PayPal's Unwelcome Mat

Bill You Later or Pay You Later?

PayPal's newest advertising campaign in the UK begun in September and is aimed at retailers. IT asks if they are "alienating" customers by not offering PayPal as a payment method.

The "Unwelcome" campaign, which has been created by Base One, shows shopkeepers holding signs saying "Go Away", suggesting that not offering PayPal is the equivalent of sending customers away. It also intends to highlight PayPal as a secure and convenient method of online payment.

Last week I read this blog by Matt O'Hern I found it interesting for several reasons. Matt has been an eBay user for some years, appears to be an occasional seller but more frequent buyer and played an involuntary game of Bait the Bot.

The next item to catch my eye on the subject was a post from the UK. Cliff Saran of Computer Weekly reports casual users are getting upset and think PayPal should be subject to UK banking regulations.

"As it is, it appears to be completely remote and unaccountable to its users and judging from threads I have read elsewhere appears able to act with impunity, and gets away with it."

Well that is a surprise!

In Australia there is a strong movement lobbying for regulation of PayPal. I wrote that Andrew Pipolo the Managing Director of PayPal has been summoned to a meeting with the Reserve Bank of Australia, which will undoubtedly lead to some form of restriction on PayPal's operating methods. Australia will, in my opinion, be the first of many countries to take a long hard look at PayPal; which is appropriate given eBay's fondness for using Australia as guinea pig country.

In the UK, which is highly regulated, there is growing seller dissatisfaction with eBay and PayPal's propensity for both quoting and enforcing handling and return laws and regulations which do not exist in the format eBay policy requires from sellers. There has been enough 'noise' that some policies have been deferred until after Christmas. Will the UK be country number two to impose regulations?

Given the recent purchase of Bill Me Later there might be grounds for thinking eBay Inc. will have something close to a monopoly on online payments. Perhaps it is time for the FTC to be asked to take a look at the situation. The current trend towards acknowledgment of a need for closer oversight and regulation of financial institutions may well be favorable to those who believe PayPal is overdue for inspection. A complaint to the FTC is the first step.

Those of you who read my blog know that sitting in front of your computer and whining doesn't even make you feel better. It is simply depressing. We have to DO something! Write a complaint to the FTC today. It will take you 15 minutes at most.


Y'all come back!








Related articles and Links:

Computer Weekly Cliff Saran
- More Insanity on PayPal
- PayPal Money Laundering Nonsense
- UK Users Attack PayPal's Anti Fraud Policies

That Was The Week That Was

Top blog post for me this week was an excellent and balanced editorial by Ina Steiner at Auctionbytes on the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance position paper released on Tuesday October 1st.

Runner-Up: In Australia the reverberations from the EBS scandal are still rocking eBay and PayPal's credibility. ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) TV's 7.30 Report investigated the EBS Fraud (which left about 3,000 ebay buyers and other creditors owed about $1.68 million) and revealed the inherent flaws in PayPal's Buyer Protection Policy. eBay's Daniel Feiler was interviewed and filmed and arrangements had been made to interview and film a spokesperson from PayPal, however PayPal withdrew from this at the last minute.





Retro Current: This is an archived blog post from Adam Nash That Was The Year That Was 2007, interesting in view of the persistent rumors about eBay wanting to sell StumbleUpon and shopping for more classified sites in Europe.

Secrets and Hot Gossip:

Tech Crunch on the not so secret subject of StumbleUpon being for sale.

Brews News eBay hides sellers from buyers Glitch or planned disruption?

John Lawson's video commentary also on the Pesa position paper.

Blog about PayPal, or how to antagonize your customers just because you can.

Take a break!

Just a nice story from a UK newspaper that has nothing to do with e-commerce or business or the economy. Nice photographs!

Also ran:
An interesting article on shipping from internetretailer.com in view of eBay's determination to increase revenue by forcing sellers into 'free shipping'.


