Paymate gripes about eBay and PayPal

A new complaint against eBay was lodged last week with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) by an online payment service, Paymate, a PayPal competitor. The payment processor claims that eBay is acting against the Trade Practices Act.

In May eBay entered amendments into its user agreement requiring sellers to include PayPal as one of their payment methods for each listing.

As argued by Paymate such a measure prevents the company and other payment options to be accepted on the score of eBay’s forcing PayPal on merchants.

"It is our belief that eBay, in both Australia & New Zealand, is engaging in conduct in breach of the Trade Practices Act because the conduct amounts to anti-competitive exclusive dealing," said Dilip Rao, Paymate managing director.

In addition to the amendment entered into the regulations of eBay, the company applied to the ACCC for legal immunity from sections of the TPA asking the competition regulator to prohibit all payment options except PayPal on merchants’ websites. But the move failed to be a success and July 3, eBay withdrew its notification.

As for the latest complaints from Paymate ACCC gave no comment so far and didn’t clarify if any investigations are to be held.