eBay, PayPal face court action

[wraggster]

via register

eBay warned shareholders yesterday that it is facing a possible class action suit in the state of California and is likely to be hit by more patent cases.

The suit alleges that eBay and PayPal acted "to improperly 'monopolise' the forms of payment that sellers can use on eBay".

The plaintiff claims treble damages and an injunction to stop eBay behaving in a similar way again. The news emerged from eBay's filing of its annual statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The case was originally to be heard in Texas.

The statement adds that eBay's ticket subsidiary StubHub is also facing a purported class action case for allegedly printing receipts which contained more than the last five digits of credit card numbers. eBay said: "We believe that we have meritorious defenses and intend to defend ourselves vigorously."

eBay also warned that it expects to face a growing number of patent cases. The quarterly report says: "We will increasingly be subject to patent infringement claims as our services expand in scope and complexity. In particular, we expect that we may face additional patent infringement claims involving various aspects of our Marketplaces, Payments, and Communications businesses."

The online auctioneer warns it could also face legal action for breaching copyright and trademarks, especially in Europe.

[BelmontSlayer]

Dammit, I just know how they're gonna deal with this...They'll increase the seller fees AGAIN.

[Veskgar]

I was hoping they would reduce seller fees and other fees to counter the negative publicity.

Lets hope that is the course of action that ensues.

I don't really have much against eBay/PayPal but they do rip you off if you do not micro-manage everything when using their services.

[Balthasar00]

good riddance

[ish420ism]

I didn't know selling on eBay is expensive

[darkspectorXP]

They had also banned PayPal competitor, Google Checkout, for use on EBay as well. I had seen this coming ever since EBay had banned Google Checkout for use on EBay.
Ben

[GPeter7]

What I can tell about Ebay? It’s simple, the are MORONS, and I hope they will lose in court, :rofl: :thumbup:

[VampDude]

I didn't know selling on eBay is expensive

It is, I had to pay something like £20 after I sold a Wii through ebay...

...Their fees are horrible

[GobboFett]

eBay fees are ridiculous now but didn't use to be so bad. I mean just to set up a shop you have to pay a monthly fee to keep the shop open (AU$30 for the BASIC shop), there is an insertion fee for every auction put up (plus a gallery fee if you want to add a little picture) and for EVERY auction you sell eBay take 10% of the auction sold price as a fee. I had an eBay shop for Yu-Gi-Oh! cards but the fees just made my sales so low I had to close it down, it just wasn't worth it. How I yearn for the good old days of low/no fees...

[SoQb0nc5r]

depends on the amount it sells for, I dont mind paying £3 after I selling something for £50, but the problem is when it doesnt sell, I still pay about £1.65 for that