Bitcoin Forum

On Tuesday, Andy Shroder posted on Reddit that eBay Inc. had removed his merchant listing  because he accepted bitcoin for his products.


So, 'Hard of use' payment processor is guaranteed for the 'security and safety' and make all customer is comfortable ??? eBay must consider this, again.

In 2013

::)

Your thought?


Source: http://cointelegraph.com/news/114875/ebay-forbids-bitcoin-for-payments-removes-merchant-listing

It's sad to see that eBay is still not allowing its users to use bitcoin as a payament method, well what can I say? On the brighter side, it leaves a massive gap in the market for someone to secure.

1. Bitcoin is secured by the most powerful computing network on Earth with with unbreakable encryption making it the safest way to send money.

2. QR coded BTC addresses make sending Bitcoin as simple as point and click.

This is not a new thing, ebay also prevent a whole bunch of other ways to transact. Its been in the terms and conditions for ages as far as i know.  I dont think ebay are against bitcoin as such its just too complex as a means of trade for average person right now.

I told you guys, paypal are full of shit, they're just trying to ride the Bitcoin wave to get a bit more popular, I doubt they have any interest in the actual technology and they'll probably come up with some kind of centralised version of their own like ripple.

They have been touting their supposed love of the technology for years now, stop latching onto false hope.

These dumbasses will all go bankrupt one after another. We are taking out Paypal, Western Union, and the rest of morons not accepting the Bitcoin superiority. It's simple you stuck up CEOs: GET ON BTC. Do it now, save yourself some humiliation, or do it too late, and then enjoy seeing your company going kaput.

A complete bunch of idiots they are, I wonder if this is linked to the eBay / Paypal spilt. Openbazaar.org is an amazing idea and hopefully it will outgrow eBay one day

i think at some point they may accept bitcoin as form of payment. but they might only do so if they see another big company have increased sales due to bitcoin. if it's popular enough, they will surely add it.

The answer is obvious. They are trying to protect PayPal market share. In the long run they will die like Blockbuster after not properly responding to Netflix

Imho there is no company want to go bankrupt. They just try to understand what bitcoin is and how it can give profit for them. I'm sure they will pull their own words after they know the potentials of bitcoin.

That is a big part of the problem though, they will be saying "oh they accept bitcoin, now we should".

eBay should get an escrow and go from there. Not hard...

And who would pay that escrow?

Since bitcoin only try to secure the seller and not the buyer they need to do a lot of extra work they dont need to think about with other payment metodes.

Innovation ensures a company's success. But the innovation has to continue or they could be in danger of being bought out by the competition.
Paypal seems to be stuck in their old ways and are susceptible to continue on into their downward sprial. It is just a matter of time before they go under.
They keep sending me promotions for $5 off your next purchase all the time, but I don't fall for their ploys for gaining customer loyality  ::)

They are afraid of Bitcoin not because it is not Secure and Safe for the users but rather because they are not the one controlling it.
There is no company standing behind bitcoin and ebay want rather have corporate business partner like PayPal or Visa/MasterCard.
It would be quite easy for ebay to provide good bitcoin service for users but it would be too good for people, and company won't earn from that.

if they can attract a new users base with the bitcoin payment then the profit which will result from it, can pay the escrow, the point it that the users base of bitcoin is so tiny and they know that

Not only are the usebase low but there are just 4,5 million bitcoins in circulation. Compare that to the currencys they deal in everyday and you see how little and isignificant bitcoin is for them and other big global companies.

4.5M? are you talking about available bitcoin in circulation? and where did you find this number btw, an estimation? because i doubt that there are 10M lost coin from the 14M+ total coins in circulation

 

well it is 14.5 million coins  but that is only   3.5-4.3 billion usd.  not much money at all.   and amph beat me to the correction

Thanks for the input new guys, fresh input is always welcome here.

Bitcoin has no consumer protection, eBay and Paypal are very big on consumer protection, it makes sence sellers cannot use bitcoin as a payment method on their platform.

They also do not permit cash and a bunch of other payment methods, this isn't something new...

