
Paypal to Force Sellers to Give It Equal Representation as Payment - gscott
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/upcoming-policies-full
======
martin-adams
I guess this is in relation to the following clause?

 _In representations to your customers or in public communications, you agree
not to mischaracterize PayPal as a payment method. At all of your points of
sale (in whatever form), you agree not to try to dissuade or inhibit your
customers from using PayPal; and, if you enable your customers to pay you with
PayPal, you agree to treat PayPal’s payment mark at least at par with other
payment methods offered._

So my interpretation is that this is to avoid merchants from pushing cheaper
payment methods by saying negative things about PayPal or making it harder to
find or use. I'm not sure this is as dramatic as the title makes out. Am I
missing something?

~~~
npiazza83
This is akin to my bank freezing my accounts because I gave them a bad review
online.

I would love to see them try to enforce this. *If a brick and mortar bank
tried this there would be a run on their accounts so fast it would make Usain
Bolt blush.

~~~
mark-r
You're forgetting the network effects, my friend. They can get away with this
because they already have people locked in.

~~~
mjevans
What little competition they have is worse. Credit cards are probably on the
path to the root of 'evil' for this form of (seller and) consumer abuse.

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petercooper
If you're a Payments Pro merchant, you've been required to offer PayPal
Express checkout prominently for some time now. I suspect _this_ move is
because the fees are going up enough to encourage businesses to leave but
still leave PayPal for the customers who prefer it..

 _We are changing the currency conversion spread charged when we perform a
currency conversion for you from charging an additional 2.5% over the exchange
rate set by our bank to charging an additional 3.0%_

And their bank's exchange rate is not great to start with. Against the rate
Google or XE shows, our PayPal conversions seem to work out at around 3% as it
is. So now that'll be about 3.5%. Add the other 0.2% increase on cross border
payments and the 2% merchant rate we already pay.. and it's nice work if you
can get it! :-D

~~~
Eridrus
Are you looking at Android Pay or other alternatives? It seems like the web
payments API is going somewhere. It looks like there should be significantly
fewer fees; Zooz at least claims to not have any cross-border or transaction
fees.

I'm guessing these lower fees are part of why Uber and Seamless were offering
discounts when using Android Pay.

[EDIT]: It's disappointing that Android Pay goes through the credit card
system when making payments; I was pretty happy that PayPal bypassed the
credit card duopoly.

~~~
petercooper
We're looking at using Stripe more. (We already use it because PayPal won't
support Amex in the UK.) But no, a lot of systems are not ideal because we are
mostly doing mid 4 and low 5 figure B2B transactions (many use wire transfer
but a lot of people in companies have credit cards they can use more easily).

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jcoffland
> In representations to your customers or in public communications, you agree
> not to mischaracterize PayPal as a payment method. At all of your points of
> sale (in whatever form), you agree not to try to dissuade or inhibit your
> customers from using PayPal; and, if you enable your customers to pay you
> with PayPal, you agree to treat PayPal’s payment mark at least at par with
> other payment methods offered.

PayPal has become needy and will only play with you if you say nice things
about it and don't like any of your other friends better than PayPal. Oh and
PayPal is adding 8 different ways to take more of your money.

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tomc1985
That's cheeky... AFAIK PayPal does absolutely jack shit for sellers other than
give them the money they rightfully earned... sometimes

Now they demand equal representation?

~~~
pc86
I'm no PayPal apologist, but would you say the same thing about American
Express about "demanding equal representation?" It makes sense that PayPal
doesn't want its sellers to basically say "please use any of these other ten
methods of payment, but as a last resort if you have to use PayPal fine I
guess you can."

I don't see a problem with requiring people who accept PayPal not to talk out
of both sides of their mouth by simultaneously accepting it and trying to
discourage it.

~~~
RHSeeger
Perhaps, as an alternate approach to the problem, they could consider changing
their own business practices so that companies didn't feel the need to
persuade customers not to use PayPal.

Ie, if companies didn't despise you for treating them so poorly, they probably
wouldn't be so inclined to bad mouth you.

