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The eBay PayPal Monopoly Class Action Lawsuit case is Charlotte Smith, et al. v. eBay Corporation, et al., Case No. 10-cv-03825 JSW, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.
eBay Must Defend PayPal Monopoly Class Action Lawsuit
By Matt O’Donnell
A federal judge has refused to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging eBay monopolized the market for payment systems used in online auctions.
The eBay antitrust class action lawsuit claims the auction site raised fees and shut out payment-system competitors after acquiring PayPal in 2002, and then forced sellers to use PayPal by making it the only viable option.
As a result, sellers had no choice but to pay fees to eBay both for listing and selling their products and for using PayPal, the class action lawsuit says. If sellers use a payment method other than PayPal, eBay removes their listing.
The class tied the monopolization claims to the continued modification of eBay’s accepted payment policy, which prohibited payments through Google Checkout in 2006, doubled PayPal Buyer Protection in 2007 (which allegedly eliminated buyer protection for non-PayPal transactions), and required sellers to accept electronic payments in 2008.
eBay moved to dismiss the claims that the alleged tying between eBay and PayPal harmed competitors, but U.S. District Judge James White denied their motion last week.
Judge White ruled that the alleged tying arrangements could have had a significant effect on commerce, and the Plaintiffs’ facts “cross the line from possible to plausible.”
Judge White also denied eBay’s motion to strike paragraphs about its acquisition of PayPal in 2002 and of VeriSign in 2005.
The class action lawsuit claims the disputed paragraphs “demonstrate the historical progression of the eBay/PayPal business empire, a necessity for later proofs.”
“Although Plaintiffs do not explain what these later proofs might be, on this record, the Court cannot say that the allegations have no possible bearing on the issues in this litigation,” Judge White wrote.
Updated June 6th, 2012
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13 thoughts oneBay Must Defend PayPal Monopoly Class Action Lawsuit
How can I get involved with this lawsuit? Member since 2004.
Within 10 years,we will ALL be eating out of trash cans.
I am writing to report a billion dollar a year tax fraud and violations of federal laws,import fraud.
Ebay.com has been notified on more than 50 occasions in the last 5 years that there is a probem with chinese,india,pakistan,afganistan,and many other forein countrys flooding the ebay marketplace with inferrior,dangerous,products.They ship most of these items to your door with no income tax,sales tax,or import tax being paid.Some sellers have over 1 million sales.all tax free.Any type of electronic goods you can think of,computers and accessorys,tattoo supplys,MEDICAL and surgical supplys,tv,radio,microwaves,any item you can search for,there are hundreds of thousands of these items for sale.Some sellers even state in the add that they will ship SO YOU PAY NO TAXES.
There is a loophole in the customs declarations that allow them to ship without import taxes being paid or collected.Billions of dolars in sales each year,nothing is being checked,nothing UL or FDA approved.These items are shipped through the U.S. postal service,and 99% are shipped FREE. If I send an envelope out of the U.S. it is a MINIMUM $25. They are buying up housing in the U.S. and drop-shipping goods by the truckloads to those addresses and relabeling for shipment to your home.These manufacturors,if you contact them and ask about wholesaing 1000 of the goods,they will tell you they will ship as GIFTS or SAMPLES,even if you pay $600 per item.Thier prices are 1/4 of the cost of other of the same goods sold here in the U.S.
Ebay IGNORES this as BUSINESS AS USUAL,because they get 12% of every sale on the site,no matter who sells it.
Federal guidelines are ignored for used medical equipment,FDA REQUIRES ALL used medical equipment to be “cleaned to manufacturors specifications” for safety reasons,as you can imagine,and these laws are also ignored with over 200 compaints to customer service in 2 years.
Fraud is rampant,Small business descrimination is the NORM,the more goods you have for sale,the less you have to worry about folowing any federal guidelines,without fear of repercussion.They ignore the big companys,and only the little guy has strikes against thier accounts and thier listings limited to practically nothing.ALL PAY THE SAME FEES.
