Paymate Doesn’t Open its Doors to All (USA) Sellers
By Ed | October 31st, 2009 | Category: PayMate | 2 comments
From Press Release -
Paymate announced 29 October 2009 the opening up of the US Service to micro-merchants, with the removal of minimum volume requirements and the relaxation of other qualification criteria. This change is of particular interest to thousands of eBay sellers and small website merchants.
Specific changes announced, effective immediately were:
* No minimum volume: We have removed the minimum volume requirements for merchants! This means the smallest eBay or website seller can sign up to accept payments via Paymate.
* Simplified eBay criteria: We have reduced and simplified the criteria for eBay sellers. All you need is a ‘yellow star’ (10 feedback points) and at least 98% positive feedback overall.
* Simplified Website criteria: You need a valid website and should not sell any of our Unacceptable Business Categories.
* Instant Approval: We have automated our system to give you immediate approval of a merchant account when you submit the Merchant Details after registration. No more waiting for bank approval! Once approved, you can start accepting payments right away.
Paymate CEO, Garrett Gafke, said
“This change brings our US service into line with our very popular services in Australia and New Zealand. Micro-merchants are better served when they can start accepting payments without onerous qualifications and prerequisites. However, our proven risk management systems and processes will continue to monitor payments to protect our buyers and sellers from fraudulent behaviour.”
Paymate has been an approved payments provider integrated into www.ebay.com since March 2009 and remains an accepted payment method on eBay worldwide.
However …
Before you all get too excited about it, it’s not quite as simple as the press release makes out. The Prerequisites for US Merchants page has a list nearly as long as an eBay Diamond Seller’s negative feedback report, plus, the way I read it, if you ain’t a “bizniss”, they ain’t talkin’ to y’all.
On top of that, their Unacceptable Business Categories page , which is nearly as long as eBay’s level-2 categories list, includes such categories as “Third party order fullfilment” (sic) – I guess they won’t be letting Fulfilment by Amazon or Doba sign-up then?
Also forget it if you’re one of the “Flea Markets (with no lease and phone availability)” – Wow! – that means there’s no way they’ll give eBay an account eh?
Gaz
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Gaz,
Regarding their Prohibited Merchants List — Airlines — Yeah, Right! Just watch how quickly that would be changed or removed if Quantas, BA, Delta or some such wanted to use PayMate for ticket processing…..
It did cross my mind, that with the airline customers that PayPal have, non-acceptance of airlines as merchants may have been a stipulation way back at the beginning in order to be allowed onto the eBay platform.