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Related Articles and Links:

eBay Anonymous

Once again eBay has turned Australian users into guinea pigs with their September 23rd announcement implementing the 'anonymisation' of emails between potential buyers and sellers.

Sue at Tamebay pointed out some potential security risks.

Currently, eBay are not verifying that the email used to reply is the “correct” one - i.e. that it matches up with the eBay account to which the message was sent. This is, they say, a “short grace period”, presumably to allow members to ensure their registered email addresses match the ones their email client uses.

So today I’ve been able to reply to trial messages with emails registered with other eBay accounts, and emails that aren’t linked with any eBay account at all, and in all cases, messages sent from the ‘wrong’ email address still arrive with eBay subject lines suggesting they’ve come from the correct eBay member.

Like Sue I did a little testing with an Australian seller friend, Kevin. My first email arrived in Australia very rapidly. It gave the Kevin my eBay ID, the address for him to reply was a series of letters and numbers @members.ebay.com. My response from him had a similar address. Copies of my query and the reply were sent to my registered eBay address. Neither email appeared in My Messages on My eBay.

I asked a second question using my AOL mail and interestingly the links in my signature went through intact. My friend Kevin responded saying I could contact direct but that email address was stripped out, as expected.

A second question on a different user ID showed that the address 'anonymization' is per query. In other words we both got a different address. Kevin was able to respond directing me to a different eBay listing.

The usual 'coding' used on the boards works in the 'anonymized' messages.

So far it works, sort of. The seller is supposed to have access to the buyer's address when a purchase is made, but Kevin says

the buyer who emailed me on Friday sent it from the auction that she won on the prior Monday, but it came through anonymised (but okay).

What is going to happen when eBay suffers the inevitable glitch?

I really can't figure out why it is needed.
Almost everyone who buys on eBay will have a throwaway freebie address, used only on eBay and one that can easily be changed when the spam burden gets too great.
In what way does this protect the potential buyer?
What are we protecting the buyer from? The evil seller?

Just think. When the evil seller mails the package he will know the buyers address! eBay needs to come up with a fix for that ASAP!



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Related Stories and Links:


The eBay Roadmap to Anonymity

eBay PayPal Summoned by RBA

The Reserve Bank of Australia has summoned eBay Australia and PayPal to appear before its Payments System Board which has responsibility for the Bank's payments system policy; to explain why eBay and PayPal should not comply with rules that bind all other payments systems in Australia.

PayPal spokeswoman Kelly Stevens said

“They want to talk to us about surcharging; we don’t have a steering policy and that is in eBay’s area anyway.”

PayPal managing director Andrew Pipolo and eBay vice-president Simon Smith are expected to attend a meeting being scheduled to review alleged anti-competitive behavior. Informed sources say that Pipolo is going to tell the Reserve Bank that PayPal needs more time to grow before being asked to drop its no surcharging rule. This is line of reasoning is unlikely to impress the Payments System Board which is composed of high level banking and finance industry experts, particularly since Pipolo has been bragging "The latest Nielsen report shows that PayPal is now the preferred online payments system, more so than Visa or Mastercard, so our indications are that the PayPal brand is standing up very strongly."

Can't have it both ways Andrew, pick a line and stick to it.

The Reserve Bank, may use its powers to impose an access regime and/or set standards for a particular payment system, it may

* 'designate' a particular payment system as being subject to its regulation. Designation has no other effect; it is simply the first of a number of steps the Bank must take to exercise its powers;
* determine rules for participation in that system, including rules on access for new participants. Since access is inextricably linked to efficiency the Bank works closely with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC);
* set standards for safety and efficiency for that system. These may deal with issues such as technical requirements, procedures, performance benchmarks and pricing;
* direct participants in a designated payment system to comply with a standard or access regime; and
* arbitrate on disputes in that system over matters relating to access, financial safety, competitiveness and systemic risk, if the parties concerned wish.