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/accepted-payments-policy.html

Yeah it would really suck if eBay cut & ran with all the users BTC like Silk Road 2.0 so I guess it's a good thing they have Visa and MC to watch over them.

You can always go to Gyft and get eBay cards with bitcoin... If there is a will, there is a way.

They don't give a shit about the overall safety of the system as a whole.

It's grandma who might get screwed over buying a dangerous vibrator with BTC. Same as them discouraging bank transfers off platform. Their whole ethos is about handholding the buyer, no matter how dishonest they are. They can't do squat with a BTC payment.

And i guess they can't protect the buyer with a simple escrow, since the fund can't be withheld long and once released cannot be charged back.

I still think there should be a way.

Like BTC -> Processor -> USD(or whatever) sent to -> Seller

The BTC would be effectively held by the processor for the length of the buyer's protection. It would still be possible to charge back since the BTC would be held by the creditor. From that point on its no problem to chargeback the USD forwarded.

But this is not new news? When did EBAY ever allow listings where the seller was willing to take btc as a payment. Im sure they have been taking down those listing for the better part of the last 3 years.

Well it's sad , but I don't think Ebay not accepting Bitcoin will be the factor of Bitcoin failure , a lot of other comapnies are accepting Bitcoin now , so Ebay can go to hell and in after months OpenBazaar will be opened  and hopefully no one will need Ebay or amazon shit anymore .

No this is not new news, I had a listing taken down 2 years ago for saying I wouold accept btc.  

Obviously they know people are looking to use btc, but why would they allow listing to be hosted on their website, only to have people complete tranactions in btc and avoid their listing fees.  Similarly if they knew you were going to say send a check and avoid the fees, they wouldnt allow that.

Will be interesting to see if they try to put all this effort into actually allowing btc to be used as payment, rather than wasting all this effort banning its use.  They could really open up a HUGE potential for btc use as tey are already worldwide and the largest place to sell stuff online.

I got a big news flash for you guys.. the reason Ebay and Paypal are getting a divorce is because of BTC.
Paypal loves btc even if they don't come out and say it and Im thinking btc is a big reason why the two are splitting up.

Nope, don't think they will. I don't know why but I think ebay hates BTC. Maybe its because they know that once btc is huge its only a matter of time till a new ebay is formed, one that bigger, better and cheaper to use. Maybe even based on blockchain tech or some sort of decentralized something or other.

The simple option here is to allow Paypal accounts to be funded with bitcoin, I think they have much to gain with this, probably it's even better for them than current system only allowing credit and debit cards.

Gotta agree with you on this one.

Funny how ebay forbids bitcoin payments but it owns a company that works with bitcoin payment braintree is own by ebay and their payment processor has bitcoin a form of payment, it would be funny if braintree becomes the main gateway processor of ebay and they enable bitcoin.

No bitcoin is lost. Some are just hard to get.

3 years ago only 20% of the bitcoins had ever been used. 80% was untouched after mining. Still most bitcoin is just put in cold storage. My number is probably way to high.

Etsy allows btc payments, the seller and buyer have to set it up, and you can only sell crafts, craft supplies, and vintage stuff on Etsy, but they have a how to accept btc page, so they are definitely friendly.

The problem with openbazzaar is that there isn't much traffic.

Frist time i hear something about Etsy I'll check it out, traffic in this type of sites is pretty much taken over by Amazon and Ebay Hopefully the openbazzaar new funding would bring something great to bitcoin users.

Etsy worth is like 3 billion dollars, it's a pretty big website...

Unless a payment method is capable of being charged back I doubt they would consider using it. They have so many disputes to resolve that they have to stick to something allowing charge backs. Perhaps they might start accepting Bitcoin if they start using a third party service that holds Bitcoin payments in escrow until it's been confirmed there is no chargeback.'

This is confusing. eBay doesn't conduct or handle any payments. eBay uses PayPal and they just decided to spin off the PayPal unit, so this sounds like a non-issue.

That may solve the issue perfectly. EBay could still process "PayPal" payments and not care too much how the transaction is funded.

