The Inquisitr » paypal

Twitter contest: Write a matching tweet

Dennis Bjørn Petersen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:01:37 +0000

Are you up for a small experiment? Yes? Good then you might win a whooping $10 sponsored by yours truly.

All you have to do is tweet a small story inspired by the picture below and tag it #piccon by Saturday September 19th 8.00 PM CET (11.00 AM PDT).

I will then pick the winner and announce it here Satuday evening. The $10 will be transferred to your PayPal instantly.

If it’s a success, I’ll see if I can get some sponsors to make future contest even better.

Tommy Ton of Jak & Jil blog took these pictures.

4 Reasons why online shopping sucks

Steven Hodson — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:12:57 +0000

The end of the month is coming and I’ll have a little bit of money sitting in my PayPal account but it leaves me in a little bit of a quandary. Like, do I transfer some; or all of it, to my bank account so I can get that Christmas shopping down. If I leave some of it in my PayPal account then I am stuck dealing with the sometimes depressing online shopping experience.

It’s not always depressing; as buying digital goods is fairly simple and painless – at least it isn’t affected by one or more of my following suckage reasons. No – the real pain and agony comes when you head out to shop for non-digital type goodies. You know – those things like hardware, household stuff for the wife or those gaming consoles for the kids. The type of things that need to be paid for and then shipped.

In the spirit of online shopping and the holiday spirit here’s a list of the reasons why I think the whole experience really sucks sometimes.

1. Payment methods

This has to be the biggest bitch point I have with online shopping; but before you get your panties in a bunch let’s make a couple of things clear. Not everyone wants to buy digital goods. Not everyone in the world has a credit card. Not everyone in the world has a VISA debit card. Not everyone lives in the United States. So don’t even bother trying to get me going by bringing those points up in a comment.

There is nothing worse than finding just the right item that you want to buy only to find out that they only accept three major credit cards. What makes it even more maddening though is that you don’t find out until page 5 of their stupid ass payment form. Gee couldn’t you let me know that before you made me enter in all my personal information – guess not.

Then we have the famous VISA style bank debit cards or the virtual credit cards. Whoop-frikken-ee! First with the bank VISA debit cards – chances are if you don’t qualify for a VISA card you won’t for a VISA debit card. You might have a bank debit card but that won’t work. Then there is the fact that even if they accept a straight ordinary bank debit card it had better be one from the U.S. because I have yet to see anyone that accepts a Canadian bank debit card.

Then we have PayPal – but that is another whole separate point.

2. The Big Boys and wanting to pay with PayPal

The short of it is if you want to buy stuff from places like Amazon, the new Microsoft store (for that Xbox deal) or any of the really non-eBay retailers you are screwed unless you have a major credit card. Forget even thinking about paying with PayPal. It ain’t gonna happen.

That is one of the reasons that Amazon will never be an endpoint of online shopping for a lot of people. The other big reason comes later. I can understand to a point why considering that PayPal is owned by eBay that online retailers don’t accept it as a payment option; but it wasn’t always like that. Even before eBay PayPal has never been an option at Amazon and I’m sorry but that is just down right stupid. I can’t count the number of times that I have wanted to buy a book or other goods at Amazon but couldn’t because of this nonsense.

To me this is being exceptionally shortsighted and stupid

3. Geotarding what I can buy

Nothing pisses me off more than finding just the right item and entering all my payment information only to see – No shipping to outside of the U.S.

Screw you. I’m already going to get raped by any shipping costs as it is. If I’m willing to bend over a little further and pay outrageous shipping costs then damn well be willing to take my money and buy those goods.

I see this on Amazon all the time at any point you step beyond the bounds of book buying. If you want to buy that nice little trinket for the wife or maybe a a nice DVD player on sale – forget it if you live anywhere else but in the great United States.

In the Amazon example you can always head to your local geographical version (if there is one) but if that local Amazon site is anything like the Canadian one the pickings are pretty dismal. Where most people seem to make Amazon and other big names a regular stopping point I’m lucky if I remember Amazon even exists outside of any news that shows up about it.

4. Shipping outside of the U.S. – or how FedEx and UPS laugh all the way to the bank

I know everyone touts Amazon’s free shipping horn but here’s a hint. Not everyone buys from Amazon and not everyone lives in the U.S.

The moment there is a border to cross I can just visualize some FedEx or UPS executive eyeing up that new BMW or Mercedes purchase. In-country charges are bad enough but if I get something from the US I pray to all that is holy that it is getting shipped with GIFT splashed across the package. If it doesn’t then I suddenly am having to pay Custom Tariff Fees and then our lovely government gets in the act wanting their share and I have to pay taxes on what they think the item is worth. Suddenly that good deal just cost me an arm and a leg.

Even worse though in some ways is in-country shipping – especially when you are in the same time zone, the same province as where you are buying the goods from. Recently I bought a new mouse from TigerDirect in Canada – great service and I’m very happy with them – but when it came to figuring out how much I had to pay via PayPal I was suddenly faced with a $10.00 shipping fee. For a mouse .. a package that probably didn’t even weight a pound.

