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EBay Abandons Plans For PayPal Monopoly

Posted by timothy on from the single-source-is-always-risky dept.

An anonymous reader writes "eBay's has lost its fight to ban all payment methods except PayPal. When Paypal originally announced the scheme it was to be global, but they began with a dry run in Australia to test the reaction of government and consumer authorities. In the public slanging match that followed between eBay and the regulatory ACCC, eBay spammed users claiming it was fighting for 'safety benefits for consumers.' Fortunately the consumers won. Conceded eBay vice president Simon Smith, 'While we disagree with the ACCC's draft notice, we have decided to withdraw the notification to stop any further confusion and disruption among the eBay community.' Nevertheless eBay insists PayPal is now always offered as a payment option. Have big corporations finally learned that they can go too far? More chillingly, if eBay had launched the scheme in America would they have gotten away with it?"

15 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Paypal only by Mycroft_514 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Then I would leave e-bay, after being there since 1996

    1. Re:Paypal only by Pseudonym · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, the purpose of negative feedback is to stop being getting screwed over by bad actors.

      There are several ways that a buyer can scam a seller. They can, for example, claim that the item is not as described, and then return something else (e.g. buying a new diamond ring and returning a cheap cubic zirconia, or buying a new laptop and returning an old one). eBay and PayPal will honour proof of postage as "proof" that the correct item was returned, even if it wasn't.

      In those situations, negative feedback was the only recourse that a scammed seller had.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    2. Re:Paypal only by mea_culpa · · Score: 2, Interesting

      eBay was good when it was Auction Web. Almost like craigslist where anything and everything could be auctioned and the listing fees were reasonable. The interface was simple and straight forward, now it is as bad as godaddy.com 90% garbage 10% substance.

      BTW I sold my 1997 account for $1500.

    3. Re:Paypal only by c1t1z3nk41n3 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For better or worse some sellers screwed the rest over. People started sending out emails saying that if for any reason you left a neutral or negative feedback they would leave negative feedback on you. It discouraged honesty from buyers. I myself ended up leaving a positive feedback with negative comment attached after buying a cell phone that had been misrepresented.

  2. As an Australian by renegadesx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I applaude the ACCC on this move but I wish somebody would have told me this was going to happen sooner. I requested them to shut down my eBay account in protest a month ago. eBay rationalized this by saying they were acting in the interests of consumers despite consumers said very clear they were against this.

    This was about monopoly and eBay getting paid twice per transaction (more money for them). They spammed me MANY times trying to say "this is for your own good". I had customer representatives hassling me all the time when I requested my account be closed and they were going "you can sign up to paypal" and I said "I dont want a paypal account" and after 5 repeated attempts, they still havent shut it down but say "its in the process of being shut down"

    --
    Make SELinux enforcing again!
  3. Paypal monopoly in America by markov_chain · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wish they did do it, so that Google could finally put up Google Auctions and we finally got rid of eBay.

    --
    Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
  4. I don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why is there no competing online fleamarket to eBay? We all know eBay sucks ass! I want my competition!

    Yes, yes, I know, build it and they will come...

  5. Re:Just cancel your eBay account by InlawBiker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have sold a lot of stuff on Ebay too, but I quit in favor of Craigslist. This Ebay maneuver was just a calculated way for them to muscle sellers into giving Ebay a bigger piece of the pie. It's the 'ol "gain monopoly then exploit" plan. There needs to be a name for it. There probably is but I can't think of it...

    Also here's the obligatory grammar gripe. "Have big corporations finally learned that they can go to far." Where is this "far" place and how do I get there?

  6. Re:A few questions by nolife · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have a separate bank account with "totally free checking" at a local bank and only use it for Paypal. Nothing else. When I need to use Paypal, I deposit money in that account by check from my other bank or using their ATM out front and walk in and deposit it. If some of the horror stories I hear about Palpal freezing accounts or people being scammed happen to me, I will only loose access to a couple of dollars.

    --
    Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
  7. We need another system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    You know, all jokes aside about certain politicans who think the unemployment stats aren't that bad because those people are just making a living selling comic books online . . . the online swap meet is just too big a part of the economy to be trusted to people as incompetent as Ebay.