If they wanted to steer clear of btc just make sure they state all seller fees are paid in fiat. Then let the buyer and seller choose how the money goes in or out of their PayPal acct. Simple solution and eBay doesn't have to deal with btc.

eBay can be the escrow if they wanted, and holds the bitcoin for 6 months until after chargeback period. They don't want to because there is too few people using bitcoins. They also own PayPal. PayPal is making a lot of money for eBay, they are not going to kill their own golden goose for bitcoin.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/22/us-ebay-results-idUSKBN0ND2GS20150422

Ebay is run by a ton of scunts who couldn't tell a dogecoin from a real dog.  Though I love the marketplace Ebay provides and I do use it frequently, they've transformed it into a seller's nightmare.  I'd like to assfuck the CEO on live television, and you have that on record.  Is there anything else that needs to be said?

Yes, I really thought with the spin off of paypal eBay would become a lot more accepting of bitcoin.  But this suggests otherwise.  Maybe something else is going on with the OP?

Ebay are looking into adding bitcoin as a payment option, but only when they see it is right and they understand totally. With Bitcoin you have no control over payments, once its sent payment is final and the customer in their eyes being the consumer their is no wrights. If their was protection over transactions like paypal as or any other service having option to contact them to issues a refund or to make a dispute this is where Bitcoin lacks as all payments are final, unless the receiver sends it back upon request. Ebay are looking at the tech behind Bitcoin and its security benefits and no doubt maybe see something like baycoin come out with their own controls over it. If Ebay looked past and said ok lets accept it on a trial run and get a bunch of beta testers to test it out then they would see a lot more to it and to better understand it.

ebay is trying to maintain its monopoly.

the only approved payment on ebay is paypal which they own. 

ebay and paypal are separating into different companies so people don't complain about the unfair access.

if a seller wishes to offer bitcoin, seashells, or cash in the mail along with paypal (a requirement).  it should be up to his customer to decide which method is easiest and offers most security.

Something like eBay accepting bitcoin would have been like a Bonsai of global adoption. The degree of global spread eBay has would have great for bitcoin advertisement. Hopefully someday they do integrate bitcoin.

Yup that'd have been a major step in promoting bitcoin and making it popular among general masses and populace... eBay accepting bitcoin would have allowed a large number of population a chance to get to know about the bitcoin and bitcoin community and what it would mean to use the e-currency for making their transactions...

Hope such large corporations do someday integrate bitcoin as a method of paying and accepting for their purchases...

Indeed, if anything happens it will be PaypalCoin a centralized currency with the exact same options as paypal for buyer protections. This could have benefits, such as exchanging BTC->PPCoin and not needing a bank middleman.

The reasons they "ban" bitcoin is so scammers don't hijack accounts, then edit listings to include a bitcoin payment address conning somebody into losing their money. They want to enforce a paypal only payment system unless using ebay escrow for bank wires through ebay vehicle sales.

i think one the many reasons that these big companies are not considering accepting bitcoin as a payment method is that they might be afraid of the anonymity it offers
also it can be because of all the other criminal activity that can be done easier using bitcoin. like what happened in silk road.

eBay has went down the tubes in recent years.  They have started a pretty aggressive online advertising campaign.  I thought PayPal just bought themselves out completely and are no longer part of the parent company.  ??? 

Very strange. This behavior is contrary the spirit of the last months in this matter. I think that this temporary and soon they will find the way to accept again bitcoin and the merchants that had adopted such way of payment.

Carl Icahn bought a majority shareholder stake in eBay, then proceeded to clown them at every opportunity to point out how incompetent eBay management is by keeping PayPal combined with eBay and basically forced them to spin it off into a separate company so PP can compete with Apple payments and Stripe. Too bad, I was happy they were going to let PP wither and die still clinging to ebay.

Ever since they announced the split PP profits soared as now competitors to eBay can use it. Ebay's retard CEO and board members were all ousted too, so the incoming guy is bringing back the 'mom and pop' style businesses to eBay they rejected to pander to Target and other bigbox corps under the last CEO buffoon that ran eBay into the ground. The split also means eBay can take rival payment methods now too, so can resume your lobbying for BTC when he takes over though still unlikely to happen, but you never know all those idiots are out of there now.