The RBA's Payment System Reforms as of May 2007 sought to improve efficiency and competition by:

1. more closely aligning the relative prices for different payment services with the relative costs of providing those services;
2. addressing restrictions on merchant behavior that limit competition;
3. liberalising access to payment systems; and
4. improving the transparency of the payments system.

In the Bank’s view, the no-surcharge rule imposed by Mastercard, Visa, American Express and Diners Club limited the ability of merchants to put downward pressure on fees by threatening to charge the customer for using a credit card.

Neither MasterCard nor Visa agreed to voluntarily remove their no-surcharge rules for credit cards and, as a result, the Bank imposed Standards requiring the removal of these rules. In contrast, American Express and Diners Club voluntarily agreed to remove their equivalent rules.

The PayPal User Agreement for Australia states in Section 6.4 Seller Discouragement Policy.

You agree that PayPal may suspend your account or otherwise prohibit your use of the PayPal service if you display PayPal as an accepted payment method on your website or eBay listing and subsequently prohibit the use of PayPal, surcharge for the use of PayPal, or otherwise discourage the use of PayPal as a payment mechanism.

The no-steering rule prevented merchants that accepted American Express cards from encouraging customers to use another method of payment (equivalent rules did not exist in the MasterCard, Visa and Diners Club schemes). Again, the Bank saw this rule as inappropriately restricting competition and, after discussions, American Express agreed to remove the rule.

eBay's Accepted Payments Policy for Australia states

It is a condition of eBay supplying the services at the Site that eBay requires all sellers to offer payments through PayPal (with some exceptions set out in the Policy below).

Robert Vandermeer, is a spokesman for The Group, a coalition of eBay users who are opposed to eBay's repeated attempts to force PayPal on buyers and sellers in Australia. He said

After ebay's humiliating defeat in June, when the ACCC moved to block ebay's attempts to make PayPal the only payment option, this next round of discussions with the RBA appears likely to deliver a debilitating blow to ebay's efforts to force PayPal on Australian consumers.

A link to the letter which prompted the RBA to act is appended.

Henrietta says "Attempting to browbeat Aussies is not wise"



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Related Articles & Useful Links:

Reserve Bank of Australia Media Release August 20th 2006

Distrust All Around on eBay

Once again, a comment posted by eBay Australia seller Kevin to my post on seller confidence is too comprehensive to leave in the comments section. It deserves its own post so I have moved it. Thank you Kevin for taking the time to share your thoughts.

eBay seems to have added a rather odd business tool to their arsenal this year - distrust.

This is totally at odds with the concepts and foundations that Pierre Omidyar built the site on, and is probably the major affront and culture shock to "old school" eBay sellers, who have felt assailed by an apparent campaign against them throughout 2008, but as illogical as it sounds it does seem to be eBay's tool of choice for the financial expansion of eBay this year.

So, how can distrust be used to make a marketplace more profitable, when trust is an essential ingredient for that very marketplace to work in the first place?

If it is true that during times of recession Ebay will stagnate, or if numbers or gross turnover will cease to grow at the rate of unreasonable expectations placed on it by the stock market, then tools on the site need to earn additional income for the perception of growth to remain.

The obvious answer here is PayPal.

In times of recession, sellers will be more alert to how they are spending their money and will stop investing in "bells and whistles" on their listings unless they feel they have a proven track record of increasing sales.

Meanwhile, the buyer is being mercilessly convinced that the only safe way to shop on eBay is to use PayPal. And thus, while I suspect that only a minimal fraction of buyers have actually read the user agreement to see what the extent of their protection really is, most are convinced that they are being protected by the online payments monolith, whatever may happen with their transaction.

Most buyers, even of high value items, will no longer take postal insurance because, it appears, they believe that PayPal is a free insurance policy for their purchase (it isn't).

Several sellers I know here in Australia had not even studied the protection aspects of PayPal until they were facing all of their turnover being forced into the hands of this company through the threatened "PayPal only" policy for the Australian eBay site, and were quite alarmed to see the gaping loopholes in PayPal's protection policies (more fool eBay for drawing user's attention to such things).

