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German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

reuters.com

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Re: German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

#71

Post by edgyquant »

SeanLuke wrote: post #51

> The regulator is investigating in particular rules that say merchants may not offer their goods and services at a lower price to customers who choose a cheaper payment method than PayPal. In the US this is standard behavior for credit card companies (and is reprehensible). Is it not the case in Germany?

It’s standard now but not the law as lots of places do charge a fee. Id actually even say it isn’t standard, as a lot of court houses charge a processing fee when you use a card over cash (or did before the pandemic, haven’t been to one since)

Re: German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

#72

Post by Bayart »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #57
lnsru wrote: post #6

I love PayPal. It might be another be-evil type corporation. But it is just sooo convenient. I am just curious if there is some alternative to it in Germany. I don’t want to give my bank account number to every random online shop. Credit card yes, but I am too lazy for entering the numbers every time. Edit: I am not kenn on saving my credit card number somewhere digitally. Browser, password manager or a text file are…

In Europe we have working debit cards, so PayPal is redundant and hardly ever used.

Paypal is fairly common in France. It's less involved than SEPA, even when it's free and instant. Lydia has gained popularity recently and may replace Paypal for that purpose.

Re: German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

#73

Post by SeanLuke »

em-bee wrote: post #58
SeanLuke wrote: post #51

> The regulator is investigating in particular rules that say merchants may not offer their goods and services at a lower price to customers who choose a cheaper payment method than PayPal. In the US this is standard behavior for credit card companies (and is reprehensible). Is it not the case in Germany?

more than that, based on EU regulations, charging extra for credit-card use is now illegal in germany. but confusingly this law does not apply to paypal transactions

Wait, charging extra for credit card use is illegal?

Re: German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

#74

Post by guerrilla »

Semaphor wrote: post #64
guerrilla wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's popular in Germany but it's not like PayPal. It's more like a proxy for multiple payment methods as well as a billing and early-stage collections system. In Sweden we use Swish instead of PayPal, which is more like easy direct bank transfers using your mobile phone. Checking out with klarna allows paying with Swish. Normal bank transfers are also easy and free here but they can take a day or two…

> It's more like a proxy for multiple payment methods. That’s also what PayPal is. You can use PayPal to pay with many methods, including Klarna, GiroPay (which might be similar to Swish) etc.

I guess but the important difference is that you can't do transfers with Klarna but you can with PayPal and Klarna does invoices while PayPal doesn't. Also of note is that you can't have a positive balance with Klarna (unless maybe you overpaid for something.) I guess you're right though, they're both proxies but provide one or more of the sub-services themselves in-house, just not the same sub-service.

Re: German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

#75

Post by BrandoElFollito »

em-bee wrote: post #46
cgeier wrote: post #27

From the article: "The regulator is investigating in particular rules that say merchants may not offer their goods and services at a lower price to customers who choose a cheaper payment method than PayPal." That does sound rather uncompetitive.

isn't that the same as credit cards not allowing to charge extra for using them? which btw is now also not allowed by EU rules.

I do not think it was ever allowed. EDIT: I did not realize you were talking specifically about Germany.

In France you had a lot of "minimum 10€ to pay with CC", now this is mostly gone after COVID.

Re: German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

#76

Post by jordanrobinson »

SeanLuke wrote: post #73
em-bee wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more than that, based on EU regulations, charging extra for credit-card use is now illegal in germany. but confusingly this law does not apply to paypal transactions

Wait, charging extra for credit card use is illegal ?

Sure, I don't know the details about Germany but I'm pretty sure it's the same in the UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/card-surcharge-ban-means-...

Re: German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

#77

Post by BrandoElFollito »

lnsru wrote: post #6

I love PayPal. It might be another be-evil type corporation. But it is just sooo convenient. I am just curious if there is some alternative to it in Germany. I don’t want to give my bank account number to every random online shop. Credit card yes, but I am too lazy for entering the numbers every time. Edit: I am not kenn on saving my credit card number somewhere digitally. Browser, password manager or a text file are…

Poland has BLIK, a system where you request on your mobile app "I want to get paid X PLN". You get a number. You provide this number to the one who will pay. They input it in their app, the app shows the amount, you confirm and the payement is done.

We have Paylib in France, i did not try it yet but it seems that they want to do something similar. It is just that this is France and it will be impractical, limited and painful - as our banking is usually.

Re: German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

#78

Post by BrandoElFollito »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #57
lnsru wrote: post #6

I love PayPal. It might be another be-evil type corporation. But it is just sooo convenient. I am just curious if there is some alternative to it in Germany. I don’t want to give my bank account number to every random online shop. Credit card yes, but I am too lazy for entering the numbers every time. Edit: I am not kenn on saving my credit card number somewhere digitally. Browser, password manager or a text file are…

In Europe we have working debit cards, so PayPal is redundant and hardly ever used.

Well, there is no way for person A to transfer money to person B using a debit card.

Paypal is indeed less use din Europe because we have wire transfers (that take three days, except if you get the "immediate one" which in France is premium (premium destinations (i.e. other banks), not price which is zero)

Ah, and we have cheques in France too. Yes, the paper ones.

Re: German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

#79

Post by lxgr »

edgyquant wrote: post #71
SeanLuke wrote: post #51

> The regulator is investigating in particular rules that say merchants may not offer their goods and services at a lower price to customers who choose a cheaper payment method than PayPal. In the US this is standard behavior for credit card companies (and is reprehensible). Is it not the case in Germany?

It’s standard now but not the law as lots of places do charge a fee. Id actually even say it isn’t standard, as a lot of court houses charge a processing fee when you use a card over cash (or did before the pandemic, haven’t been to one since)

> It’s standard now but not the law

In fact, surcharges are now prohibited by EU law (as long as the card is covered by the interchange cap): https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/finance-funding/making...

Re: German cartel office initiates proceedings against PayPal

#80

Post by lxgr »

SeanLuke wrote: post #73
em-bee wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more than that, based on EU regulations, charging extra for credit-card use is now illegal in germany. but confusingly this law does not apply to paypal transactions

Wait, charging extra for credit card use is illegal ?

Yes, which makes some sense given that the EU has also capped interchange to 0.3% for credit cards.
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