Edit: so apparently PP has a 5yr agreement with eBay to remain sole payment provider, so hopefully they die off by 2020 and if they don't then can resume bitcoin lobbying

Hmm I thought that they are already looking to use bitcoin? This is kinda confusing lol. Made me think that eBay is only riding the wave of bitcoin's popularity to gain more and more customers. I could be wrong though, but that is what I see on what they did.

Funny that they are talking about the easiest and most secure payment method at present.

if they are cutting the bridge with paypal, which was going to use bitcoin, i don't think that they have any interest in using bitcoin, they also said why, they thing that it does not offer a customers protection

i believe his is the same reason why amazon will not accept it for now, they are all waiting to find a way to make it more secure for users

lets see ebay in cahoots with pay pal and visa

I think there has to be a case run that there must be free competition in forms of payment.

i think they will come around eventually, but it needs much longer time and a lot more mass adoption. now it is simply not enough people showing interest in using bitcoin in comparison to people wanting to use paypal and similar services.
on the other hand they want to secure their earnings via paypal and don't lose their step there.

No surprise for me
Even paypal doesn't accept bitcoin
Oh well, i heard that amazon is studying Bitcoin so they can accept it in the future
Let's keep our hopes up  ;)

Yes and if ever the time comes that they'll start to accept bitcoin as a form of payment, eBay would be a scammer's paradise. Post fake stuff and takes away that bitcoin unless they offer an escrow-like service to hold the funds.

but i guess this can be easily prevented by forcing the sellers to give their information and register properly before doing any business with bitcoin.
this way nobody can scam when their identity is known.

Make a 2 out of 3 multisig. One key to the buyer, one key to the seller, one key to the escrow.
As long as everything goes fine, the escrow doesn't really have to do anything, so he doesn't get paid. He only gets paid if there is an dispute and he has to actually do something.
I think, OpenBazar is using something like that and it makes sense.
This kind of protection is much better than chargebacks since, buyer and seller are protected. I don't get this whole "Buyer is always right" policy, from most payment processors. Buyer are also often fraudsters and make a lot of damage to merchants.

They can use fake information and forged documents if needed. That's the bad side of accepting bitcoin on sites like these. I've seen scammers on paypal and ebay and I've got scammed on ebay several times and I'm totally over with ebay.

Even today one can find many propositions on selling stuff for BTC on e-bay: mining gear, gift cards, phones, etc.
Some from those sellers are using accounts with very high rating like 1000+ to fool people.
I suppose they buy those accounts with history especially for scam purposes.
Think e-bay for attracting new customers should make BTC accept possible.
Properly organized customer escrow service should avoid defrauding buyers.

exactly, when bitcoin becomes more mainstream, ebay, as a major company, will be pressed to start integrating bitcoin into their payment options. no telling when bitcoin will be adopted widely enough to convince ebay to hop on though.

Haha, is that surprise for you? Bitcoin is a direct competitor of PayPal, its nemesis and enemy. If Bitcoin will grow and people would start to using it widely PayPal lose everything.
Why would you use PayPal with its stupid fees and rules when Bitcoin is free, no fee, global and fast payment method? It is just a matter of time when PayPal will be pressed by Bitcoin or other digital currency.
They want to retaliate before it even happens thus this campaign of hate towards bitcoin from PayPal, Visa or Mastercard and now eBay.

I think this is the bullshit reason they give, in reality it is all about fighting Bitcoin and liberty. Ebay, Paypal, credit cards, all about people control and big government. Being able to use Ebay with Bitcoin would boost adoption (and BTC usage) massively, and that is why they don't allow it.

I can prove that it is not about  consumer protection. You see, in Germany the law does not permit companies to force customers into a certain payment vehicle. So the forced usage of Paypal failed in court. People use wire transfers mostly, those are free of cost here and they are irreversible.

What happens if a seller scams someone? Is it necessary to reverse payments? That is what Ebay claims.

