New eBay Digital Currency Section Allows for Bitcoin and Dogecoin Trading
Online juggernaut, eBay, has added a virtual currency section to its site, allowing for bitcoin and dogecoin trading. The feature only appears for the US site as of now, but that can change in the future.
eBay Digital Currency Section
Users can now buy and sell digital currencies, as well as mining contracts and hardware. eBay has indicated the virtual currency section in a document that identifies all the site’s changes for the month of April 2014. It is listed under ‘Coins and Paper Money.’
However, the auction site has yet to accept bitcoin or any other form of digital currency for their own payment methods. This is most likely due to bitcoin’s competitive nature towards eBay owned payment processor, PayPal.
eBay has divided its digital currency section into 3 areas. (Currency, Mining Contracts and Miners.)
In the mining contracts sections, sellers adhere to selling contracts with a fixed hashing rate. Hashing rates are important because as time goes on, increased hashing speeds are necessary to make the most out of digital currency mining. Bitcoin mining becomes more and more difficult over time, requiring faster speeds and powerful energy sources to function.
Additionally, subcategories under mining and mining contracts allow for digital currency sales listed as auction and ‘Buy it Now’ options.
eBay has recognized bitcoin to be a direct “potential competitor” with PayPal, under a filing with the US Securities and Exchanges Commission.
Plans for eBay Bitcoin Exchanger
CEO of eBay, John Donahoe, has publicly expressed interest with the digital currency industry. There have also been plans for eBay to become more involved with currencies like bitcoin.
Donahoe spoke with Bloomberg’s Matt Miller on the topic of eBay’s thoughts on virtual currencies. Donahoe stated that:
“PayPal is building a digital wallet that can take multiple types of currency.”
It was later discovered that eBay had filed a patent application with the United States Patent & Trademark Office, back in July 2013, which had mentions of bitcoin. The patent speaks of an eBay bitcoin exchanger type of system, which can be used to accept any form of currency. The patent also refers to some sort of rewards or point system for the exchanger.
eBay may be getting closer towards accepting bitcoins for payment, and are perhaps taking it slow to make sure everything is done correctly.
For more digital currency news, stay tuned to Coinreport.net.
Image via eBay
I wouldn’t trust it. Back in the E-gold days, ebay made it legal to buy and sell E-gold on its site, as long as you did not use E-gold as a means of payment itself (like paypal). So, fully within compliance to that rule, I listed E-gold for sale, and sold it, and accepted paypal as my payment–precisely what they had clarified in their rules as the allowed scenario. And then their stupid “compliance reviewers” banned my account permanently, without allowing appeals, for violating their payment/currency exchange rules. Which I had very obviously not done. But because they were sloppy with their training, or just didn’t bother to notice what their own policies allowed and forbade (and got it exactly backwards in my case), I cannot resume business on ebay years later. I don’t trust them to get their own rules right on Bitcoin, either.
“PreyPal” Merchants: Plan For The Inevitable …
Most eBay merchants will have at least two eBay accounts: one for selling and one for buying; likewise, all “PreyPal” users should have two “PreyPal” accounts: one to use when buying, attached to a credit card only (for the greater, and statutory, security offered by the credit card), and one for selling, attached to a bank account only with all receipts to be transferred automatically and promptly to that bank account.
Under no circumstances should anyone—particularly an eBay merchant—leave funds “on deposit” in eBay’s clunky, unlicensed, virtually unregulated, non-FDIC-insured, “pretend bank”, or allow “PreyPal” to draw funds directly from their real bank account—for any reason; if there is a dispute, particularly if you are the seller, you will find that your money will have gone “poof” and, if you read their thousand-page terms of business, you will find that you have no recourse short of getting big media to publicize the matter or, ultimately, possibly the courts. Regardless, if, as a merchant, you have a problem with “PreyPal”, with their atrocious (lack of) customer support, it could well be a business-threatening problem …
“PreyPal”, is not a licensed bank, it’s “a merchant of sorts” (PayPal’s own words), in the main, doing little more than operating a retail bank credit card merchant account (with the infamous Wells Fargo Bank), and, as such, “PreyPal” has to accept the terms of business of the credit card companies, and therein lays your only guarantee, as a payer, in the event of any dispute, of a fair mediation process—from MasterCard/Visa—not from the clunky “PreyPal” …
PayPal: Payment Transaction Dispute Moderation
Non-defense of credit card charge-backs …
The credit card transaction dispute moderation process provided by the real banks is fair and balanced and probably the best we can ever expect to get; I have experienced such moderation as both buyer and business seller and have no complaints. The problem for a seller with a credit card charge-back via “PreyPal” (and possibly via any of the other payments pretenders who operate, like “PreyPal”, as little more than credit card merchants with their own retail bank) is that, unlike the credit card companies, “PreyPal” will not invest in the human resources necessary to defend such a charge-back by a buyer—even if it is defensible; they will simply deal with the matter in the most cost effective way for them, and that is to acquiesce to the chargeback and let the payee carry the can. The reality is, anyone that accepts payments via “PreyPal” does so at their peril …
The suggestion is that this most unprofessional situation has been brought about by the credit card companies putting “PreyPal” on notice that they are not happy with all the extra transaction dispute moderation work that “PreyPal” has been creating for them with the apparently increasing number of charge-backs (no doubt principally eBay related) being instigated by payers on PayPal’s merchant account with Wells Fargo; for the same reason “PreyPal” has been much more aggressive with holds (sometimes lengthy) on payee’s funds, in anticipation of any possible charge-backs …
Regardless, the lesson is, if you are a buyer using “PreyPal”, never allow “PreyPal” to access your funds by direct debit from a bank account; if you do, you have no protection at all from “PreyPal”; if you are a seller, all you can initially do is cross your fingers …
Whatever you talk about hits a nerve to me, thank you for baffling your readers.