~~~
pc86
Yes, "don't be shitty" is obvious the suggestion most people would have.
That's sort of ignoring the point though.

~~~
tomc1985
But it isn't. It is the root of their problem, making it exactly the point.

You're right, though, in the sense that the advice won't be followed. It's too
obvious and not convoluted enough to make sense to businesspeople

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koolba
Question for the legal eagles out there, would sarcasm count toward not
violating this clause?

For example, if an e-commerce site adds a line on it's checkout page that
says, " _Please make sure to use Paypal so I can pay them fees on par with a
card network yet run the risk of them hanging on to my money indefinitely with
no legal recourse outside of arbitration_ ".

~~~
sverige
Yeah, this is why I used Paypal exactly once. They are over the top creepy
control freaks who want access to all of your money, even as a buyer. There
are lots of horror stories about their return policies, etc. Paypal is at
least as bad as Wells Fargo or Bank of America. Something about handling other
people's money makes organizations act this way, I guess.

Of course, I'm a buyer, not a seller, so it's not like they have the same
leverage over me.

~~~
vkou
> Something about handling other people's money makes organizations act this
> way, I guess.

The answer to that question is typically fraud. If you could provide cheaper
and better customer service than PayPal, and stay solvent, you'd stand to make
billions of dollars.

I don't have much sympathy for them, but the industry they operate in is a
nightmare.

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gfosco
All of the fees go up while the buyer & seller protections get additional
restrictions... It's a lose/lose for PayPal customers.

~~~
PeterisP
I'm altering the deal. Pray that I don't alter it any further.

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masonic
Paypal is risky for sellers because you face _two_ levels of fraud vector from
fraudulent buyers. Even if you abide by all of Paypal's requirements, if the
underlying bank/network does a chargeback, Paypal takes your money ( _plus_ a
fee, so you've lost the full value of the item _plus_ your shipping cost
_plus_ an additional Paypal fee).

For buyers, in cases where they are on the hook because _they_ were defrauded,
they have been known to throw up ludicrous barriers to refunds. I had a case
where they insisted they had "proof of delivery" of a never-received item...
and the tracking data they provided as "proof" showed a destination in another
_state_.

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phs318u
What if you merely listed the fees next to the payment types? Surely, that
doesn't count as disparaging.

Also, many vendors add a surcharge for Amex/Diners use. Wouldn't it be
legitimate to do the same with PayPal?

~~~
PeterisP
A surcharge would not be legitimate,
[https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-
full#...](https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-
full#accepting-payments)

"No surcharges

You agree that you will not impose a surcharge or any other fee for accepting
PayPal as a payment method. You may charge a handling fee in connection with
the sale of goods or services as long as the handling fee does not operate as
a surcharge and is not higher than the handling fee you charge for non-PayPal
transactions." is probably as clear as it can be. You can list the different
fees you would charge the customer for different payment types, but the paypal
fee must be (tied for) lowest.

~~~
tyingq
Funny, since Paypal charges their own customers more for Amex transactions. Do
as I say, not as I do.

[https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-
fees](https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees)

 _" American Express® card usage fees: 3.5% per transaction on PayPal Payments
Pro, PayPal Payments Advanced and Virtual Terminal"_

~~~
PeterisP
Yes, Amex doesn't have such a condition, and that's their choice to make -
linked with their choice to charge much higher fees than Visa or Mastercard.

I see no hypocrisy there, simply Paypal and Amex have different pricing
strategies. In the exact same manner, a merchant would be expected to
explicitly charge a higher fee for taking Amex directly than for taking
Paypal.

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sk5t
Perhaps equally or more interesting, what does one suppose is the effect of
the following?

> We are adding the ability to create a negative balance in your PayPal
> account when we reverse a payment to cover eBay buyer protection claims that
> the seller loses.