The reality is that it would also be possible to lock the offenders account, until the funds are paid back, but I have never in my life seen a sellers account being locked. Ebay customer service gives a fat rats ass if you get scammed, they say "you should have used paypal" and let the scammer continue. They never lock the scammers account....

Do you believe Ebay now? They are basically saying "we want you to use Painpal so we can reverse payments, but we never lock scammers accounts?"

They don't lock scammer accounts because they lose revenue doing so, they lose less revenue if they only reverse individual payments.

So ebay is a liar and reversible payments are not necessary at all for a fair marketplace.

bitcoin is a major competitor to every major payment processing platform really, paypal and credit card companies especially. CC companies have significantly higher tx fees than bitcoin transactions in comparison, and should bitcoin become more mainstream, CC companies would lose their customers.

with that logic nothing is safe and ebay should stop their service and close down the website. because people can simply create a fake document with fake paypal and scam with fiat and launder the money earned this way to cover their tracks!
but i don't see it as a reason not to use bitcoin!!

They have no obligation to care about bitcoin adoption.

Bank accounts are not anonymous nor decentralized, transfers can always be reversed.

And what about their freedom and control of their platform, if they don't want whatever payment method to be used in their platform it's their choice, if they think it's what's best for their business, so be it.

I use Paypal and eBay since 2004 or so, I'm really satisfied with the all thing, never had a problem in all these years.

Of course not. It would be up to eBay now on whether go with bitcoin or not. I'm pretty sure big companies like that could think of something. If they're about to make their own payment processor like paypal, they'd go through some serious work and legal actions with that. They could have done so in the past and make paypal as an alternative not as main option.

I can see why they don't want to accept it as an option as ebay likes to make sure the buyer is covered and this is not really possible with bitcoin, but people can pay with cheques or cash on collection right and that can just lead to problems too?

I agree, And it seems simple, but its not that easy when your dealing with a giant like ebay.

Let eBay forbid Bitcoin.
OpenBazar will make eBay history.

i'm only hoping that open bazar don't turn  in silk road 2.0 or 3.0, they still didn't answered how they will deal with people that will trade illegal stuff

at worst we have still the possibility of amazon accepting bitcoin, which i find better than ebay, bitcoin need only one big merchants, then it's done

If the time comes that amazon accepts bitcoin as form of payment, it will be a sweet website although prone to scammers. I wonder how they will handle fraud and scams with an irreversible payment...

1. EBay isn't seeing sufficient demand to justify adding it as an officially supported payment method
2. Ebay will need to implement escrow services around Bitcoin to make it fit their business model, which they won't invest in until they see sufficient demand.

This might be very problematic and I understand your concern. I don't know if you have watched the documentary about Silk Road, but the US government will do anything to get their hands on the information that they need. Someone would take the fall for things, if OpenBazaar allows illegal sales. I'd hate for it to be destroyed or the founders be arrested.
We definitely need something to replace that market that shut down a 1-2 years ago (I can't remember its name; it was the largest at that time).

one solution would be to pay special individuals(via small fees), which have the purpose to check if you're dealing with illegal things, something like arbiters but for items only

it can be viewed as a less decentralized system and you privacy might be compromised, but we cannot have everything...

You mean Bitmit?

Who needs eBay when Open Bazaar will be released?

Because all the sellers on eBay will not join Open Bazaar?

Personally I prefer saving 20% off Amazon products at Purse.io due to Amazon NOT accepting bitcoin. :-)

but can you take advantage of the last sale of amazon for their prime celebration day, with purse.io? if yes then maybe you have a good point there, otherwise, you know...

still i doubt 20% is on everything, but maybe i'm wrong, i didn't try purse.io

Is this really surprising anybody when ebay and paypal are together? Aren't they supposed to protect paypal, I mean bitcoin is a direct competitor of paypal.

www.bitcart.io is an alternative to purse.

That is just one side. Openbazaar would be really small compared to eBay. Number of sellers and users will be probably around 1% of ebay at first.
And there is no guarantee that openbazaar will ever be big. eBay from the other hand is the largest  e-commerce western company.

Ebay is going to come around on this in the future. if bitcoin gets bigger and be used vastly they are going to be left behind if they continue this path.

on the other hand if some projects like open bazzar becomes successful they will lose their share of the market which is not good for them.

