ebay Australia scraps in-house buyer protection program

[Guest]

[blackcat20]

Online auction house eBay Australia will scrap its in-house buyer protection program as it seeks to boost transactions through its subsidiary PayPal.

Under a new program to be launched in June, PayPal will double its buyer protection scheme to $3000 for purchases from well-known eBay sellers.

But while the program has doubled the maximum amount buyers will be eligible to claim, it is likely to incite reaction from some vendors who prefer not to use PayPal.

The rest of the article is here: http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/ebay-revamps-buyer-protection-program/2007/05/09/1178390356109.html

[kbmum]

Here we go.   It won't be long before this is the policy throughout all of eBay.

[Nienna]

This message appeared on the UK ebay site yesterday:
 
08 May, 2007 | 02:59PM BST

We wanted to let you know about improvements we’re making to buyer protection on eBay.co.uk and eBay.ie.
From June 2007, PayPal will provide £150/€200 of coverage with no processing fee, no minimum purchase price and no seller requirements for all UK / IE buyers who pay with PayPal. This coverage protects buyers for purchases made of certain items which are either not received or for those that are significantly not as described.

Additionally, buyers who use PayPal to purchase items from eligible sellers may be entitled to up to £500/€1000 protection.

Buyers can look in the Meet the Seller, Buy Safely section on item listings to see how each specific listing is covered.

The protection offered by PayPal is an expansion of PayPal Buyer Protection and replaces the eBay Standard Purchase Protection Programme which previously covered most eBay listings for up to £120/€200 minus a £15/€25 processing fee. We’ve responded to community feedback that eBay Standard Purchase Protection wasn’t meeting the community’s needs, so we’ve decided to retire it and just offer simplified purchase protection through PayPal – making coverage on eBay much simpler and more comprehensive.

Hey ho ... sounds like they're manoeuvring their users into 'having' to use Paypal rather than letting people make their own choices ...