Stan Beer
Saturday, 19 April 2008 07:23
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
“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.
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