The latest Paypal issue

[John Lever]

I finally received a reply from PP. They tell me that it's a technical issue and has nothing to do with my credit rating or any other PP or ebay issue.
If this problem is affecting many other people it could be very damaging to their reputation.

 

[asiamiles]

Miles, that is true for most English speaking sites, but not so in Europe. In France and Germany many sellers will not take PP.

I'm sure Paypal are working on ensuring that, sooner rather than later, they must. I think making Paypal mandatory was first introduced on eBay in Australia about 12 months ago, eBay.com (the main site) is next, with more of the regional sites to adopt in the not too distant future. They will simply make it so French and German sellers cannot list items for sale without offering a Paypal payment option.

 

[Andrew]

Just an update on that Miles,

they did make it mandatory to include it as an option for payments and they had a deadline back in June were going to make it the only method of payment. That was until there was such a public outcry the ACCC (Aust Competition and Consumer Commission) weighed in and ruled that it was uncompetitive so Ebay pushed back the date by a month until more investigation was done, and since then have not mentioned it and have taken the notices of the introduction of the new rule off the homepage. At least now you can still be paid by depositing the funds into the sellers bank account, however they have rigged the checkout pages to mnake it very hard to find the way to go to pay using any method other than paypal. New Ebay members aren't familiar with the option to pay directly so are funnelled straight into the paypal option. Crooks.

I'm not sure where it is currently at but it's seen as a small win for the users, but they'll probably try again once everyone forgets about it. I understand they tried it here first as a test, so since their evil plans haven't worked here they may test the defences somewhere else.

 

[asiamiles]

they did make it mandatory to include it as an option for payments and they had a deadline back in June were going to make it the only method of payment. That was until there was such a public outcry the ACCC (Aust Competition and Consumer Commission) weighed in and ruled that it was uncompetitive so Ebay pushed back the date by a month until more investigation was done, and since then have not mentioned it and have taken the notices of the introduction of the new rule off the homepage.

Thanks for the news. It's always good to know what's going on, and small victories are victories nevertheless, and ones that eBay/Paypal naturally won't be shouting about from the rooftops.

Actually, eBay don't intend to make Paypal the only payment option, perhaps because of the reason you give above (it might be ruled uncompetetive by law), they also will allow sellers to accpet CC payments - naturally, 99.9% of sellers can't accept credit cards, so this is hardly an option! Also, as an exception to their rules, long-standing customers will occasionally be allowed to pay by cheque or MO, though I imagine this is something they will actively discourage.

 

[jacketimp]

I finally received a reply from PP. They tell me that it's a technical issue and has nothing to do with my credit rating or any other PP or ebay issue.
If this problem is affecting many other people it could be very damaging to their reputation.

so did you get paid?

 

[John Lever]

Yes, with a very sorry message your such a good valued customers etc...

 

[jonbuilder]

eaby is in the bussiness of suppling buyers for sellers. sellers are ebay customers, buyers are the commonity. If ebay does not protect the customers they sell to sellers, ebay looses. In the geneal bussiness world payment is not made proir to recieving goods or services. additonal note all transactions I did over this group, goods were shipped and payments mailed when the deal was agreed to. goods were not held until seller recieved payment. I have been both seller and buyer.

 

[John Lever]

The ba***rds have done it again. E-cheque, now Payment pending for 21 days ....

 

[John Lever]

The ba***rds have done it again. E-cheque, now Payment pending for 21 days ....

In US it takes about 7 days to clear!

No not the e-cheque, the Pending Payment. 21 days or + ve feedback which ever comes first.

 

[deeb7]

No not the e-cheque, the Pending Payment. 21 days or + ve feedback which ever comes first.

It's compulsory escrow, and here's PayPal trying to explain why it isn't.

Their statement that "holds are quite common in the payments industry" is, in my experience, untrue. American Express will occasionally sit on payments ... but for no longer than a week, and only on high amounts.


Our intention in placing holds has never been to offer an escrow product, but to establish a transactional reserve to reduce risk associated with a transaction. This is actually quite common in the payments industry, as some community members familiar with merchant accounts have mentioned. In fact, PayPal has for a long time used reserves in other merchant services contexts outside of the eBay platform.

Reserves are fundamentally different from escrow in several ways. First, PayPal, not buyers, will decide which transactions to place holds on based on PayPal's risk evaluation (and holds will only be placed in a small percentage of transactions where PayPal decides that risk needs to be mitigated). Second, we will never even tell buyers which transactions will be subject to holds--unlike escrow, where the buyer is the party deciding to use an escrow and paying for the service. Third, PayPal will release the payment after 21 days regardless--just like when a bank clears an out of state check after a period of time. So, when thinking about holds, do not think of escrow--think of it just like the other risk-driven holds quite typical in the payments industry.

We are working very hard to make sure that this process will be a benefit to buyers and sellers.

Joseph Sullivan
Associate General Counsel, PayPal

 

[John Lever]

Wonder why after so long I am no longer a 'safe risk' ?