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Valleywag
Years ago, PayPal was an independent company which fought constantly with eBay to be allowed on the site as a way to settle accounts after an auction was won. Now, years after eBay bought PayPal, the payments service is elbowing out all manner of competition. In Australia, eBay is limiting purchases to either PayPal or cash on delivery — no checks or money orders allowed, let alone rival electronic payment methods. In the U.S., eBay was sued last year for tying PayPal too closely to its online marketplace. How soon they forget: PayPal is aiming to quash an economic freedom its founders, including noted libertarian Peter Thiel, fought for.
Australians question eBay's PayPal-only policy
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8:30 PM on Tue Apr 15 2008
By Owen Thomas
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2 comments
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I'm not going to pull out the rant-o-matic, but my wife sells her custom-designed jewelry on eBay. According to her, over the past two years the auction site has gone into the shitter in a big way.
I only live a few blocks from eBay's headquarters, and I swear I have considered sitting at the intersection of Hamilton and Irritating Left Turn Lane with a sign that reads "Please Shut My Wife up: Fix your goddamned company".
Apparently that would not help; I think it's time they fired half the dumbasses over there (who regularly run the red light at aforementioned intersection) and reinstitute the older, fairer fee structure with a provision for adding Google ads to auctions.
I won't use them anymore; they keep pulling crap like this to create a walled garden with fifteen different kinds of bricks. They don't realize that if you're going to wall off the competition, you need to make your own bricks, too.
Australia has decent consumer protection (unlike the US - gotta love statutory warranties). ACCC will certainly step in and give them what-for.
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