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Ebay feels the pressure from ACCC

Paypal is not our mate, mate
Mon Jun 30 2008, 10:15

THE AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) bark seems to be as good as its bite, with the outfit apparently winning a recent mini victory in the ongoing battle with online auction site Ebay.

After an ACCC statement questioned the legality of a move by Ebay to disallow all other payment methods in favour of Paypal in Oz, Ebay announced it would be delaying the changes from June 15th until July 15th instead. Now, however, it seems Ebay has had to push back that date too, sending out an update to its Australian members saying the move would be postponed “until the review process with the ACCC regarding its recent draft notice is complete”.

The Online giant noted that discussions were still underway with the ACCC (“to achieve an outcome that benefits buyers and sellers”) and that, in the meanwhile, Aussie Ebayers should disregard any onsite Ebay communications still referring to changes taking place on 15 July 2008, as these were being updated. Hoorah for the ACCC!

Meanwhile, demonstrating why Australians seem to be displaying a severe mistrust of Paypal and anger towards being forced to use it as their only payment method, a reader has alerted the INQ to the fact that Paypal apparently uses a different exchange rate for currency transactions, to its own benefit (surprise, surprise).

Whilst Aussie news and online exchange websites use the rate of $1 Australian buys $0.96c USA, a reader who used Paypal on Friday was dismayed to find that the exchange rate used was $1 Australian = $ 0.933869 USA, an exchange rate over a month old. No wonder the Aussie’s are skeptical of Paypal. We’d be fairly skeptical if we were being ripped off too. µ

See Also

Ebay accuses consumer rights group of undermining consumer rights

Ebay's Paypal-only policy spanked by Aussie Consumer Commission

Not using Paypal is akin to buying heroin on the street

Aussies flock off to Ebay rivals over Paypal bias

Ebay forces Aussie buyers to use Paypal

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Comments
http://www.paypalsucks.com/

Then you have the fact you cannot use ebay's turbo lister even in the uk to "list" an item without paypal. you have to manually remove it from each auction after,

They are not integrating google checkout,

and what really pisses me off is that every time i go to pay via paypal they change my default funding source (very sneakily i might add) to my bank account, so that they don't have to worry about my credit card chargeback (which they also have a t&c against!!!!!), and charging my bank directly, not even through my debit card costs less!!!!

i have never hated a company so much, and known of a company so blind so that they can't see they are railroading themselves for a mighty fall.

posted by : craig, 30 June 2008 Complain about this comment
profit margins

My take on this move by Ebay is to increase their profit margins in two ways;
1) no processing fees for buyers/sellers using credit cards or other forms of payment
2) Paypal percentage of sales goes up

Cheers,
John

posted by : John, 30 June 2008 Complain about this comment
Natwest charge 20% commission when changing Euros to UK pounds in UK.

Natwest charge 20% commission when changing Euros to UK pounds in UK. They don't call it commission though, they call it "lovely money".

I went into Natwest to change some Euros and they would only pay me just over 60p to the Euro, where the exchange rate is approx 80p to the Euro. I am a Natwest customer and I was doing another transaction with my account at the time.

Paypal is a bargain compared to Natwest.

Gordon Brown and the EU should be looking at bank charges for changing money. Natwest shouldn't be able to get away with charging 20% more than the exchange rate.

posted by : Traveller, 30 June 2008 Complain about this comment
paypal is a bank

Paypal is a registered bank located in europe. But dealing with them is extremely difficult anyway.

posted by : Anne Bokma, 30 June 2008 Complain about this comment
PayPal

Exactly right, PayPal currency exchange is usually 5%-10% off, thought i was getting something really cheap when the currency was hitting 96 US cents per dollar, but PayPal said it was 90.4...

posted by : Michael, 30 June 2008 Complain about this comment
It bears repeating

Paypal is not a bank.
Dealing with Paypal is like dealing with the crackhead next door. If it goes well, fine, but if there's a problem, you're up the creek without a paddle.

posted by : Pascal Monett, 30 June 2008 Complain about this comment
PayPal Exchange Rate

The ripoff exchange rate is not limited to Oz...

At the time of writing, PayPal exchange rate is
1 GBP = 1.94358 USD

While according to XE.com: -
Live rates at 2008.06.30 08:59:36 UTC 
1 GBP = 1.99520 USD

posted by : peel, 30 June 2008 Complain about this comment
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