Square Trade Buyer Protection for eBay Wins

[mandy]

SquareTrade in a challenge to BuySafe with the introduction of its new Buyer Protections Services for eBay buyers.

Siginficantly, the Purchase Protection scheme seems to be offered only to buyers who pay by PayPal or credit card. Buyers who paid for their purchases with cash, checks, money order, or Western Union aren't eligible for protection.  :

The SquareTrade Buyer Protections must be activated for each transaction individually. The registration must be completed prior to the end of the auction or within 24 hours of the end of the auction to be considered valid...

The cost of this Protection Package is jointly covered by SquareTrade and the seller of the item - there is no charge to the buyer.

Purchase Protection. Details and Eligibility Guidelines

    * Offers compensation if you do not receive the item you paid for, or the item is significantly different from the listing description. It does not cover items lost or damaged during shipping. Compensation decisions are the sole discretion of the SquareTrade Claims Administrator.
    * Covers the price of the item up to $10,000 total value.
    * Your claim must be filed within 30 days after the auction closes.
    * In addition to filing a claim with SquareTrade, if you bought your item on eBay, you must file with eBay; if you paid for your item using PayPal, you must file with PayPal; if you purchased the item with a credit card, you must contact your credit card company.
    * It does not cover payments made by cash, wire transfers, money orders, western union transfers or cashiers checks.

The Price Protection scheme will pay eBay buyers $100 if they find the item they purchased on eBay offered for less outside of eBay.  Items found priced lower on other auction sites or in a "liquidation/overstock' site do not qualify for price protection.

Price Protection. Details and Eligibility Guidelines

    * If you find your new item priced lower outside of eBay, Price Protection will reimburse you the difference, up to $100.
    * It is ONLY applicable to new items. There is no price protection for used or refurbished items.
    * The purchased item must be identical to the lower-priced item, including, but not limited to same brand and model number.
    * Your claim must be filed within 30 days after the auction closes.
    * It does not apply if you find your item priced lower on eBay or any other auction marketplace or in a liquidation/overstock setting.

more info: http://www.squaretrade.com/buyersvcs/bp/

[xppman]

Boy there sure seems to be some shake ups going on with the bay.

They must be very afraid of something.

Lets see:
Offering API service FREE now.
Raising the 2000.00 spend limit for unverified PP users.
Allowing non PP users to buy on ebay.
Pulling down the “Protection” shield.
Running a 10 cent deal during holiday season.
BANNING a possible rival payment service before it even comes online.


What else anyone?

[bargainbloodhound]

Raising the 2000.00 spend limit for unverified PP users.

I must of missed that one.  If PayPal was really the "safe way to pay online" the spend limit for unverified users would be zero.

Price Protection

Is someone at SquareTrade sleeping with an eBay exec?...that's the only reason I can think of for SquareTrade's continual ass kissing of eBay.  They sure don't act like an independent company.

If I was an eBay seller (defined here as someone who relies on eBay for the majority of their sales), I don't think I'd be promoting this "price protection" policy because the only thing it will do is drive  selling prices even lower.

Purchase Protection

Weak protection compared to BuySafe.  BuySafe protects up to $25K plus it doesn't impose the same payment type restrictions.

I don't think these purchase protection (or bonded seller) plans really make any difference in sales either.  Since joining BuySafe (which is a requirement for Overstock's Trusted Merchant program), I haven't noticed any increase in sales on my eBay ID that is bonded...in fact, I get more sales from my 2nd ID which is not bonded than I do from the bonded one.  On Overstock I have noticed a  jump in sales but it is not due to BuySafe--rather it is due to being included in the main store search which has 10X more visitors than the auction search.