What seems to be ignored is that the costs related to PayPal have to be paid by someone, and as is obvious to every seller on eBay, particularly if they are "retailing" new goods on the site, the seller bears all of the fees and creates all of the profits that eBay pulls out of it's payments monopoly subsidiary, and in some countries must also bear the costs of real postal insurance in order to qualify for so-called seller protection, and it eats into their profit margin.

As we have already discussed here, at the same time as having increasingly distrustful buyers channeled through PayPal and adding to the costs of sellers marketing their goods on eBay, the sellers are being "incented" to reduce their selling prices and associated costs, such as shipping, for the benefit of the marketplace. Well, I guess that combination benefits everyone in the marketplace - except those who are selling there.

Using distrust as a business tool has to be a dangerous exercise, but in eBay's eyes it has benefits. As well as forcing the uptake of PayPal, it also discourages buyers from communicating directly with sellers (who they are learning not to trust,) and that in turn reduces "off-site" sales. The danger though, is, of course, if you convince people that eBay really is an unsafe place to shop, they will actually go elsewhere to shop, where they feel safe.

There is also another danger for eBay, the sellers who are no longer trusted in their own marketplace have also lost much trust of eBay itself. While this can be marketed as an effective campaign against dishonest sellers (they protesteth too much), it will also mean that many good sellers are leaving the site because they simply do not trust the business tools that have now turned against them.

The quality, variety and life of the site is being sucked out of the eBay marketplace - and from my perspective at a steadily increasing rate. We were promised that eBay would be unrecognizable by mid next year, but I am not convinced that this is the direction that the site should be taking for it's own long term health, let alone for the health of it's clientele.

Oh well,

Kevin

eBay Fighting for Consumer Choice?

eBay's time honored defence, 'we are only a venue,' once again cut no ice as a French court today ordered eBay Inc to pay 38.6 million euros ($61 million) to luxury goods group LVMH for allowing the sale of fakes on the site. The verdict directly challenges eBay's argument that it is not directly responsible for what is on its Web site.

The ruling was immediately appealed by eBay. As of this writing I found approximately 2479 Louis Vuitton items listed on eBay.com the US site. Here is one for $4.25 and another 'sure to be genuine' item starting at 99c with $9.50 shipping.

On June 4, another French court ruled against eBay in a case brought against it by luxury goods retailer Hermès over the sale of three Hermès bags, including two fakes, on eBay.fr for a total of 3,000 euros. That court ordered eBay to pay Hermes 20,000 euros ($31,548) I found 2351 Hermes items listed on eBay.com this evening including a wonderful selection of men's pure silk ties starting at 1c...

Still pending in France, the Conseil des Ventes, the group that represents mainstream French auctioneers, has also sued eBay, which it accuses of trying to circumvent laws regulating the auction sector by claiming to be a broker.

French cosmetics company L’Oreal is suing eBay in 5 European countries - Belgium, France, Germany, UK and Spain - for selling counterfeit bottles of perfume. L’Oreal claims they’ve tried to reach an agreement with eBay on this matter, but in the end had no choice but to sue them.

Last year in Germany, Rolex sued eBay claiming that their trademark was infringed upon by eBay customers selling fake Rolex watches on the German Web site, resulting in unfair competition. The German Federal Supreme Court in a judgment published on 19 June 2007, found that although eBay does not aid or abet any trademark infringements of eBay sellers listing goods on its web pages, eBay qualifies as an “intermediary” & is liable as a “contributor” pursuant to German and European trademark law.

Meanwhile back in the USA in 2004, Tiffany & Co. secretly purchased about 200 items from eBay in its investigation of how the company was dealing with the thousands of pieces of counterfeit Tiffany jewelry. The jeweler found that three out of four pieces were fakes. In addition to accusing eBay of facilitating counterfeiting, Tiffany & Co. contends that eBay "charges hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees" for counterfeit sales. A ruling is expected on that lawsuit shortly.

