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Does anyone know if it is legal for eBay to dictate how payments are made (non-paper/"electronic" payments) for auction items? eBay seems to ONLY allow PayPal as a means to pay (other than local pickup sales which is not practical for out of area, interstate, and international sales). PayPal is part of eBay and/or owned by eBay. Isn't this considered monopolizing? (This might be a great case for an aspiring attorney). We have a vintage collectible that may bring $20,000 or more on eBay. After the dust settles, PayPal will cost us about 3%. That's $600.00 taken from our profit margin not to mention other costs like listing fees, reserve fee, auction enhancement products, and end of auction fees all of which eBay collects up front. Frankly, I don't care to give away $600 to PayPal/eBay when they are already making a profit on multiple aspects of the listing and the sale.
We have a brick and morter store (since '97) and aren't going anywhere. We have a 100% feedback rating with over 700 total feedbacks on eBay, and have been with eBay since the late 90's, so the argument of safety to the buyer is essentially moot.
The argument that PayPal payments are "safer" than paper transactions may hold some water, but for eBay to not allow for example interbank transfers I think is a pretty blatant indication that they really are more interested in control (and profit) than safety. After all, interbank transfers and PayPal transactions are essentially one-in-the-same; It's just that eBay doesn't have any control, and more importantly, they make no profit on money transfers/transactions that they are not a party to. Worldwide, I would imagine PayPal does millions of transactions daily, and millions of dollars of profit are generated from those transactions daily. Why so greedy?

Niko; From what I have gleaned from reading current eBay rules, and after speaking to two eBay representatives yesterday, eBay DOES NOT allow sellers to even suggest an interbank transfer, money order, cashier's check, etc. within ones auction. It was explained to me that keywords such as "cashier's check", "money order", "interbank", etc. are all caught by eBay's system, and your auction will be deleted immediately once the keywords are detected. Currently, eBay forces you to use Pay-Pal (owned by eBay) or other "selected" credit card processing companies (which I would bet are in bed with eBay). Why, other than profit and greed, would eBay want to control how buyers and sellers choose to pay for goods?
The argument that it protects the buyer is valid, but what about protecting the seller? I'm sure eBay understands that a buyer can cancel a credit card transaction up to as much as one year after the date of the transaction. In the scenario noted in my previous post, a seller would have a $20,000 charge-back, not to mention the loss of almost $1000 worth of eBay fees, commissions, credit card fees, etc. Good luck trying to resolve a rip off like that!
I still say that this issue might be successfully challenged in court with possibly a very hefty punitive judgement against eBay. If I were a smart young attorney (or at least smart), it might be worth my time to investigate.
eBay provides a service which brings buyers and sellers together. They charge a fee for that. My hat is off to them for creating an online venue for buyers and sellers to exchange goods and for all their incredible success. For ebay to start to dictate how those buyers and sellers will have goods paid for may be an infringement on certain unalienable rights, regardless of eBay's rules. Just because a company creates rules and guidelines, it doesn't mean they are all legal. You can check with Bernie Madoff on that. . .
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