The rebels strike back against eBay PayPal empire

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Tuesday, 08 July 2008

Page 2 of 4 The following is a letter reprinted with permission being sent to all relevant Ministers across Australia, state, territory and Federal by a co-ordinated group of eBay sellers: ”Dear Minister, “I want to bring to your attention an attempt by a massive foreign owned company to infringe the rights of Australian people. “You have no doubt heard of eBay, the on line-selling platform. eBay is a company registered overseas. Most of their staff are overseas, their profits end up overseas, they make decisions which impact on Australian users overseas. “The essence of eBay is that they provide an Internet site that allows sellers, from large companies to small mum and dad sellers to advertise items for sale by auctions or at a specific price. “eBay charges the seller to list the item and charges a further percentage of the amount that it sells for. Until recently a whole range of payment options were available to the purchaser to pick from in order to pay the seller. “Some time back eBay bought out another company called PayPal whose sole activity is processing payments on line. Soon after eBay made it compulsory for all new people who signed up to sell on eBay to offer Pay Pal as an alternative. “At the same time eBay made a very heavy push to convince buyers on eBay that PayPal was the only safe method of paying for things bought on eBay. “They did this by way of advertisements on the site, pop up announcements and finally by creating a page that buyers have to visit that uses over 90% of the page extolling the virtues of PayPal and creating the impression that it is the only accepted method of payment, and the remainder of the page displayed all other means of payment. “Interestingly, over the last six months the details that allow buyers to use the payment method of Direct Depositing funds into the seller's bank account kept disappearing from the eBay system and pushing people into PayPal payments. “The latest development was that eBay notified the ACCC that it intended to force all sellers to firstly offer PayPal and then to make PayPal the ONLY method of payment that could be used by buyers on its platform. “They did this in an attempt to gain immunity from prosecution from offences under the Trade Practices Act. eBay claimed that PayPal was the most secure method of payment and claimed that this made their uncompetitive conduct okay because it was in the public interest. “You will not be surprised to learn that PayPal charges a fee for payment processing, a fee which will increase total fees paid by sellers by as much as 100%.” The letter continues in full on page 3 – please read on. << First page <   1 2 3 4 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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