Here is the supreme irony:

eBay spokeswoman Nichola Sharpe said. "If we don't put our foot down now and strongly fight it on behalf of consumers' choice, we'd be letting them down. It's an anticompetitive business practice that will restrict consumer choice."

If you didn't know better you might think she is speaking on behalf of Australian sellers.


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Spruiking Consumer Protection with eBay

Another inspired comment from my friend Australian Seller Kevin T, too good to leave in the comment section for Friday the 13th


"eBay believes the consumer benefits of this initiative are worth fighting for on behalf of its buyers which will ultimately benefit sellers."

Yes, I believe that those are the same buyers that Simon Smith basically said were too ignorant to make informed decisions about payments, or "The issue is people don't make an informed choice." to be precise.

You have to love the structure of that top sentence though, sellers are truly an afterthought, they are not the ones that are considered worthy of "consumer benefits", even though they are the consumers of Ebay's services, and pay their fees. In fact if you return to the APC article covering the first Melbourne meeting you will see that Simon Smith states "We're not allowing people to offer unsafe choices, just like in this democracy you can't go out and buy heroin on the streets.", while the team admitted that the serious flaws in offering PayPal on Pick-up-only items leave sellers very vulnerable, "It is something we are looking at -- I agree, it's an anomaly." Six weeks later, they are still forcing unsafe choices on sellers, and spruiking consumer protection for buyers.

**Henrietta says: Its hard to 'look at' something when you only have three functioning brain cells, you need one to just keep breathing.**

This "anomaly" is not new - it has been a problem at least since the beginning of 2007 when new members were required to offer PayPal on all listings - including pick-up-only items, and some have been burned.

However this week, with the introduction of the Discouraging and Misleading Payments Policy in the UK, that stalwart for punishing members whose listings are only "within the letter of the policy", Richard Ambrose, is quoted from the UK Power Seller board:

"The position on collection only is the same - PayPal has to be offered on all listings, and sellers can’t discourage buyers from accepting it. We’re aware that this creates a risk of sellers not being protected from chargebacks after in-person collections. We are considering how to protect sellers there, though it may require some major changes to the PayPal seller protection programme that wouldn’t be quick to bring in."

Well, obviously since it is already 18 months since the problem became apparent, it won't be quick to bring in, will it? But being at risk from PayPal payments is different to being at risk from other forms of payments - Ebay doesn't make a profit on other forms of payment!

Kevin the Cynical


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What Have We Gained From The eBay Boycott?

There are two comments on my post yesterday, both from eBay sellers who think the eBay boycott has been unproductive. I respectfully disagree.

The initial boycott which ran from February 18th through February 25th was not expected to result in an immediate reversal of eBay's plans. Far from it! We are realists and know from past experience that communicating with eBay is generally one way. We speak, they ignore. The first boycott was intended to let eBay know that they were about to step over the line. Did we achieve that? Yes. Did eBay believe we meant it? No.

The First Gain was Publicity
Because there was a lot of media attention eBay was forced to respond. The response was predictable, exactly like the parent who's four year old child announces they are going to run away from home. This condescending dismissal galvanized already angry sellers, gaining more negative publicity for eBay.

Then came Networking
From publicity came momentum. More eBay sellers became aware of what was going to happen, were angered by it and joined. In turn they generated more publicity. Groups formed, off the censored eBay boards and networked. Boycott eBay on Delphi was and is probably the most active. One of the benefits of networking was that many alternative venues were found and discussed. Sellers created support threads to help each other with the ins and out of learning new venues, setting up Google Checkout etc. This encouraged sellers to branch out, which led directly to the rapid growth of OnlineAuction.com and eCrater, which together with iOffer were voted as having the best prospects of becoming a viable alternative venue. Etsy registered their 1,000,000th user today one week short of their third birthday.

International Solidarity
The power of networking brought us in contact with sellers from Australia, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and the UK. This is amazing. For example US sellers made submissions to the ACCC in Australia so that the ACCC would know that eBay's claims were not universally accepted and that PayPal was problematic in the USA too.

