Sounds like Ebay may try out PAYPal only payments in Austrailia.

Yea right.

Looks like they are pushing ahead regardless

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,...5014108,00.html

I find paypal to be extremely convenient. There are a number of companies that I use online that accept direct paypal payments. Very easy.

So do I, but the seller pays the price! The fees are ridiculous enough to list on eBay, as are the PayPal fees for accepting money! But I still use PayPal because the buyer gets the security, whether it's me buying or someone buying from me, it's still the buyers' favourite.

Clive.

The convenience notwithstanding, the issue is anti-competition and interference with commerce and private contracts. Time after time, eBay continues to claim that they are only a venue and that the auctions/BINs are contracts. This is very important because, at least here in the States, this partially indemnifies eBay if/when a deal goes awry. However, if eBay were to try to force "PayPal only" in the States, they may very well then become a party to the contract. As such, they would no longer indemnified as a "venue only", but now will hold liability as a party to the contract.

eBay already has some liability due to its interference with the legal contract between the buyer and seller because it excludes the use of certain competitors of PayPal. However, other forms of payment options are available to the seller to offer the buyer in the contract. Take away those options and eBay may very well violate some State anti-trust laws. Remember, here in the States, PayPal must be a registered financial institute and falls under some very specific regulations in many States.

I see what eBay is purporting to do in Australia as simply testing the waters. I believe they want to see public reaction to an actual implementation, just to see if the "public outcry" will really have any affect. Here in the States, individuals would have to actually file complaints with the appropriate regulators and authorities before something "bad" would happen if they tried the PayPal only scheme. If they test the waters in other countries first and see what kind of reaction is obtained as opposed to the "outcry", they may actually be stupid enough to try it here in the States.

eBay is starting to do a lot of stupid things recently, including their lawsuits against Craig's List and the one in Germany with Skype's (an eBay company) lawsuit contesting the GNU Public License as violating anti-trust laws. eBay's lawyers really do not come off to me as the brightest bulbs on the block, and I am seeing what I personally believe to be some rather irrational and harmful actions this past year.

PayPal are a bunch of crooks and as to security, none at all, they could not care less and I can prove that.

Speaking primarily as a buyer of limited experience (rating of 90), I have run into 3 criminal sellers and paypal has protected me each time. When I say criminal seller I mean that the seller never had any intent to ship a product and the entire purpose of the "auction" was to defraud. Three out of aprox 50 (I do other stuff on ebay) is around a 6% fraud rate and that is huge. You need protection on ebay. A few years ago I sent cashiers checks to several sellers for 100 oz silver bars and lucked out. I wouldn't do that now.

I would be all for ebay's action except for the exclusion of other similar services. As a buyer I use paypal and my credit card and feel safe.

Sure I don't mind accepting Paypal but have buyers ever tried to work out the fees?

I should create an excel file and see how expensive it actually works out to be!

While back I asked about this on an Aussie forum, since I wanted to buy an Aussie £10 from the predecimal era, and most of the notes I could find were of course in Australia. But most Aussie sellers, at least in the paper money realm would not accept paypoo. That presents a problem for international buyers, but I guess most do not expect non-Aussies to come in and buy up this kind of material anyway. So I had to wait and wait and wait some more to find one, and then it was from a seller in Singapore, not Australia.

I think sellers should have a right to determine how they want their payments. Even if it cost them intl sales.

I have found that every seller I approached toke paypal if I offered to pay 5% more
With non euro countries it is that or nothing for me.
A bank transfer costs like 20 dollars and I got defrauded once by a scam artist I was using Western Union for the first and last time

Then you're fraudsters where rather stupid, as soon as you complained about no item turning up all they had to do was send you an empty envelope and you would have been up crap creek.

They've got plenty of stuffs to explain here:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=560270

RBA