iTWire - Shame, eBay, Shame!

Shame, eBay, Shame!

By David Heath
Monday, 28 April 2008 16:18

A few days ago, my wife, who is an occasional eBay user and purchaser, completed a survey on payment habits. She doesn’t have a PayPal account and thus has never used it. Oddly, today, she received an email inviting her to use PayPal and be entered in a draw for one of a bunch of iPod nanos.

Here’s the text of the email:

“It's no secret. We know you've never done it and we think it's high time you got in on the action.

“To make your first time your best time, we're giving away 1,000 brand new shiny iPod nanos. All you've got to do is make a purchase and pay for it using PayPal on 2 May, and you go in the draw to win. Every purchase you make using PayPal gives you an additional entry into the draw.

“With 1,000 iPod nanos to give away and only a limited number of members like you <my wife’s name> who we've personally invited being eligible to enter; it couldn't be easier to win.”

If you were unaware of the furore over the eBay edict that all sellers will use PayPal as the only remote payment method then I guess you’d be happy to try it. After all, there are a bunch of iPod nanos on offer!

However, anyone who tries PayPal in order to try and win the nano will be unknowingly complicit in a major con. That con will be brought down upon the eBay sellers – those who don’t wish to be involved in the hideous restraint of trade fiasco that eBay is attempting to wrought.

In a couple of weeks time, eBay and their wholly-owned subsidiary PayPal will be happily telling sellers, “look at all these new PayPal users our latest campaign have brought to you. You really ought to get on-board our new regime; PayPal is the only way of the future.”

Perhaps this was a good idea (probably, my wife was just removed from any chance of wining an iPod nano!) but in the context of the current furore over the intention to restrict eBay on-line purchase payments to PayPal only, this was an incredibly poorly timed promotion.

Either that or a very cynical attempt to convince two separate groups of people that eBay/PayPal is a good idea. The sellers will be told that the buyers are flocking to payPal; the buyers told that all the sellers want to use PayPal.

Like my title says; shame, eBay, shame.