical prices?
Where is that? Maybe they copy each other.
Here in WA its certainly not true. That is prevented by the fuelwatch scheme:
http://www.fuelwatch.wa.gov.au/