Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - Ebay, Paypal and Australia Post.
My spies sent me this - which is part of a survey being taken by Australia post in regards to them offering a better process of shipping freight (parcels) around the country.
The gist of it appears to be that people can do all their work online - being paying for the service and printing the labels, and then either getting a courier to pick the package up or simply dropping the parcel off into a post box / post office.
The is the bit that stuck in the spies craw.....
With a Tracking service which will be recognized by PayPal
·All domestic postage labels prepared through Click and Send will have a unique barcode so they can be tracked.
·For eBay sellers, Click and Send's special tracking feature means, in the event of a dispute with an online buyer, PayPal will recognise the scan performed when you lodge your parcel (at a post office or with a Messenger Post Courier) as proof of shipment.
·Please note that while items sent using prepaid Express Post satchels have basic tracking, currently the 500g and 3kg satchel do not meet proof of shipment requirements for PayPal seller protection schemes.
I mean the intent is nice, pity about the totally bullshit service from Ebay and Paypal - for anything to do with the actual accountability of their own service - irrespective of what documents you hand them as proof of anything.
As to why Ebay and Paypal are doing deals with Australia post? As in "OH Gosh - this is going to legitimise my dispute that I lodged with Ebay / Paypal".
My answer is "So what" - which is just about the same degree of service that your going to get from Ebay / Paypal - only I am much more direct.
My only suggestion is to move your stuff out of Ebay and Paypals reach and go to another online auction site or set up your own website.
Oh and don't forget to close any bank accounts that you may have given Paypal access too - you never know when they or any one of the thousands of people in the 180 companies they are affiliated with and share your information with - empty it for you, or when their piss poor security allows hackers to help themselves to your bank account - which just happens to be par for the course.
