eBay drops plan to force Paypal on customers - Australia forces hand
By Dave Parrack
eBay has shelved plans to force all of its customers to offer Paypal as the only payment option after Australian authorities did the right thing, and decided it wouldn’t be good for healthy competition. eBay has now had to surrender, but not before annoying many traders who were once loyal to the auction site.
eBay owns Paypal, and Paypal charges a fee for people sending and receiving payments for products bought on eBay. So, when eBay started to try and force Paypal on to its customers, many smelt a rat, and decided not to play ball.
Paypal is a great service, and I personally use it a lot, but that’s my choice. eBay’s plans, which came to light in May, meant that people would lose that choice and be forced to sign up for the service, or lose the ability to buy and sell on eBay.
The gradual push for Paypal to be the only method of accepted payment on eBay auctions started with an obligation to offer it as a payment option on every auction. This began in Australia, and has now been rolled out to the UK as well. But that was merely stage one of the plan.
eBay’s ultimate plan was to then force its customers to then remove every other method of payment with the exception of cash on delivery. This was being planned on the grounds of increasing security for its customers, and while that may well be true, surely the company itself could see the conflict of interest involved when it would have seen a profit increase from Paypal, a company eBay owns.
Luckily for us all, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) did see the problem, and according to The Inquirer, eBay has now admitted defeat on the issue. In notifying the ACCC of its decision, eBay’s Vice President Simon Smith said:
While we disagree with the ACCC’s draft notice, we have decided to withdraw the notification to stop any further confusion and disruption among the Ebay community.
The only disruption involved is surely the thousands of customers who are deserting eBay due to the contentious issue. With the company’s customers getting increasingly concerned with decisions eBay is making, it won’t be long before it doesn’t actually have any left.
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July 4th, 2008
This is only a partial victory. eBay is still forcing sellers to offer PayPal whether they want to or not, and cancelling listings which state the sellers prefers any payment method other than PayPal.