By: PhilipCohen

PhilipCohen — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 23:05:09 +0000

eBay: Magento, AliExpress, Skype, Fish, FigCard, GSI Commerce, RedLaser, Where, Milo, Fetch, Zong, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, Google, Schmoogle, whatever …

eBay’s chief headless turkey likes buying toys, none of which have done anything to improve the eBay Marketplace’s bottom line, not even in this the fourth year of this turkey’s three-year turnaround plan to change eBay from what made it so successful into, who knows what?

The fact is the rusting old hulk eBay is presently being kept afloat by the clunky PreyPal so it’s good to see these financial services boys recently squabbling and threats to the clunky PreyPal now coming thick and fast. It’s interesting times for all we eBay “haters” (oops, I mean “watchers”). I just hope that someone has remembered to bring the popcorn.

Even though PayPal clearly offers banking-type services (ie, holding depositors’ money in banking-style accounts), PayPal is mostly registered in various places not as a “bank” nor as a provider of credit but only as a “money transmitter” (like Western Union), and indeed PayPal claims that they are not even a “payment network”, and there is a minute degree of truth in that claim because it could, somewhat nonsensically, be claimed that most (but not all) of their activities do no more than facilitate the transmission of money by riding on the back of the banks’ existing payments processing systems.

In fact, the only thing creative about PayPal has been their use of users’ email addresses as an identifier for online payment transactions. PayPal is otherwise no more than a blood-sucking parasite on the back of, and in the main cannot function except via, the banks’ existing payments processing systems.

PayPal, outside of whatever will ultimately be left of the Donahoe-devastated eBay Marketplace, will undoubtedly eventually be consigned to the history books by the retail banks/Visa/Mastercard once those players get their “online” act together.

Some people may not like “the banks” but all those participating retail banks at least supply a professional payments processing system and even PayPal concurs with that assessment: except for its intra PayPal “deposit account” transactions, they use the banks’ payments processing systems all the time and simply could not exist without them.

Regardless, all the above comments apply equally to all of the other third-party online “payments processors” that are emerging out of the woodwork and wanting to have access to your banking account. Unless they have formal and direct arrangements with all the participating retail banks, as do the likes of Visa/MasterCard, then the result is invariably going to be as potentially problematic as is PayPal’s clunky operation for its PayPal merchants—a great many of whom can tell you a sorry tale or two.

All anyone needs to know about the clunky PayPal, at:
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=165263

What all buyers should know about the criminal activities of eBay, at:
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=23540

Is that PayPal’s blood in the water, and are those “sharks”—oops, “banks”—I can see still circling?

Enron / eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking.

Comments on: eBay Antes Up In Mobile Payments Game, Buys Zong For $240 Million

By: PhilipCohen