PayPal's Trust & Safety Head Shows No Concern for Seller Protection in Interview

[regic]

Auctionbytes interview with PayPal Trust & Safety director:

PayPal's Senior Director of Trust and Safety Dan Levy discussed trust and safety issues in using eBay and PayPal in an interview...

Sellers have been concerned about the risk of sending items to unconfirmed addresses, which is a requirement of eBay's new Express marketplace. Levy said sellers can make their own risk decisions about selling on eBay Express as they do when making the decision about whether to sell internationally. Just as sellers must decide whether additional sales from overseas may be worth the added risk, he said, sellers can choose whether or not to include their items on the new eBay Express marketplace.

In the video interview...Levy also tackled issues of digital content sales; paying PayPal commissions on total transaction amounts including shipping and insurance...

Video interview: http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m06/i26/s04

[xppman]

This whole thing smells like ebay's way to try and gently back out of the whole bogus protection policies they offered shortly after purchasing PayPal.

Oh I also noticed this
dude refers to ebay sellers as "our sellers" too just like momma Meg.

Meg has groomed him well.

Check out this read posted by dimsey:

Actually 53% of paypal payments are made with a CC, to be exact

... which incur the highest processing costs and reversal risks, which make eBay very nervous. eBay wants a certain percentage of payments to be made by bank or paypal balances, despite the lack of consumer protection afforded to customers who use these riskier payment methods.

The more credit cards are used on paypal, the bigger the risk to eBay of "damaging paypal's business". Passing the credit card reversal risk to sellers is eBay's attempt to limit its own exposure.

Senders funded 53% of PayPal’s payment volume using credit cards during both 2005 and the first quarter of 2006, and PayPal’s financial success will remain highly sensitive to changes in the rate at which its senders fund payments using credit cards. Senders may prefer funding using credit cards rather than bank account transfers for a number of reasons, including the ability to dispute and reverse charges if merchandise is not delivered or is not as described, the ability to earn frequent flier miles or other incentives offered by credit cards, the ability to defer payment, or a reluctance to provide bank account information to PayPal. PayPal has received inquiries regarding its disclosure practices with regard to funding mechanisms from the attorneys general of a number of states, and in March 2005, a complaint seeking class action status was filed alleging, among other things, that PayPal’s disclosure regarding the effects of users’ choice of funding mechanism is deceptive. While we believe PayPal’s disclosure is legal and accurate, any required change to our disclosure practices could result in increased use of credit card funding, damaging PayPal’s business.

[regic]

Speaking of PayPal's Seller Protection and the risk sellers face when they ship to unconfirmed addresses, I found a link  on Technorati to this 6/26 (today) blog post by a seller who has been an eBay member for 9 years:

PayPal put a temporary hold on my account. My balance is $-693. WTF?

Apparently, whoever the fuck bought my laptop used a stolen credit card. And since I shipped the item to an unconfirmed address, I am not covered by either PayPal or eBay's seller protection. In other words, I'm out $1400: $700 for the laptop I lost, and another $700 for the fucking PayPal fee.

I sent PayPal every shred of information I had, including the tracking number and insurance info for the package I shipped. There is a slight chance that USPS will reimburse me (since technically they consider a situation like this mail fraud), but I doubt it. Sites like this are starting to make me think that PayPal is going to actually side with the fucking criminal and not give me squat...

All I know is, after this I am fucking CANCELLING both my eBay and PayPal accounts. The fraud risk is just too fucking high...

full post: http://damienc.livejournal.com/89330.html

[xppman]

The entire paypal and ebay experience has become nothing but a fucking joke.

Notice how the quietly rolled back the little PP shield a few months ago and re configured
the "qualifications" for BPP and SPP link to not say "Eligible" but to "See eligibility".

[bargainbloodhound]

I can sympathize with that seller.  I've had a few payments reversed due to "fraudulent funds"...and yes I did file mail fraud complaints against the buyers. 

I realllly prefer my merchant account because with a combination of its built-in anti-fraud checks and manually checking the orders before capturing funds I can do a lot better job of identifying possibly fraudulent payments than PayPal seems capable of doing. I'd also rather fight a chargeback through my merchant account (with the exception of AmEx who will almost always side with the buyer) than rely on PP's Seller Non-Protection Policy.

Notice how the quietly rolled back the little PP shield a few months ago and re configured
the "qualifications" for BPP

I didn't even notice because I opted out of BPP when eBay announced its INR policy.

[xppman]

I realllly prefer my merchant account because with a combination of its built-in anti-fraud checks and manually checking the orders before capturing funds I can do a lot better job of identifying possibly fraudulent payments than PayPal seems capable of doing. I'd also rather fight a chargeback through my merchant account (with the exception of AmEx who will almost always side with the buyer) than rely on PP's Seller Non-Protection Policy.

Ditto

Notice how the quietly rolled back the little PP shield a few months ago and re configured
the "qualifications" for BPP

I didn't even notice because I opted out of BPP when eBay announced its INR policy.

I opted out of BPP long ago but sure enough it is there. Don't go into my PP account much these days. Maybe I should go take a peek and see if they opted me back in.
We all know how ebaypal likes to do this from time to time now don't we.  :

[maggie777]

PayPal's Trust & Safety Head Shows No Concern for Seller Protection

Who cares? Just about everybody pays by credit card.  ;D