Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
eBay Australia announces Safe Payment Initiative
Today, eBay Australia announced their Safe Payment Initiative.
In a nut shell, the changes are as follows:
1. All items (with the exception of cars, motorcycles, aircraft, boats, caravans, trailers, commercial trucks, services, real estate and businesses for sale) listed for sale on eBay.com.au on or after May 21, 2008 will be required to offer PayPal as one of the payment methods.
2. All items appearing on eBay.com.au as of June 17, 2008 will be required to be paid for using:
a) PayPal (or)
b) paid for when picking up the item (or)
c) Visa/Mastercard transaction via PayPal
3. No other payments will be permitted
4. PayPal Buyer Protection will increase to a maximum of $20,000 (including postage) for eligible items purchased on or after June 17, 2008.
There were two primary reasons given for the changes:
1. The changes will make buying on eBay.com.au even safer with the $20K PayPal Buyer Protection. Plus, eBay data (note to self: how do I get my hands on this data?) shows that in 2007 people who paid with PayPal were four times less likely to enter a dispute than people who paid with bank deposit.
2. The changes will make selling more reliable with new PayPal Seller Protection. Again, eBay data was cited to have shown that in 2007 sellers who accepted PayPal were almost half as likely to experience an unpaid item than sellers who did not accept PayPal.
At face value, I think that people prefer having a choice and implementing this takes a number of existing choices away. However, one of our top priorities is to ensure that transactions on eBay are trouble-free and I know we don’t feel comfortable endorsing payment methods that result in a higher chance of a dispute and this does address that.
I’ve been told that there are no plans to go to a PayPal-only model for eBay in other markets – US included.
Tagged: , australia, ebay, ebay australia, paypal, safe payment program
Kevin_TOn 04.15.2008 at 12:37 am Said:
Hi Richard,
I sometimes miss your responses because they are inserted out of time sequence after the post they are responding to. Not a complaint, I just need to adjust how I read the blog, so I don’t miss your comments. I am used to chatboard threads. 
You responded to Davey at the top of the blog with:
“Important to note, eBay did lodge a notification with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to help ensure that the process of implementing these changes is as transparent as possible.”
Can you advise the date and any other details of this lodgement. Those who have spoken to the ACCC have been advised that no lodgement has been made, and the only related lodgement that can be found is one relating to PayPal only payments specifically for items distributed electronically in December 2005.
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/719618/fromItemId/729974
Kind Regards, Kevin
Kevin_TOn 04.15.2008 at 8:42 am Said:
I have found the application to the ACCC:
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/823668/fromItemId/776499
It was made on Friday 11th of April, 2008 - one day after the official announcement, and two days after leaking it to the Sydney Morning Herald (newspaper).
Kevin
JJHOn 04.15.2008 at 8:43 am Said:
Customer service, perfect REAL WORLD example.
I sent this question:
I want to remove the telephone number from the “Primary Telephone Number” field, and only have a number listed in the “Secondary Telephone Number” field. There does not appear to be any way to delete this number once entered, only to change it. I entered my mobile number into the primary field yesterday, and I want to remove it. I do not want buyers to have access to this number, in fact I do not want anyone to have access to a telephone number. I only want the secondary field to contain a number for eBay to contact me in case of trouble, as explained in yesterday’s T&S announcement. Please tell me how to delete the number from the primary field, or do it
for me.
ANSWER:
Thank you for writing eBay in regard to removing the telephone number from the “Primary Telephone Number” field, and only having a number listed in the “Secondary Telephone Number” field.
I will be happy to help you resolve this as quickly as possible.
When registering with eBay, all members agree to provide contact information so it can be sent to a trading partner if it’s needed to help complete a transaction. If your trading partner requests your
contact information, we always send his or her information to you at the same time.
Why do members request contact information?
Members sometimes request contact information when they see a member is new and has no Feedback on eBay. Other times, members need to verify contact information for shipping. Another common situation is that a member may not be able to reach you by email. If you’d like to know why a member requested your contact information, we encourage you to contact
the other member and ask for more details.
How does eBay protect your privacy?
To better protect the privacy of eBay members, we do not disclose a member’s street address. Also, we provide contact information only to members who are involved in a current or recent transaction with each
other.
What else can you do to protect your privacy?
You can provide an office phone number instead of your home telephone number. If you receive unwelcome calls from an eBay member who uses your phone number to call you for reasons that aren’t related to completing a
transaction, you may want to report the situation to your phone company.
It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.
Sincerely,
Joseph V.
eBay Customer Support
THE ANSWER DID NOT ADDRESS THE QUESTION. NOT AT ALL.
Once you enter a telephone number, it goes into a BLACK HOLE. You can’t remove it, only CHANGE it. For YEARS the field was BLANK. Now, my ONLY option appears to be to enter a telephone number of the nearest PAY PHONE. Oh yes, I could contact my telephone company if I get unwelcome calls.