    If you are a general jack-of-all-trades "computer guy" for a small company, like I am, then you know there are numerous projects that you could just have not done if you had not been able to obtain something rare or cheap on ebay. If you are in any sort of small industry, from light manufacturing to agricultural to construction, then you know that the ability to dispose of un-needed equipment at decent price on ebay gives you key financial flexibility. Probably the only areas were ebay has competition are in chemical supply from ChemNet and in automobiles on craigslist.

    I think there is little chance that someone can design a distributed, gnutella like auction system. You need a third party, the auctioneer, to verify when bids came in, and check for shill bidding.

    I think we need to form a consortium, kind of like a farmer's coop or a credit union. You would buy a membership that would be one share; big sellers would not be able to dominate by buying more than one share, it would be one share per person. You would need a share to buy as well as sell. The co-op would operate the web site, and spend some of the fees to randomly buy products and check the sellers for fraud, and then randomly re-sell those products and check the sellers for fraud. The buy-in fee would have to be kind of steep to deter people from getting multiple accounts, but we could let those without financial resources work it off by volunteering on the hunt-down/beat-down commitee for fraudsters.

    Because, when you buy a share you would sign away your right not to have the shit beaten out of you for stealing money, kind of how someone who cannot afford their own bail signs away their right not to be kidnapped to a bondsman, who can re-sell that priviledge to a bounty hunter. In fact, I would nominate that Dog dude in Hawaii as one of our first hires.

    What do you guys think ? I think if we could get 1,000 people to sign up for an initial share for 100 dollars, that would be 100,000 dollars, and you can launch any business on the internet for that much money. We could adjust the signup fee later.

  8. Nothing to do with Government by duncan+bayne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why the hell has the Government got to anything do with this? If eBay customers don't want to use eBay because they're mandating PayPal, they have the right to go elsewhere.

    It's a sad day for liberty when the customers of a company get to use force to determine the policies of that company.

  9. Re:PayPal is a sucky middle man by plasmacutter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And I had all the money I paid for a second hand laptop stolen from me because paypal's dispute service took so damn long, and the perp was allowed to close the account.

    I had no recourse. Looks like paypal protects nobody then.

    --
    VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
  10. I prefer PayPal by blind+biker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am a European eBay buyer. From the posts in this thread, this seems to put me in a firm minority on Slahsdot. Anyway; I much prefer PayPal to bank transfer because in case of fraudolent, forged or non working product (or simply if the item was never sent), I have an avenue for recourse. With wire transfers I have no way to recover my money.

    Also, in case of overseas payments, PayPal is _way_ cheaper than wire transfer.

    Just my 2 cents (or a Euro). Resume your cheering.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  11. Still happening - just yesterday, in the UK by onlyconnect · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I posted an MP3 player for sale. I was told I must offer PayPal and ONLY PayPal.

    See here for screen grab:

    http://www.itwriting.com/blog/708-ebay-insisting-on-paypal-only-in-the-uk.html

    Tim

  12. Why negative feedback? by sjbe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can you explain the use of negative feedback against buyers?

    • Some buyers are extremely rude or difficult to work with just like with any retail or mail order business.
    • Many don't bother to actually read the terms of your auction and then act surprised (and rude) when you will not deviate from them.
    • A significant number of buyers cannot be bothered to pay for items they have one. I typically had to send payment reminders to about 2-4% of buyers and about 1% never pay.
    • Some buyers are outright thieves or deceptive.
    • Some buyers insist that you are overcharging for shipping even when you charge UPS standard rates.
    • Most often though negative feedback is left in retaliation for negative feedback left by the buyer. Sometimes justified, sometimes not. I've had buyers leave negative feedback about shipping speed 20 minutes after the auction closed and before they had paid for the item. Clearly unreasonable. I've also had buyers leave negative feedback for me when I darn well screwed up and deserved it.

    The long and short of it is that sometimes sellers deserve negative feedback and sometimes buyers deserve negative feedback. There are plenty of good reasons in each case.

    It seems that if they didn't pay that would be an issue you would take to Ebay, not something you'd complain about on their feedback page.

    You can run through the non-paying bidder process but it has no teeth unless the buyer is a multiple time offender. eBay does not and (apparently) cannot make buyers pay - they only can kick them off eBay. Being able to tell other sellers about a problem buyer is one of the few defenses sellers have to recognize when a buyer is likely to be a problem. If a buyer has a history of negative feedback sellers sometimes can protect themselves. After all, if you are dealing with a known problem customer it should be my right as a seller not to deal with them.