Got a Sales Call from Paypal Today

We received two annoying phone calls today, one from an eBay seller asking for advice on how to sell something, info about the item and a valuation on the item....the other was from Paypal.

I mention the eBay seller calling simply to vent, and to warn other eBay sellers how non-eBay sellers (or former eBay sellers) view this type of thing. The caller started the phone call by saying basically, I sell the same type of widgets that you sell on your site, only my wife sells them on eBay. It was as if he just wanted us to say that we couldn't help him. After a litany of questions were fired at me about the item in question, I simply replied that he should list the item for sale on eBay and he'd find out all about it and its value in less than a week. He sarcastically thanked me for my time.

So eBay sellers....don't do this. If one of my employees took that call and actually gave him info, I'd fire them. Heck, Paypal is suing Google for stealing trade secrets! That said, I am available for eBay related consultation for my standard fee of $250 per hour, in which case I'll be more than happy to answer virtually anything

Anyway, the second call was from Paypal. They were asking us to give them another chance and to incorporate Paypal payments into one of our ecommerce stores. The store they were inquiring about has over 100,000 products and nearly 200,000 pages. My wife took the call and played along; at least she played along far better than I would have done. I'll paraphrase the conversation....

Paypal: We see that you use Google Checkout and do not offer Paypal, why?

Us: Google Checkout has better fraud protection and guarantees any payment made once they've "cleared" it.

Paypal: We do that too...

Us: Yes, but many times (in the past, from experience we know this...) you clear the payment only to remove funds from our account based on the buyer's activities, or even based on activities of other individuals that have interacted online with the customer.

Paypal: [No denial about that fact] ....but Paypal is really secure and trusted.

Us: Plus Google will actually look into a chargeback before withdrawing funds...

Paypal: You had problems with this in the past with Paypal?

Us: Yes, and when one transaction has an issue, Paypal can lock down the entire account, preventing other customers from purchasing goods and/or paying for them....

....and Google Checkout never has any stupid 21 day holds on items...

....and Google Checkout is cheaper....

....and Google Checkout doesn't refund customers immediately and makes customer prove that there was some type of issue or that they did not receive the merchandise...

....and Google Checkout does not have as many restrictions on what items can be purchased using their processing service....

At this point it apparently became pretty clear that the Paypal-tele-marketer wasn't going to get us to add Paypal to our site. My wife continued for a few minutes highlighting the benefits of any payment gateway, including trading beans for online purchases, over Paypal. Finally the caller said he was going to send some information via email that might make us change our minds - not likely.