Would Google Eye PayPal if Spun Off from eBay?

by: Puck

I feel certain if Google is not interested in PayPal the mob would jump all over it.

A perfect acquisition for horizontal integration.

by: 1beck3

Why not someone like Visa, American Express or Chase?

Seems like it would be a good fit, they could probably get PayPal into more physical retail locations and they would love to have access to all those PayPal users (potential new credit card holders).

by: Basset

Yahoo should definitely look into eBay if it goes on the market.

YahBay-B! has a nice ring to it for rename potential.

by: iheartjacksparrow

If Yahoo acquired PayPal, could that lead to Yahoo resuscitating its auction site and being a real contender against eBay?

If Google acquired PayPal, would they start an eBay alternative site, as many people have been asking for for years?

I'm not that familiar with Rakuten and Alibaba so I don't know how that would impact their business.

As far as 1beck3's idea, don't Visa and Mastercard have, or will have, their own PayPal clone?

by: NetWatch

One has to wonder why Carl Icahn is trying to do what he's trying to do. It goes way beyond just another attempt to make some fast money. Icahn knows something, and raising this whole notion of splitting PayPal off from ebay (whether or not it ever occurs) starts a lot of people asking a lot of questions and looking into a lot of things. Way to go, Carl!

by: Philip Cohen

A credit card merchant account with their own licensed, prudentially regulated, FDIC-insured, financial institution (ie, a real bank) and the integration of MasterCard’s “MasterPass” or Visa’s “V.me” interface is all any online merchant needs to implement simple, safe and reliable online payments, just like B&M merchants have always had with POS credit card transactions …

Notwithstanding its ten year head start, eBay’s “PreyPal” is still a clunky middleman whose insurmountable problem is that has no dynamic linking to the retail banks (as do MasterCard and Visa) and in the main rides on the back of the retail banks’ existing payments systems (as do all the other payments pretenders, Amazon, Apple, et al).

Why would MasterCard or Visa NOT want to acquire the clunky “PreyPal”? Because notwithstanding the amount of “noise” that emanates from the eBay Dept of Spin, “PreyPal” has only about one percent (~1%) of the world’s total payments business; MasterCard and Visa have ~90% thereof between them and Amex has another ~8%, and MasterCard and Visa have now launched their own online/POS digital wallets …

Now that “MasterPass” and “V.me” are available, outside of its effectively mandated place on the eBay marketplace, the clunky “PreyPal” is effectively redundant. The only thing that “PreyPal” offers is ease of payment on the eBay marketplace due to its close integration therewith, and the fact that “PreyPal” will give a merchant account to just about anyone or their dog, which the banks, sensibly, will not do …

eBay will never let “PreyPal” go; as great a fool as Johnny Ho is, he does at least understand that without eBay, “PreyPal” would be effectively crippled, and without “PreyPal”, the eBay marketplace would still continue on its journey down the toilet—but at an even faster rate …

Regardless, they are both destined to continue their journeys to the sewage farm …

eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking ... http://bit.ly/UVXx53

by: Ed Gadfly

So if PayPal is seperate from eBay, people are going to forget the money holds, phishing attempts and other problems to embrace "the World's Most Loved Payment System?"

They both wronged a lot of people.

by: Orwellwasright

PAYPALS insane profitability is due to EBay’s addiction to fraudulent heavy handed policies, which would be unworkable outside eBay’s closed system
EBay FORCES sellers to use paypal, while silmoutainouisly prosletizing the most insanely one sided dispute process in all of retail

ONLY on eBay using paypal, can a buyer claim they received an empty box and get a full unquestioned refund
Only on eBay can a buyer claim they received a broken ipad, send back a piece of paper and get a full refund
Only on eBay can a merchant processer who represents the buyer decide a dispute
Only on eBay can paypal HIDE the details of buyer’s payment processer, leave the seller out of the dispute and decide to refund the buyer

The reason paypal is so profitable is simple

1) Grossly inflated charges for transactions where they simply transfer a payment from a buyers account into the sellers account which is essentialy a NO risk transaction
2) Flipping ALL risk onto the seller, and forcing a seller to prove a buyers claim false, using impossible standards , and giving every benefit of every doubt to the buyer , to the point where a one time buyer with a one day old account is given preference over a decade long seller with 1000’s of transactions, a direct contradiction to the way REPUTABLE processors do business
3) HAVING eBay FORCE sellers to use this predatory and unnecessary abomination

Any buyer would have to have eBay’s guarantee that all 3 practices would continue or paypal becomes a useless toothless rotten empty shell .

