Technology news and Jobs arrow Our Blogs arrow The BeerFiles arrow Why ACCC cannot grant eBay Australia request for PayPal only payments
Why ACCC cannot grant eBay Australia request for PayPal only payments E-mail
by Stan Beer   
Saturday, 19 April 2008
“Paymate have built a reputation for safe trading in Australia. We were launched by eBay in October 2001 and have maintained best practice in the industry. We are regulated by ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) under our Australian Financial Services License. Removing the freedom of choice for eBay buyers and sellers by banning Paymate is counter-productive in growing a safe and secure marketplace. I would exhort eBay management to assess Paymate on our track record and retain us as an Australian payment option. Fair go, eBay!” Dilip Rao, Managing Director for Paymate stated in a submission to online petition site Goshout.

As the Paymate submission states, eBay have presented no data to show that Paymate is a less safe way to buy or a less reliable way to sell on eBay compared to PayPal.

From the perspective of an Australian consumer, in fact, Paymate appears to provide a greater level of accountability than PayPal. Examining the complaints process for both services, Paymate looks by far the clearer, more transparent and more personal of the two.

Paymate provides an office address on its website, encourages contact by telephone as well as email and post and even enables users to escalate a complaint directly to senior management. In comparison, PayPal encourages contact exclusively by email and provides only a toll-free 1800 number for general enquiries. There is no Australian office address on either the eBay website or in the phone book, at least not one this writer could find.

Direct competitors to PayPal aside, large sellers on eBay which have credit card merchant accounts can argue that forcing them and their customers to use PayPal restricts their trade, places an unnecessary financial impost on transactions, and provides neither them nor buyers any added protection.

Many if not most consumers on the Web happily make purchases from sites like Amazon directly using their credit cards. Why should it be any different for large accredited sellers on eBay with credit card merchant accounts? The credit card itself provides a high level of protection for buyers against fraud. CONTINUED page 3



 
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