eBay PayPal directive - boycott eBay?

eBay Australia has issued a directive -

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From 15 July 2008 the available payment methods will be limited to PayPal, Visa/MasterCard, or pay on pick up. [/FONT]

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effectively meaning an extra level of fees - one for the transaction & one when you pay through PayPal, unless you do pick up I assume!

Is this enough to stop you using eBay? They have said this is an experiment, and if successful will be rolled out to the rest of the world.

Hi UF,

Interesting to note that the ACCC has ruled this as anticompetitive due to the fact that Ebay owns Paypal. The ACCC are now deliberating on what exactly to do about it.

News.com.au has the full story somewhere

I used Paypal the first few transactions thinking it was the best way to go... until I had an 'item not as described' dispute. Paypay daudled around for ages... I eventually had to phone twice to get it finally settled in my favour and a cash 'insurance' payout.

Since then I notice they charge $1 everytime I transfered cash out of my paypal account... on top of taking 3 to 4 days to process a payment.

Lately I've been paying by bank transfer... did one this avo... and often got the goods by the time paypal take to process it.

Seems to me like paypal has been holding our cash for a few days to pay for the insurance cover.

I agree with the ACCC that limiting the payment options is anti competative behaviour.

Wasn't there a boycott in the US recently? I will be looking at other options.


PS: I've actually noticed one seller advertising a discount for anyone that pays by other than paypal... ie use paypal and pay the listed price... use bank transfer and get a few dollars discount on an item worth abt $50.00.

I can't see anything wrong with it. The vendor has to be sure of getting paid. Credit card or COD is an alternative to PayPal. How many other ways to pay are there. You wouldn't want to be posting cash. I wouldn't want to get a cheque from someone I didn't know. Amex charges the seller too much, so do the other credit cards but Amex charges more. What are your suggestions for an alternative? I wouldn't do a bank transfer until I got the goods and I wouldn't send the goods until I had a bank transfer. That's a mexican standoff.

Bank transfers always worked fine for me.

you know the deal buying on ebay and you have bank statements saying where the money went so there is buyer protection. its (eBay) a legally binding contract

eBay is one dodgy company right there. Paypal has powers of a bank but they are not regulated like one. It is even more frightening because they are a world monopoly.

nioka said:

I wouldn't do a bank transfer until I got the goods and I wouldn't send the goods until I had a bank transfer. That's a mexican standoff.

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Yeah, it is a bit, but I've decided to only deal with people with a decent record, ie reasonable selling history and highest positive feedback.

I always email a question about something, if for nothing else than to gauge their demeanour and knowledge and clarify anything that might be a bit ambiguous.