[Sentence edited. See comment policy].
JJHOn 04.15.2008 at 12:29 pm Said:
From above: “[Sentence edited. See comment policy].”
I’m Sorry…
But it makes my blood boil.
Would YOU please find out how I can delete my telephone number from my profile. NO COMPANY should prohibit me from doing that. It’s MY personal information, and I SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT to DELETE stuff I don’t want on record.
DaveyOn 04.16.2008 at 9:30 am Said:
@JJH
At least your response had something to do with phone numbers 
You might have gotten something where the bot assumed you asked about contacting a buyer or seller or something weirder.
I recognize about 3/4 of the boilerplate in your response, though. I’ve gotten the same snippets lots.
My guess is that about 1 out of 10 Customer Service responses hit the target. Try this when you’ve lost a listing, lost some money, see a scam in progress, or are being threatened with sanctions for some bogus policy violation… That blood boils quickly.
JJHOn 04.16.2008 at 1:56 pm Said:
I immediately replied to the email indicating I wanted a response from a human being and an answer to the question. So far I have not gotten a reply. I did however about an hour ago receive an invitation to answer a survey about this customer service incident. The answers, shall we say, were all extremely negative, and were in line with the response I received.
Yesterday I had to send a second customer service incident on a listing of mine. My listing was NOT showing in any browse mode, and had not gotten any hits in days. It was due to close in 6 hours at the time I filed the customer service report. I still have not gotten a reply to that, and the item closed 18 hours ago unsold because nobody saw it. I had added all sorts of features to it to increase visibility, and just the opposite happened. It VANISHED. I spent $6.25 in listing/reserve fees. THANK GOD I put a reserve on it, because this extremely rare book got a $10 bid from the one of 10 people who saw the listing (only 10 hit counts in 7 days). This book is worth hundreds of dollars. So now I’m out a serious listing fee, which I want credited, and the item never showed up. You could only find it by entering a word that was in the title, but not by browse.
So I have reasons to NOT be happy.
DaveyOn 04.16.2008 at 6:06 pm Said:
“Practise”
That’s how most of the rest of the English-speaking world besides the States spells “practice,” yes…
Kevin_TOn 04.17.2008 at 7:58 am Said:
Richard,
I am afraid that you are increasingly looking either like you are being used as a spinmeister or that you are being duped by those in the organisation who wish to undermine the credibility of your blog:
On 9th of April you stated:
QUOTE: “I’ve been told that there are no plans to go to a PayPal-only model for eBay in other markets – US included.”
On 17th of April the New York Times quotes Ebay CEO John Donahoe:
QUOTE: “Mr. Donahoe outlined some more coming changes to the site. In Australia, the company is testing a program that requires sellers to accept only PayPal payments. Mr. Donahoe said that if the test was successful, the company would introduce it in other countries “in months, not years.” Mr. Donahoe said the intent was to cut down on fraud on the site, but critics say the change will entitle eBay to a double helping of fees on each transaction.”
That does not suggest there were “no plans” a week ago.
Kevin
CrunchyPostingGoodnessOn 04.17.2008 at 9:03 am Said:
Richard,
Given the information provided by Kevin above, I also must truely question how informed eBay is keeping you updated regarding intended policy changes.
Perhaps you can understand how users of eBay feel every time eBay decides to roll out another change? Here you think you are doing every thing right and in accordance with eBay, and then they announce a bomb like that - not unlike those who sold digital delivered items on eBay recently only to have their business pulled away from them within a weeks time.
This is a prime example of what makes eBay such an unstable, unpredictable, and undesirable selling venue. The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.
I hope that you will bring this discrepancy to eBay management’s attention.
LurchOn 04.17.2008 at 11:38 pm Said:
Kevin - good info on that nytimes article!
“I am afraid that you are increasingly looking either like you are being used as a spinmeister or that you are being duped by those in the organisation who wish to undermine the credibility of your blog”
At this point, I am going to go with the notion that you are entirely correct (and it may well be the “spinmeister” component). Given the fact that the question of mine which remains answered regarding a dictate “from above” that departments need to cooperate with Richard in his investigations (my words), I suppose it could be either. Then again, also remaining unanswered - whether there is any value seen in the perspective of someone who has been around from the beginning and has seen all of the changes (both good and often bad since then). Due to the lack of any kind of response to either, I must assume the answer to both is “no.”
Thanks for the respect and consideration… And thank you for the definitive “inside look at the wide world of eBay Inc.” Got it.
LurchOn 04.17.2008 at 11:40 pm Said:
“answered” should be “unanswered” - which should be obvious. I hate it when I re-write sentences.
MechelleOn 04.19.2008 at 1:22 am Said:
I think the blogger is experiencing eBay the way we have, but unlike us this is his first - we see their lies, and he is only beginning. Won’t be long before he feels as abused and dis-enchanted with eBay as we do, but at least he gets to go home with a pay check
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