Home opinion-and-analysis Fuzzy Logic eBay rebels react as a major seller on eBay goes bust, issue warning!

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“Don’t be fooled”, say the eBay rebels, “the PayPal Buyer Protection is entirely illusory”. They’ve made this claim for some time now but feel the failure of one of the largest sellers on eBay only bolsters their claim that eBay’s push to mandate PayPal is going in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, one of Australia’s big banks has responded to the group’s query over the safety of the decades old “Direct Deposit” system.

The nightmare for eBay continues as the eBay rebellion shows no signs of ending anytime soon.

This ongoing action has just been joined by the news of major seller on eBay failing, with its owners reportedly leaving the country.

It’s something that has left many wondering if they’ll ever get the products they ordered or their money back, despite the head of PayPal reported as saying those who paid by PayPal will be get their money through a “new fund” created to deal with this incident.

The “new fund” has been criticised by the eBay rebels, as seen in the information below.

iTWire has received another letter from the rebels. It’s being reprinted in full, with permission, and in italics. The letter will be followed by another with an earlier response from one of Australia’s major banks to a previous query by said rebels on the safety of Direct Debits.

“Dear XXXXX

“Reference the following two articles by Asher Moses in The Age and the SMH today.

“Our group has collated additional information which you should consider using if you intend to publish this story for your readership.

“The group of which I am part and which has been writing to The Treasurer, Ministers, Senators, ASIC, ACCC, Banking Ombudsman, Office of Fair Trading, RBA, APCA, APRA, ABA etc. in the past weeks (much of the content has already been provided to you) has raised many concerns about eBay and PayPal which go the heart of this EBS incident. PayPal is not the safe product eBay claims it to be.

“When publishing articles on this EBS incident you should consider drawing salient comments from our letters and posing the question why our regulators have failed to act, and continue to fail to act.

“We assume you have retained copies of our letters, but if not we will be happy to resend. The claims that PayPal is "safe" has induced, and continues to induce buyers to take risks that they would not otherwise take.

“It is irrelevant that eBay are supposedly setting up a special fund to refund buyers who used PayPal to purchase items through EBS. You would know as well as we do that this is nothing more than a PR stunt by eBay to limit reputational damage (EBS is eBay's seventh largest seller in Australia) and every day there are hundreds of buyers making other purchases on eBay via PayPal and they are losing their money.

“Individually these buyers are not being heard, so eBay and PayPal simply ignore them. They are no less entitled
to the protection of our consumer laws than are the unfortunate customers of EBS - same eBay, same PayPal, same terms and conditions, and also victims of the same misleading advertising. eBay and PayPal will ignore them until our regulators step in.

Do not be fooled : the establishment of a special fund to refund those who used PayPal on this occasion is a public admission by eBay and PayPal that PayPal Buyer Protection is entirely illusory.

Continued on page 2.

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Alex Zaharov-Reutt

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One of Australia’s best-known technology journalists and consumer tech experts, Alex has appeared in his capacity as technology expert on all of Australia’s free-to-air and pay TV networks, including stints as presenter of Ch 10’s Internet Bright Ideas, Ch 7’s Room for Improvement and tech expert on Ch 9’s Today Show, among many other news and current affairs programs.

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