eBay Australia Delays PayPal Change Indefinitely 56
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.
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I'm on to you...
Buy a ACCC Ruling (Score:5, Funny)
Bid $10 000
Buy it now $50 000
Why? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Is this something to do with Google.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The ACCC is going to put on a show (Score:1)
Re:The ACCC is going to put on a show (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The ACCC is going to put on a show (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The ACCC is going to put on a show (Score:4, Informative)
Yep! [abc.net.au]
Crazy Aussies
That we are.
Re:The ACCC is going to put on a show (Score:5, Informative)
ACCC action has nothing to do with ebay stopping the trial, it's more likely the very public backlash they are feeling.
Re:The ACCC is going to put on a show (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
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How is it every single petrol station, no matter which company they claim to be, all have identical prices? And all of their prices rise and fall at the exact same days?
How can anyone hear these facts and still reject the fact that there is price fixing going on.
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Because all petrol stations get their petrol from about 3 or 4 different sources in Australia, all of which come through the exact same supply channels, all controlled by Big Oil. The price fixing happens at a far higher level than at the petrol station. Some smaller petrol stations that try to buck the trend (buying petrol on cheap days and selling it lower priced on high days) find themselves quickly unable to buy petrol from Big Oil.
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Interesting. I wonder if that's illegal (forcing distributors of my product to sell it for a particular price)?
Also I just realise I replied to timmarhy so I wasted my breath.
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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/ [wa.gov.au]
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Sydney. Not only are the prices identical, but they go up every Wednesday and then go back down on Monday. Glad to see some government has stepped in to do something about it. If only mine would :(
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Well, in a highly-competitive market, price changes from one merchant follow another. Take an example from Vancouver BC - the drivers here are literally stupid enough to drive across Metro Vancouver (GVRD) to save a penny per litre. As a result, a station may decide to lower their price a bit, and if they do it en
Use Google Checkout instead (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Use Google Checkout instead (Score:5, Informative)
eBay in Australia actually requires that you offer Paypal in your listings. The ACCC action only stopped eBay from disallowing almost all other methods of payments.
And Google Checkout doesn't operate in Australia yet.
Re:Use Google Checkout instead (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe that Ebay's customer service is carefully crafted to 'Not provide' service. A couple of monkeys will send you pre-drafted sickly polite emails in response to your complaints, but noone will ever do anything.
Ebay have only one goal in mind - the more transactions the bigger their profits. They do not give a damn if the transaction is legal or not.
I think the ACCC needs to press for more regulations requiring firms like Ebay to clean up their act. Until that happens, Ebay is 'crim heaven'
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Re:Use Google Checkout instead (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, i have had many bad experiences with paypal and corrupt sellers taking advantage of the flaws in their system to rip off purchasers, take a look at:
http://www.ev4.org/wordpress/category/fastmemorymanscam/ [ev4.org]
Then there's their "subscription" service, where a company can automatically bill you on a recurring system, there seems to be absolutely no way to see which subscriptions are active or how to cancel them. A corrupt seller can lie to you about cancelling the subscription and you have no idea if they lied or not until paypal charges you, and when you dispute it they simply ignore you.
ebay also cancel your listing if you try to recover the cost of paypal charges in your listing, because the idea of an extra 5% or so to cover costs would encourage buyers to pay by other means.
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How amusing, multiple emails to paypal support were completely useless and wouldn't tell me how to do this...
Instead, i get the answer i need from an AC on slashdot.
Might it be... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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I also canceled my eBay and PayPal accounts in April, trying to show some solidarity with eBay users in Australia.
I made it very clear that I was closing both accounts due to the policy that eBay Inc was pursuing. (Whether anyone read the comments is another story.)
Over the past 10 years, I put roughly $40k through eBay, with about $20k of that through PayPal with a linked bank account. As a buyer only, I've never had a problem with either eBay or PayPal.
Frankly, the only thing I'll miss eBay for is buyin
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I cancelled my account that I'd had for nearly 10 years (yikes!) and made sure they knew exactly why I closed it. A long time ago I got burned by PayPal and there's no way I'm ever using it again.
I'll keep an eye on Oztion and see if that takes off well enough to be useful. Looks promising so far.
Only problem I had... (Score:2, Informative)
Paypal = bad? (Score:2)
I find this intresting because I have never had any problem with them.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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GOOD! (Score:2)
I have major problems with paypal.
I've never been scammed but I've heard they frequently favour the buyer over the seller (I'm a seller)
My real issue is the god damned *expletive* fees. .01% of all auctions and still make a killing, they don't though, not even close.
For an ONLINE system which costs them absoloutely stuff all to run (when you factor in the quantity of auctions on the system) the prices are ridiculously high.
They could take
I really wish I purchased ebay shares long long ago.
Re:GOOD! (Score:5, Informative)
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!
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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, g
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I'm not saying I support PayPal's particular practises, I choose to avoid them if at all possible, but their fee's are on par with everyone else.
ACCC? More Media Pressure (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Monopoloy. (Score:1)
EBay are only attempting this because they are a monopoly and are vigorously trying to monetize that point.
I think it is high time there was a competing auction service in Australia (although unfortunatley the nature of action sites gravitate to one).
In New Zealand there is a site called TradeMe.co.nz and it was first and saw off eBay. The Service is much better, and there are many features which eBay (in Australia) don't bother with (better pictures) anti snipe delays etc etc.
Unfortunately it will take a m
eBay spamming anti-ACCC propaganda (Score:1)
eBay has been spamming Australian customers with PR drivel like this one they sent me: "eBay challenges yesterday's Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) draft notice and is disappointed that the ACCC's current view delays the opportunity to provide consumers a more secure way to shop on eBay.com.au with confidence"
With confidence? I had a dispute where the seller did a runner. I thought PayPal protected me, but it turns out once the seller has taken the loot and run, tough luck. To try
Simple solution (Score:1)