Hopefully any buyer is aware or this

by: Patricia

I can't imagine Ebay spinning or selling off Paypal...its way too useful to Ebay.

by: Ming the Merciless

Years ago I owned a few shares of ebay stock at a time when The Ho succeeded in reducing my GMV by 75% in a two week span which I've never fully recovered from.

If any of you own stock or have influence over anyone who does, write The Ho and tell him you're giving Carl Icahn your proxy for your large portfolio of ebay stock whether you actually do or not.

You need not specify to The Ho how many shares you own, but Icahn's battle will won or lost in a proxy war before the next shareholders meeting.

Be sure to tell the The Ho you're supporting Icahn because of his incredibly amoral, avaricious, and vicious small seller extermination campaigns.

Ebay shareholders can scare the hell out of this arrogant jerk.

Do it!

by: ebayisajoke

PAYPALS insane profitability is due to EBay’s addiction to fraudulent heavy handed policies, which would be unworkable outside eBay’s closed system
EBay FORCES sellers to use paypal, while silmoutainouisly prosletizing the most insanely one sided dispute process in all of retail

ONLY on eBay using paypal, can a buyer claim they received an empty box and get a full unquestioned refund
Only on eBay can a buyer claim they received a broken ipad, send back a piece of paper and get a full refund
Only on eBay can a merchant processer who represents the buyer decide a dispute
Only on eBay can paypal HIDE the details of buyer’s payment processer, leave the seller out of the dispute and decide to refund the buyer

The reason paypal is so profitable is simple

1) Grossly inflated charges for transactions where they simply transfer a payment from a buyers account into the sellers account which is essentialy a NO risk transaction
2) Flipping ALL risk onto the seller, and forcing a seller to prove a buyers claim false, using impossible standards , and giving every benefit of every doubt to the buyer , to the point where a one time buyer with a one day old account is given preference over a decade long seller with 1000’s of transactions, a direct contradiction to the way REPUTABLE processors do business
3) HAVING eBay FORCE sellers to use this predatory and unnecessary abomination

I SECOND THAT!!!!

PAYPAL = FRAUD
EBAY = FRAUD

The only reason eBay would sell off PreyPal (PayPal) is if they knew they were all going to jail for fraud. HAHAHAHAHAH Seems many of them right now are jumping ship.  

by: Puck

eBain's only method of strong arm enforcement of their arbitrary policies is The Pal.

They can't get rid of their in-house goon squad as there's no other vehicle around that can replace their, "We'll take your monies at will" muscle.

by: FREDDY

I really doubt that Google would have any real interest in Paypal.
If anyone, I think the Chinese would go after it..
This tidbit from Icahn may be just a way to pump up some stock to dump???

by: Will

Absolutely - all of this Icahn talk is nothing more than a pump.

by: Philip Cohen

Well, the injection of hot air cooled off pretty quickly; indeed, by the following morning ... LOL

by: Ming the Merciless

Just thinking about Carl Icahn successfully doing a hostile takeover of ebay is delicious.

He'd soon discover all The Ho's voodoo bookkeeping, and the Bainification of The Ho and The Sociopaths would begin.

What goes around might just be coming around.

Ho: be afraid, be very afraid.

There are thousands of sellers you wronged communicating with Icahn.

by: bitbybit

"Well, the injection of hot air cooled off pretty quickly; indeed, by the following morning"

I sure hope it is just the calm before the storm.

by: Digmen1

There is no way ebay would sell Paypal, it makes too much money for them and its tightly integrated into their business model.

by: Ming the Merciless

If Google bought PayPal, would PayPal suddenly become an "unsafe" payment method as ebay declared Google payments was when they wouldn't allow it?

That would be rich indeed.

However, it likely won't happen if   for no other reason that non Ho paid accountants would soon see all the creative bookkeeping that's been going on in the three period between 2007 and 2014.