Ebay Forbids Bitcoin for Payments

[Herbert2020]

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

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.

[1714877714]

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[1714877714]

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[turvarya]

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.

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.

[CEG5952]

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

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.

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.

[Romanko]

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.

[subSTRATA]

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.

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.

[Hazir]

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  

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.

[leopard2]

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

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.

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.

[subSTRATA]

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  

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.

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.

[Herbert2020]

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

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.

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.

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!!

[pedrog]

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

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.

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.

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.

[CEG5952]

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

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.

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.

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!!

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.

[Skinnyman]

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?

[shogdite]

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.

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.

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.

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

[fryarminer]

Let eBay forbid Bitcoin.
OpenBazar will make eBay history.

[Amph]

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

[CEG5952]

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 orst 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...

[TrueBeliever]

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.

[Lauda]

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

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).

[Amph]

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

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...

[DarkHyudrA]

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

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).

You mean Bitmit?