Then another time I priced out some RAM memory and again it was a great deal – except for the shipping. Again I was faced with a $10.00 shipping fee for something that fits inside an envelope. Please tell me how this makes sense.

That I think pretty well covers some of the ways that I think online shopping sucks. The things is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Retailers could stop being so myopic about how we can pay for those goods. Retailers like Amazon could easily support us paying by PayPal. In this day and age of the global village and global economy mentality we shouldn’t have to deal with geotarded products. As well we shouldn’t shafted the way we are for the shipping of goods that we buy; after all the more we buy the more that will need to be shipped (DUH!)

Do I think any of the above will change?

Not bloody likely.

What a Day for eBay: Understanding all the Changes

JR — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:05:41 +0000

eBay’s making more than its share of news today. The online auctioneer already announced it’s cutting 1,000 jobs, plus “several hundred” other temporary positions and numerous as-of-yet unfilled positions — oh yeah, and also spending more than a billion dollars on new acquisitions at the same time. Drawing less headlines, though, is the announcement that eBay is also revamping its buyer protection policies.

First, a little more on the purchases and what they’ll mean: eBay is shelling out $820 million plus $125 million in options to buy online payment service Bill Me Later, and another $390 million to snag two Danish classifieds sites, dba.dk and bilbasen.dk. On the bright side, I guess the 10 percent of eBay employees getting laid off can at least see where their salaries are going.

Bill Me Later will work in conjunction with eBay-owned PayPal, the company says. The service lets you set up an account without a credit card, then gain an option at participating sites to complete your purchase without actually paying. Bill Me Later, as its name suggests, then sends you a bill after the fact. It’s already partnered with online retailers such as Amazon, Borders.com, SkyMall, and dozens of others.

As for the Danish properties, eBay says their addition will allow for the expansion of eBay’s classified services in a previously untapped region. eBay already claims the title of “global leader in classifieds,” citing top spots in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, and the U.K.

Amidst all this, eBay recently agreed to increase buyer protection for auction-based purchases made with PayPal. Basically, it’ll now offer full refunds to anyone who uses PayPal and gets defective merchandise. British media describe it as the company giving in to “consumer demands.” The Times says U.K. PayPal customers have been calling for the changes for years, flooding sites such as paypalsucks.com and paypalwarning.com with complaints. The new protection plan does still have its limits: “intangible goods” and things purchased from non-eBay sites will not gain additional coverage.

ebay

eBay Acquires Bill Me Later; To Cut 1,000 Jobs

Dominic Rivera — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:25:50 +0000

Here’s some good news from eBay. The company has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Bill Me Later for approximately $820 million in cash and approximately $125 million worth of outstanding options, net of option exercise proceeds.

The acquisition would make eBay a stronger player in payments with Bill Me Later and PayPal under its wings.

Now, here’s the bad news. The company announced that it is cutting 1,000 employees to bring down its workforce by 10 percent. Temporary workers are also expected to go. So, if you’re hoping to land a job at eBay, look somewhere else as the company is reducing open positions as well. Come again another day.

NBC Invests in Online Scheduling Startup

JR — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:40:04 +0000

NBC Universal is now backing HourTown, a year-and-a-half old startup focused on online scheduling for small businesses.

HourTown announced the $1 million in new funding today, from NBC along with Baseline Ventures, Hatch Ventures and a handful of Silicon Valley angel investors — some of the same companies, HourTown’s founder points out, that initially got behind Google and PayPal in their early days.

HourTown lets clients manage appointments with small business owners through its Web-based interface — so if you were, say, a music instructor, you could have students log directly onto the site to schedule or change appointments. Founder Ryan Donahue describes it as “Web 2.0 for your yoga instructor.”

The service is available in a limited capacity for free, or with expanded features starting at about $20 per month. HourTown is based in Palo Alto and launched in early 2007.

HourTown

Gmail Amps Up Phishing Protection

JR — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:31:45 +0000

Google is teaming up with eBay and Paypal to help protect Gmail users from phishing scams.

The web-based mail service will now authenticate any e-mails coming from paypal.com or ebay.com. The move is an effort to combat the large number of spoofed messages that appear to originate from those domains. Now, any e-mails claiming to come from Paypal or eBay that don’t check out won’t even make it into your inbox.

The authentication process will use DomainKeys and DKIM technology to confirm legit messages. Google says it’s been testing the process for a few weeks already.

eBay Opens Outside Developer Opportunity

JR — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:32:26 +0000

eBay is opening up some of its code to outside developers.

The auction site has just announced the launch of Project Echo at its Developers Conference. The new plan will let programmers create their own tools in eBay’s Selling Manager, a set of software options for serious sellers. Utilities eBay deems suitable will be made available to sellers, with the web site taking a percentage of any user purchases.

The program is set to begin in a trial phase later this year with a full launch set for early 2009.

PayPal announced a similarly designed idea at the same conference today, unveiling a new Developer Central portal for programmers. The service, set to open next month, will give developers several free kits to help them better create new utilities.