We Prepared & Learned
We learned that we did not ever want to allow another site to achieve the kind of power that WE gave eBay. Other smaller sites than the four mentioned above, also saw growth because sellers quickly realized that there is no 'one site fits all'. We prepared for what we knew was coming in May and that two month hiatus between the initial one week boycott and the May 1st beginning of an open ended boycott gave us time to make a smooth transition with minimal damage.

I personally know one PowerSeller, a good man who is the epitome of anti-boycott and 'nothing will happen to good sellers' sentiment, he has never had a neutral or negative. He made the mistake of believing that eBay was run like a business; that mistake has effectively put him out of business.



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Just for Fun The Land of Oz

Australia has been on our minds a lot recently and it is difficult for those of us who have never been there to understand just how different it is. Australia drives on the left, measurements are metric and even the language is different!

You can look at a picture of a kangaroo and think it is strange but I don't believe you can understand just how strange it is until you see it in its natural habitat. The kangaroo is just the most instantly recognizable symbol of how different Australia is. There are a lot of strange and wonderful critters, birds and plants on that unique and special continent.


You may not be aware that Australia has been suffering from severe drought for years.
This blogger talks about Heleioporus eyrei frogs appearing after a rain and the sounds they make.




These beautiful native birds are galahs. Calling someone a galah in Australia is a traditional way of questioning their intelligence.











The climate varies widely, the north is tropical and the south is more temperate. Seasons in the southern hemisphere are the opposite of the northern hemisphere, Christmas is mid-summer. Most of the center of Australia is desert.

I am told there are more than 400 different varieties of gum (eucalyptus) trees in Australia.





Mist at Yellow Water billabong - Kakadu in the Northern Territory, image by Tourism NT. Click this image to go to their website which has many more beautiful pictures. Billabong is Australian for a lake.

This is Reids Coffee Palace, Ballarat, Victoria. Between approximately 1850 and the late 1860s Ballarat was at the center of the Australian Gold Rush, the style of architecture is called Federation Filigree. It is designed to let cool air flow through the building.

In case you were wondering, I am assured by Australian sellers that kangaroos do not hop down the streets everywhere.

This is where many Australian eBay Sellers have moved to and YES we can buy from them there! We wish you all the best and much happiness in your new home.





Any errors or mistakes are mine alone and corrections will be gratefully received. I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed researching it.

Y'all come back and be sure to click VICTORIOUSLY on any interesting links in the sidebar!

Poof to YOU Says the King of Spin

UPDATE! UN*POOF*ed!
sumabuddy fixed a glitch, thank you

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I commented this to Usher Lieberman's guest blog on Richard Brewer-Hay's eBayINKblog but I guess there is something in it which is against policy because it got censored. Maybe it was a glitch! We get a lot of those on the Discussion Boards and the Answer Center these days too, we call it *POOF*. Original post below.


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Hello Mr. Lieberman

Most of us posting here have been around eBay a LOT longer than you have. We may be noisy but we are not stupid. We can even spell Sherman Act!

Remember when PayPal was a start-up? At that time eBay owned BillPoint (of late unlamented memory) and PayPal was unsafe and prohibited on eBay.

Well gee gol-lee gosh! Right after eBay bought PayPal it became safe and secure. Very few changes in TOS or management but it became a whole lot safer once the fees were going to the right place.

Yes, I offer Paypal on my website too, but am having Google Checkout integrated because it is just as safe, in fact a LOT safer for a seller and it is clean and easy for buyers.

I like to credit my buyers with enough brainpower to decide for themselves which service they choose. For a retailer with a strong emphasis on customer service and satisfaction guaranteed, choice is good. Customers like choice and as we sellers all know; keeping the paying customers happy is the key to success.

