Westserve

Bad Ebay! Naughty Ebay!

Update – April 16th 2008:
This is evidence of a big backlash against this move.
The SMH reports that the ACCC is investigating the move, and that bastion of quality television journalism (ahem) ‘A Current Affair’ did a fairly accurate and lengthy story on it tonight.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Ebay backs down in the end…

Updated – April 22nd 2008
According to the SMH the Reserve Bank could weigh in to the issue and scuttle Ebay’s plans. Serve ‘em right.

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I do use Ebay every now and again to make small purchases, and I sometimes sell the odd thing through it.
But after the announcement today, I can’t see me doing much with them at all.

I received an email (along with millions of others, no doubt), explaining that:

From 21 May you must offer PayPal on all your listings as well as currently permitted payment methods.
From 17 June you will only be able to offer PayPal on your listings and pay on pick up (i.e.paid for when picking up the item).
Pay on pick up can only be offered in conjunction with PayPal. No other payment methods will be permitted.

Now, many people realise that Ebay bought up PayPal in 2002 (I think), and while Paypal has some benefits as an easy and quick online payment system, I reckon it charges an arm and a leg in fees to use the service.
And this move of Ebay’s is just plain anti-competitive, not allowing any other method of payment.

They are doing this under the banner of ‘making Ebay even safer’, and they are jacking up the PayPal buyer protection to $20,000 to try and convince us of the safety.
All well and good, but have you ever tried to contact anyone at Paypal? I have, and it’s impressively difficult!
Until very recently, I had Paypal as an option to pay on my online coffee store. But then two customers (Australian) were billed in $US not $AU. This cost them a little more, and they rightly complained to me.
I scoured the Paypal web site looking for a solution, and when I found none, I emailed their support address with a detailed description of the problem.
Ten days later I received an email saying in effect: “We have been receiving too many support emails to process, and so we won’t be dealing with yours unless you complain further”.
So a called the phone number listed on their Australian web site, only to get caught in an endless loop of voice prompts. Finally, I was offered the option of leaving a voicemail message, which I did.
Ten more days on, I still hadn’t heard anything back at all.
So I refunded the customers what they were out, and I simply removed Paypal as a payment option. ANd things will stay that way.

So this move with Ebay does not fill me with confidence, and having all other options removed, simply means I will vote with my virtual feet.