I dont believe our federal government knows this is happening,and something needs to be done.I noticed this over 5 years ago when the tattoo supplies I was selling began to show up for retail prices 1/4 of the price I was paying wholesale.They put me out of business,and I had to look for different goods to sell.I went to medical steriizers,and now as of 2 years ago,flooded with medical steriizers.This is a complete FRAUD against our economy,our business owners and our country.
9 months later,another 10 billion in illegal imports,TAX FREE,no end in sight.
I am currently having payments from Ebay buyers withheld until 3 to 4 days after confirmed delivery. This is something that could not be done if Paypal was not owned by Ebay. If my payments were coming in through some other avenue Ebay would not have the controls.
Is this not treating one seller different than another seller in a discriminatory manner.
This is under a strong disagreement about the reason why this happened to begin with. That is a much longer story about Ebay’s bullying practices and their arrogant attitude that they do not make mistakes. This is not the place to discuss this this whole situation.
I am just asking if others have found these practices questionable at very best?
Wouldn’t you think that if you are using accounts that benefit the company that they wouldn’t use that against you to the point of looking to set up other ways to receive payments.
There is absolutely no flexibility with Ebay if they determine that infractions against them have been committed even if mistakes were made on their part. you have to live with there mistakes for at least 30 days until another evaluation is done.
I’ve always wondered how the ebay/paypal monopoly was allowed.. You figure 14% they rake in with fees. They say buyer protection but you still lose on return shipping, been my experience anyway. I try to use paypal very little, and limit selling anything on ebay. Ebay system sucks, that feedback system is a joke to most of those sellers.
what is the since of the feedbacks if they do not work right and half of the sellers have bad feedbacks
Hello I also feel that they keep telling me it comes back to pp but noiw that I learn that they are the same comp I fel this is wrong too…there really stealing money from u twice and take the customers word instantly when they report u even if the customer only has a feedback of 2
eBay member since Dec 12, 2002 we would like to help and participate in this lawsuit if possible.
Thank you
I’ve experienced a total and open fraud when used PayPal to purchase usb memory sticks from China via Tootoomart. The Chineese seller used openly a fraud to sell non existing 500GB usb memory sticks and similarly large sized memory devices of a well known brands. I have purchased several of the devices using PayPal as secure payment method.
The devices arrived and they showed the amount of memory when plugged in to pc. They have no useful memory at all because devices are faked to fool the victim. So someone in China fakes the usb memory sticks, someone sells them using Chineese Tootoomart and using PayPal. Since the Kingston have confirmed that they do not produce such a large memory sticks as yet, I have asked all involved in fraud, the seller, the Tootoomart and PayPal to refund me for the fraud, to stop selling and advertising a non existing devices. All of them refused to do what is right and continued to steal from unsuspecting victims.
An Australian government also refuse to take any action to demand Tootoomart to stop sale of fake devices and their advertisement and PayPal to support that fraud and give me a refund. The Chineese government also fail to correct this fraud, but instead the Chineese government officials provided my email I used to lodge a complain, to other sellers to use for spam advertising.
This world wide Chineese fraud would be limited if impossible if PayPal stopped to support them.
Also as a principle, it is principally wrong to demand that PayPal is the only option to pay.
Imagine you buy a petrol at station and you are requested to pay only in bank notes or only in bullion or only in euros etc.
This is a TOTAL monopoly. Ebay owns paypal and therefore is a conflict of interest to require users to use paypal for payment. I was mad when this happened. I used to sell lots of stuff on ebay and accepted money orders and checks for payment. With checks there are no processing fees to pay unlike when buyers use paypal. Sellers have to pay a flat 2.9-3.9% on the money received plus a flat fee based on the amount of money received on top of that. And ebay is making all the money. Totally unfair. The paypal fees are high and ebay is not allowing any competition to compete in that market. The people need to know the truth — get the word out there! Things must change.