A very curious message has appeared at the top of the page at Paypal MicroPayments website:
Important notice: this application will be removed from service starting May 1, 2013. The servers will be shut down after June 1st, 2012. If you have any questions, please contact PayPal Labs.
I’ve checked around to other spots such as ebay’s announcement board, the PayPal Blog, Twitter, news search etc and find no mention of this. I was also unable to find any cached version of the page from before 04-12-2013, when/where it showed the bulletin.
What makes it even more mysterious though is that… messages relating to the subject are being deleted from ebay forums. More than one. Is it just me or does that seem very peculiar, perhaps even suspicious? Click thumbnails for a larger view in new tab or window.
It’s probably much too early to tell what the situation is but as recent events have shown, Paypal seems to be having some issues and any meaningful explanations have not been forthcoming.
I’m wondering if these events are somehow related, and how many similarities they may share with regards to any statements we may see from PayPal’s spokespeople and/or PR dept?
Here’s a thought; people may want to use twitter to @askpaypal and we shall see if they wish to answer there? This would seem to be something that will affect a great number of users and their business plans. I feel they deserve an explanation in plain English.
Update:
I’ve done a little more digging at places like the eBay Seller Information Center, where I find zero search results for micropayments, as well the entire ebay announcement site, where the last mention found was 2008. You would think something about this would or should be there, don’t you? It looks like the 2013 Spring Seller Update was released around March 19 – 20.
I located the page without that banner containing the announcement at the Internet Archives Wayback machine on March 2, 2013.
I found the page with the banner as far back as April 7, 2013, here on Blekko’s cache. I’ve enhanced that image slightly to make it more legible.
Cappnonymous 
April 14, 2013 at 9:41 pm
Another thing which may be odd. Notice that announcement is on an image,and without alt text? That makes the announcement unsearchable.
Try it yourself with any variation of the search terms including full or partial exact text, site search etc.
April 14, 2013 at 10:15 pm
Methinks PreyPal has finally realised that micro payments are simply not profitable, indeed are probably a loss maker, seeing as most of these payments are probably financed by a credit card at whatever fee the credit card companies are charging (the fixed fee amount being the material aspect: now 22c across the board, I think); the CCs dropped their versions of micro payments a while back when the big retailers put the squeeze on them … which simply reinforces that old adage, “be careful what you wish for” … a lesson clearly still not leant by eBay’s chief headless turkey, John Edward Donahoe …
And, the ugly reality for consumers, particularly smaller payees, dealing with the clunky, unscrupulous PayPal … http://bit.ly/UVXx53
April 14, 2013 at 10:27 pm
The secretive nature of this seems very odd to say the least. Will it turn out to be sneak attack fee hike? An extermination/extinction event? Maybe it’s just for the amusement of people who hate noisy flea market sellers?
I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what paypal’s PR dept tells the world; like what will the options be for the members who currently use micropayments? When did they post that banner? Why aren’t there announcements at places like the paypal forums, paypal blog etc? Why the censorship?
April 15, 2013 at 12:17 am
I suspect that it is simply a facing of reality, and they not wanting to make a big deal out of announcing another failure—like the physical POS test at Home Depot et al—no announcement of that flop yet—LOL
April 15, 2013 at 1:40 am
I think springing this on people may bring some dark clouds over paypal should it turn out to be another secret policy change/fee hike. Not really quite sure what to make of it but something sure is odd about that censorship. Surely some of the forum helpers knew of this? They seem so keen on all other policy aspects, do they not?
Oh well, much like the shill bidding policy and tutorial changes, I’m sure they’re dying to let the world know what is going on?
btw, more ebay math/shill bidding tutorial related comedy here:
http://bit.ly/ZU4EvF
April 14, 2013 at 10:47 pm
I’ve got another suggestion/request for anyone who tweets to @askpaypal regarding this. After you’re done, do a realtime twitter search and see whether your tweets even show up.
If they don’t, make a screencapture, tweet it, then come back here and embed the tweet in comments, by simply pasting the url into the comment area. It will self-embed.
Here’s the realtime search urls:
https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=%40AskPayPal
https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=Paypal%20Micropayments
April 15, 2013 at 1:44 am
On forum censorship on this matter: I don’t doubt that it is simply a matter of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing … What’s new?
April 15, 2013 at 2:33 am
They deleted at least 3 related topics. I’m sure it was all just an innocent mistake made by those heroic reputation defenders. It’s a tough job, but by golly, somebody’s gotta do it.
Yes, that announcement, hmmm maybe this application will be removed from service really means they are relocating? Maybe The servers will be shut down after June 1st, 2012 means the same thing and they forgot to provide more info for the users who would likely need new codes etc? Yeh that might be it? We’ll see.
April 15, 2013 at 3:22 am
I’m sure that those sellers that are selling stuff priced at <$12 and benefiting ever so minutely from micro payments will be transferred seamlessly to standard PreyPal; most of them probably won't even notice the slight increase (maximum 25c) in fees unless they are selling junk down in the ~$1 range, and the answer is, of course, simply add the difference onto the item price … Regardless, there are a lot more serious matters to worry about with this clunky operator than this very minor matter …
April 15, 2013 at 4:16 am
the $ breakdown from ecommercebytes:
A seller (or developer) accepting a $2 payment through PayPal would pay 15 cents under the micropayment plan (5% plus 5 cents), and would pay 36 cents with a regular PayPal account (2.9% plus 30 cents).
http://bit.ly/115CJu3
Maybe it’s an upgrade? Some new app which will supersede the old one and users won’t have to do a thing. Yes,that’s it. A smooth, seamless transition. For the safety of the community? There must be some explanation. To streamline the checkout experience? Maybe just some unimportant technical thingy folks can find out about when they receive their next invoice?
April 15, 2013 at 12:38 pm
Here’s the update:
A PayPal spokesperson said in an email, “We can assure our merchants that PayPal will continue to offer micropayments pricing. The message on our website is to notify customers that we are retiring that specific webpage, but not the pricing program. We apologize for the confusion this may have caused for our customers.”
http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/cab/abn/y13/m04/i15/s05
(there’s more to read ^)
So that seems to be that, for now. But has paypal ever lied before? Have they ever made any sneaky policy changes before? Folks who thought they may end that under bogus circumstances simply know ebay well. No explanation of why those postings were deleted btw. Hard to believe that could’ve been an accident. If people don’t understand what I mean by that search this blog or my youtube channel for things like the padded listings scandal, xss flaws 11 years of hacking , lies cover-up and denial, ebay censorship etc. Those are just some examples. I’ve caught ebay doing all sorts of things. Go to my other blog and check the very top link in the banner area. “The day ebaY died”
April 15, 2013 at 12:44 pm
^ Still, I better not let this go by unsaid:
D’oh!
April 15, 2013 at 1:04 pm
So, what then was the point of the micro payments notice in the first place? God, these people are a pack of amateurs, and incompetent amateurs at that …
April 15, 2013 at 1:35 pm
I doubt anyone can really be sure until after that date has passed. BTW,The page I saw being offered as the replacement’ if you will, has a footer with Copyright date of 2008 on the bottom, and an FDIC blurb, so it doesn’t exactly look up to date, but it would seem that as the new page is the party line.
https://www.paypalobjects.com/IntegrationCenter/ic_micropayments.html
April 15, 2013 at 10:48 pm
Before We Go Any Further
April 18, 2013 at 10:20 pm
[…] Is Paypal Ending Micropayments? (cappnonymous.wordpress.com) […]
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