eBay Buyer Protection Changing.

Everyone that uses eBay should know that ONLY PAYPAL payments will have any sort of buyer protection. The eBay Standard Buyer Protection Program is gone entirely. Paying by check or money order will be ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. I always recommend funding your Paypal with your credit card for full protection. It will continue to be crucial on purchases over $200 that do not bear the PayPal buyer protection logo.

***A Message from Rob Chesnut – Changes to Buyer Protection on eBay in the U.S. and Canada***

January 10, 2007 | 09:02AM PST/PT


Rob Chesnut
Hello...This is Rob Chesnut, eBay's Senior Vice President of Trust & Safety. I've been working with my partner at PayPal, Dan Levy, Senior Director of Consumer Protection, on a joint effort to increase the protection we offer buyers on eBay. Buyer Protection is important to the Community – buyers and sellers alike – because the confidence and trust that buyers have in transacting on eBay fuels the whole marketplace.
As you know, we've built our Online Dispute Resolution system to ensure that buyers and sellers get the opportunity to work things out before a dispute results in a claim. But when a buyer is making the critical decision whether or not to place a bid or buy an item, just knowing up front that there is protection answers the "what if" questions – this peace of mind gives buyers the confidence they need to choose eBay, especially when buying more expensive items.

To help increase buyer trust on eBay, next week we will be expanding coverage on eBay.com in the U.S. and eBay Canada on items paid for with PayPal in these ways:


PayPal will be offering $200 of protection with NO processing fee on ALL PayPal transactions for tangible goods in the U.S (excluding Live Auctions and vehicles). In Canada, all PayPal transactions for tangible goods will be covered up to $315 CA. PayPal is offered on over 95% of listings in the U.S., so buyers can choose to be protected on the vast majority of listings. There is no processing fee, no minimum purchase price, and no seller requirements.

PayPal Buyer Protection will be increased to cover up to $2,000 for tangible items listed by qualified sellers in the U.S. This is a huge increase in coverage for high-end items being bought and sold on eBay. It doubles the current $1,000 coverage offered for tangible items listed by qualified sellers. And over 75% of listings in the US qualify. Note: in Canada, tangible items listed by qualified sellers will be covered for up to $2,000 CA.
Qualified items will clearly indicate the amount of coverage available on the item page. This means that buyers will know – right at the time they are making their buying decisions – that they are covered if they pay with PayPal.

There is one more important change we'll be making at eBay. Beginning next week, eBay will discontinue the eBay Standard Purchase Protection Program (SPPP) in the U.S. and Canada.

This program, which was established in 1999 before eBay acquired PayPal, has covered all eBay transactions, except for items paid for with cash or instant money transfer services, for up to $200 minus a $25 processing fee. In the early days of eBay, the program served an important function, providing some measure of purchase protection for paper transactions (cashier’s checks, money orders and personal checks) that constituted the bulk of eBay transactions. The time and costs associated with verifying a dwindling number of non-PayPal paper claims, however, has led to a poor user experience. Buyers also expressed frustration with the $25 processing fee.

But there's another issue with SPPP that becomes more important as eBay grows. From a risk management and fraud prevention perspective, SPPP is flawed, because it offers coverage on the riskiest payment methods. This is clearly not in the best interests of the marketplace long-term.

While eBay has established an Accepted Payments policy and we do allow other established payment methods on the site, one thing is true - PayPal is a safe way to pay on eBay. PayPal enables eBay members to shop without sharing their financial information with sellers, and PayPal's sophisticated fraud prevention mechanisms are eBay's best defense against internet fraud. We want to build on this solid foundation. These changes in our protection programs are important in our efforts to encourage safer transactions, improve customer satisfaction, and provide more coverage for more transactions than we can today.

These changes to the protection we offer buyers are important to the future health of our marketplace and the growth of our sellers' businesses. We'll be answering questions about these changes in an upcoming workshop, so please stay tuned for the date and time.

Sincerely,

Rob Chesnut
Senior Vice President, Global eBay Trust & Safety

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Additionally PayPal has revamped their security center to be more in line with eBay's new policy and with new security info.


(From the eBay Trust & Safety Discussion Board)

New PayPal Security Center Launches

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Jan-12-07 14:19 PST
Hi All --

Over the years, we’ve heard from the Community about some of your biggest safety concerns and the need for more tips, tools and technology to help you stay safe online. To that end, I’m happy to share with you the newly designed PayPal Security Center: PayPalSecurity Center

Our goal with the PayPal Security Center is to incorporate the feedback we heard from the Community in order to help people conduct online transactions safely and securely by providing information and tools about buying safely, selling safely and staying safe online. We’ve also focused on developing tips on some of the areas we know concern you – the PayPal Security Center includes new and improved guides on Identity Theft, Phishing, Building Buyer Trust, Chargebacks and more prominent visibility for reporting a problem.

Your Feedback. We encourage you to visit the PayPal Security Center and share your thoughts. Tell us what you like, what you don’t like and, most importantly, what other safety and security areas you’d like to see covered. Please send your suggestions to

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.

Thanks and, as always, Stay Safe!

--Dave Steer, PayPal


*Paying directly with credit card to merchants that have direct processing accounts will still give you your full credit card issuer's protection but you will not be able to go through eBay for those at all. It's still an okay way to pay.*