eBay sellers in Australia continue to express anger over the new ban on any payment method other than eBay's own PayPal payment service, covered in AuctionBytes last week (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m04/i10/s01). An online petition calling on eBay Australia to rethink its decision to remove direct deposit, money orders and checks as payment options has garnered over 2930 signatures as of Sunday evening (http://www.petitiononline.com/ebayau/petition.html), and discussion boards are lighting up with complaints over eBay limiting sellers - and buyers - payment options (http://forums.ebay.com.au/thread.jspa?threadID=500078838).

One member posed the question, "Any One EVER Had a problem with Direct Deposit????" Most replies were negative other than the problem of buyers occasionally entering incorrect account numbers.

However, it was pointed out that recently a seller who had allegedly ripped off eBay Australia buyers for over one million dollars used direct deposit to accept payments from his victims (http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/03/08/8591_gold-coast-top-story.html). eBay promised last month to pay back the victims for their losses (http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/03/10/8646_gold-coast-top-story.html).

Phil Leahy, president of a seller organization based in Australia, sent AuctionBytes a statement stating that the PayPal-only requirement will result in higher fees for sellers, and it called on eBay to reduce fees before the new policy takes effect.

The beneficiary of eBay Australia's new policy may be eBay rival OZtion, which is getting a lot of mention in the discussion boards. http://www.oztion.com.au/company/aboutoztion.aspx

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