We need a new ebay, a decentralized one. One that only takes payment in btc.
Anyone here have the skills and money to make this happen?

Open bazaar needs to offer clear, objective incentives to use it instead of ebay and most importantly, those incentives NEED to be understandable by the average joe. The average joe doesn't understand anything about decentralization and I dont think they care, but if they can save a lot on fees etc, the will go there.

Interesting story on linked in today about eBay's reputation system:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ebays-reputation-system-hidden-gem-hunter-walk?trk=hp-feed-article-title-hpm

I agree that the rating system is a big reason why people feel so comfortable buying from other individuals.  It keeps sellers honest and encourages them to resolve issues quickly.  Seems like from what I see on sites like cryptothrift it as soon as a bad rating comes in, the user just makes a new username and there is no way to tell what their account did.  There is a kind of lack of accountability with that setup, as opposed to eBay's which seems to work well.

Correct but why couldn't Open Bazaar implement this?

Well sure they could implement this, but like I said cryptothrift also uses a rating system, but it seems like the worst that could happen to a bad seller is they have to stop using that name and open a new account.

eBay actually links to sellers bank accounts or some sort of back up payment that can be charged in the even of a problem.

If open bazaar actually took some sort of steps to ensure sellers couldn't open multiple accounts when something goes bad that would be great.  It really just comes down to a system to keep sellers accountable for their goods, and people giving honest legitimate feedback so people know who to buy from.

Open Bazaar

Somewhat awaitable of ebay. They have paypal and want to earn with paypal. Why allowing payments done with a payment service they don't earn with? And it's easy for them to forbid with "no chargeback possible". ::)

so, like a clearnet implementation of the existing dark net markets, but minus the drugs, and with more ebay-like goods. so... openbazaar?

Bitcoin by design favors the seller over the buyer with no fraud protection and terminal transactions. eBay is the exact opposite favoring the buyer over the seller by providing fraud protection against scamming sellers. That's the reason they got so big. Customers feel comfortable shopping at eBay because they have a recourse if a scammer tries to screw them over. Bitcoin needs a secondary service, like paid escrow, to have the same security. That makes it impossible for eBay to directly allow Bitcoin payments. It's against their business model.

it depend if we are talking about exchanging bitcoin and not trading it for items, in the first case, if the seller sell bitcoin and the buyer buy those coins, the latter is more protected because of the irreversibility of the transaction

The idea of fraud comes in due to the fact that some Ebay accounts are stolen, cracked, ect. It wouldn't be hard for a seller to create an account or steal/buy one to receive BTC in payment and disappear. I doubt Ebay would ever take the time to implement an escrow system because it would cause too much complication to Ebay users. Part of the reason Ebay is even competing with Amazon at this point is cheap second hand products Ebay offers. With so many second hand sellers, the amount of scams is ridiculous. Ebay relies on a chargeback system to even stay profitable.

Of course we're talking about trading it for items. That's all eBay does.

This is the easiest solution to the problem. If you could fund and withdraw from your PayPal account with Bitcoin. That way buyers can buy with and sellers can receive Bitcoin, but the actual transaction could be backed in case of fraud, as it is now. When it comes down to it, PayPal is their escrow service.

But the thing is there isn't need for Paypal anymore.. there is better escrow technology availible these days, but they are still being developed and in experimental phase, but soon it will be decentralized peer to peer escrowing, paypal will be useless in a decade or two compared to BTC.

Merchants don't want and shouldn't be exposed to bitcoin volatility, it's not that they don't want to be paid with an irreversible, 0% percent fees payment system, it's about the value variation.

For the vast majority of merchants bitcoin is useless.

it's all about security they simply think that they cannot offer a 100% security with bitcoin, to their customers, and they doubt that the demand is so strong to have bitcoin as a mean of payment

i mean it won't add a major boost in traffic to their load

iam not suprise
as we know that paypal doesn't accept bitcoin
and i think ay doesn't conduct or handle any payments.
eBay uses PayPal and they just decided to spin off the PayPal unit