In so far as the media ignoring you, maybe they placed greater weight on your boss's statement to the NY Times when he stated . . . if the test was successful in Australia, the company would introduce it in other countries “in months, not years”, than to your spin.
Here is the link: http://tiny.cc/YZJWR

Are you going to have a little chat with Simon Smith about not comparing his customers & their buyers to heroin users?

Possibly the lesson eBay needs to apply to ALL its markets can be summarized in two things almost everyone's mother must have said at least once. Sometimes it is good to remember what Mom said.

Don't Push! It's rude to push.

and

You can catch a whole lot more flies with honey than vinegar.

I hope your headache is feeling better and thank you for coming to play with us.

PSST. Mechelle, there is a link to on the spot reportage of that meeting on my blog, linked to my name above. eBay did make a video but obviously not for public consumption.

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More Bayspeak 'PeePee' in Australia

Safety and convenience are at the core of eBay’s policies toward payments. This policy is designed to promote safe online shopping, and to encourage online payment methods that are safer, easier to use, and offer high levels of protection for users

. . .Now let's get real!

Every transaction that does not pass through PayPal is a lost revenue opportunity for eBay. This is why in the USA Google Checkout is on the list of unsafe payment processing systems.

Australia has always had zero cost payment options that are not available in the USA. Most Sellers prefer to use bank transfer, where the invoice is paid direct into the seller's bank account from the buyer's account. This is obviously not acceptable to eBay Australia.

eBay has announced effective May 21st, 2008 all items listed for sale on eBay.com.au must offer PayPal as one of the payment methods. All items appearing on eBay.com.au as of 17th June 2008 must be paid for using one of the following:

1. PayPal
2. Pay on pick up (i.e. paid for when picking up the item)
3. Visa/MasterCard (with transactions processed by PayPal).

No other payment methods will be permitted.

Not much room for argument there. There are a few listed exclusions. I wrote about Bayspeak on this subject here

Unfortunately for eBay, Australians are a tough lot and do not take kindly to being shoved around. Equally unfortunately for eBay, Australia has strong consumer protection laws and an active enforcement arm, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) which has regulatory powers.

I submitted comments to the Commission which you can read here, please feel free to cut and paste if you wish to comment yourself. There is at least one error in my submission, I wrote that eBay owned BidPay and should have said BillPoint, (although BidPay was one of the few non PayPal payment options permitted on eBay).

I believe the commission should hear any verifiable horror stories about PayPal. Submissions should be emailed by April 29th because of the time difference to : Lauren Roy, Adjudication
adjudication@accc.gov.au
Subject line: eBay International A.G. Notification N93365

Here is a video promoting Oztion.com, thats Australian for auction, rapidly becoming a viable alternative to eBay.



A few snippits off the Australian boards, eBay is apparently hiding Sellers bank transfer information, it must be a glitch because the PayPal payment information is showing up:

Don't get rattled here, I just email the seller and they provide the bank info personally for me. Not worth getting your knickers in a knot here, eBay is just pulling desperate bunnies out of the proverbial hat in a last resort to get you to use PeePee.
Chin up, pack up and head for the other site

. . .

Jeez ebay really are paranoid aren't they! Getting all worked up about someone posting their Ph number which is publicly listed anyway! Especially one they never answer any way! What a bunch of knob jockeys they are!
Hmmmmn! Seeing as how the listed number and the listed fax number are sequential numbers I wonder if one was to dial further numbers in that sequence whether one would actually get to talk to a real person at ebay?
Nah!!!!! Silly me of course the are no real people at ebay only Simon Smith, not what I or anyone else here would consider human and his trained gibbon!

Next post . . . Monday . . . Y'all come back and be sure to click VICTORIOUSLY on any interesting links in the sidebar!

Out of the Closet

An article in Ina Steiner's Auctionbytes led me to this announcement from eBay Australia, Emma is out of the closet!

Our Australian cousins can enjoy the new sport "Bait the Bot" but only 30% of them for now.

This makes me wonder if our own Customer Service bots will be emboldened to 'come out'. They have been masquerading as Live Helpless for a long time now.