In the retail world, there is such a thing as a "cash discount". IOW,
the price you see is for cash. The price in the really small print is
the non cash price - usually 5% more to cover the credit card company
fees. It's legal, I notice every Amoco pump in the US is set up this
way.
I don't know how you'd do this with an auction though.
IMHO, eBay is attempting to simultaneously squeeze out PayPal and force
sellers to foot the bill for their payment service, BillPoint. Most of
the new rules and regulations of late, additional fees, and "new
services", are nothing more than an attempt to squeak more $$ out of
both the buyers and the sellers. All without offering any more real
value to either.
When you're the first to the market, and the biggest, you can get away
with this kind of thing. For a while anyway...
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
--
Jim
Chris O'Neill wrote:
>
> On 21 Mar 2001, at 0:16, Andrew Dacey wrote:
>
> > > Interesting! I charge a fee to PayPal payors, and e-Bay hasn't hassled
> > > me. Did a buyer complain? What's the URL that shows that rule?
> >
> > It's illegal though in many places to pass that cost onto the seller.
> > Many retailers get around this by offering a "cash discount" because
> > it's not illegal to offer a discount on a price.
>
> My bet is that wherever it's illegal the law say's sellers can't *directly*
> pass the cost onto the buyer. Doesn't matter, though, as sellers
> indirectly pass it on to all customers as a part of their mark-up to cover
> overhead costs.
>
> > Don't know how you can manipulate that situation in this case though.
>
> That's easy... charge all sellers some sort of "handling fee" to cover
> overhead cost, including PayPal fees. Anyone know if THAT'S against
> e-Bay rules?
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris
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