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Saturday, November 15, 2008

eBay: Using PayPal

The folks at eBay created quite a stir in October of 2008 when they dictated that buyers must pay for goods via electronic means using a credit card or a payment service like PayPal. Since PayPal is owned by eBay, a competing service, ProPay, is also allowed to process payments. eBay more or less had to allow a competitor to do this in order to avoid anti-competitive practice issues.

PayPal's preferred way of moving money around is to move it from or to someone's bank account. This is the way we operate and we have had no problems. We have heard of complaints from other sellers but do not know the details. PayPal also allows a buyer to use a credit card to pay for a purchase.

Some people do not like sharing personal credit or checking information on the Internet. Here are a couple of suggestions for eBay buyers in this category:
  • A buyer might use a prepaid credit card. Such a card limits the buyer's exposure to the amount prepaid and does not affect the buyer's credit score.
  • A buyer might insist on paying the old fashioned way by check or money order. We can't speak for eBay but we understand that if a buyer insists on paying by check or money order, the seller is allowed by eBay to accept it. A buyer should check with the seller about this before buying.

PayPal does have added benefits in that it offers some degree of protection for the buyer and seller. Sellers pay a fee to PayPal of roughly 3% of a transaction's total amount.

By clicking on "Comments" below, you can see posted comments and add your own questions/comments.

3 comments:

dorban said...

BEWARE OF PAYPAL & EBAY!!!

Paypal can now withhld users funds for 21-180 days!!! Do an internet search of "Paypal Scams" and you'll see others caught in this TRAP!

You can thank ebay's new CEO, John Donahoe & Meg Whitman's "Disruptive Innovation" SCHEME, for ALL of the recent detrimental changes and soon to be MORE devastating changes at ebay and Paypal.

Users are getting FED UP!

To read their comments, go to:

http://www.petitiononline.com/jdonohoe/petition.html

To post your own experiences, go to:

http://www.myblogutopia.com/2008/11/looking-for-more-dolphin-stories.html

Silver Jim said...

User "dorban" left the first comment attached to this post. His/her views reflect those of many sellers who were very upset with changes eBay made in the Fall of 2008. Some buyers were also upset.

It is not our intent to serve as a sounding board for this topic but potential users of eBay (buyers and sellers) should understand that quite a bit of controversary is surronding eBay right now.

Visitor "dorban" has left a reference web site for those who want to know more. This blog takes a "neutral" stance regardless of our personal opinion.

tekgems said...

I've complained to ProPay their integration is not complete, but its not clear if they are working on it or not. If they are not, on paper, ProPay is a competitor payment option to Paypal, but in practice, ProPay becomes a lame duck on eBay. I've test eBay & ProPay and there are still two issue: 1) ProPay does not send out any e-mails that a payment has been accept, 2) ProPay does not talk to eBay and mark the transaction as paid. These are very serious issues related to the usability of ProPay on eBay. If ProPay remains in this state, eBay is avoiding anti-competitive practice issues but at the same time being able to operate as a monopoly with Paypal.

We'll see how the integration of direct credit card checkout goes in Jan 2009. If that is a lame-duck too, I hope there is a class action lawsuit.